Police Imbalance In Power

Decent Essays
In my perspective there is a significant fraction of society who fall subject to social conflict. This is further reinforced through an imbalance of social apportion of power and prosperity. These inequalities present themselves in a variety of current events today and such differences in social inequities are prevalent in racial profiling, police brutality, and gender inequality. (To name a few in 2015 headlines) Police departments are under national scrutiny for practicing control over deviant behavior through the misuse of social control and discipline. There are multiple cases under investigation for the ongoing injustices in correlation to classism. I have posted a link to a current headline addressing social imbalance in power and its

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The article “No equal Justice” by David Cole did a good job presenting the differing views of law and policing by different communities. In the article, it describes the race and wealth divide when it comes to the police. While the race distrust is more well documented, the wealth divide is something that as mentioned in the article “less studied” (Cole,171). There is a clear of differences in percentages in the trust in police as stated,” When asked to rank police officers’ use of force, 31% percent of the wealthy but only 17% percent of the poor ranked the police as “excellent(Cole,171). I do wish the article went to more in depth with the economic divide in the perception of the police, as it really is an interesting aspect of the article.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Gilded Age was a breeding ground for corruption and social injustice. With all the monopolies and corrupted businessmen it made it hard for people to come up in the world. The Government had little power because all the power was with corrupted people. During this time the only people that were really happy were the business men, only because they were making good money. The Gilded age really lead to Progressive reforms because people grew tired of the social, financial, and governmental injustice.…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pyrrhic Defeat Theory

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Reiman and Leighton’s book, The Rich Get Richer And the Poor Get Prison explores a theory that the American criminal justice system is set up in such a way that it is very detrimental to the lower class. The typical reaction to a theory like this is to assume that it is a conspiracy, but Reiman and Leighton make sure to include a section on why this is real, and not a tinfoil hat conspiracy. Their reasoning is that while the criminal justice system is failing to significantly cut down crime, the results of that failure are positive to the upper class, who are the only people that could fix the failure (Reiman and Leighton 5-7).…

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Dangerous Consequences of Growing Inequality by Chuck Collins argues that the burgeoning gap between the upper and lower classes has strenuous personal and economic ramifications. He summarizes the pressures facing households and the economic inequalities that undermine the security of families, threaten our democratic institutions and economy, deteriorate our public health as well as breaking down our social cohesion. The ever so important middle class has been vanishing right before our eyes, there is a strain on relationships between ourselves and our neighbors, families and co-workers which prevents our society from uniting and striving for greatness. As a greedy and power hungry society we completely forgot what is most important, our fellow citizens and their well-being. Collins’ essay is an effective argument for social justice because he shows that even though our economy has thrived throughout the decades those profits have not trickled down to the working class…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Although there are many issues with inequality of gender, I believe that there is also inequality issues with race and class, as Margaret Andersen and Patricia Collins have stated in this article. They go on to say that there is many more problems of unfairness beyond just gender. There is still problems for inequality between males and females like job opportunities, salary, in politics, etc, but there is also problems looking at the bigger picture. These other characteristics we all possess, race and class, can cause circumstances where things aren’t fair for everyone either. Andersen and Collins state that these three aspects, gender, race, and class, are all intertwined to make up an intricate, social…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Police Brutality In Canada

    • 1361 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Police Brutality Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland have increased the public’s attention to the problem of police brutality in the United States. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon in our country. In fact, one of the most devastating cases that heightened the nation’s awareness of policing and race was the Rodney King event in 1991. The “videotaped beating of [an African American man,] Rodney King[,] by L.A.P.D. officers, and subsequent riots triggered by the acquittal of the officers involved,” disrupted Los Angeles and the rest of the nation (“The Legacy of Rodney King,” n.d.). The events brought up concerns about racism and police brutality within the Los Angeles Police Department at that time.…

    • 1361 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I decided to watch and analyze the movie Sweet Home Alabama. The movie is focused on the life of one particular character, Melanie Carmichael (actually Melanie Smooter). Melanie grew up in a small town in Alabama; her family was like many of the other families there: country and part of the working, middle to lower class. She married a man when she was younger, but after they split, she moved to New York where she made a new life for herself and met her now fiancé, Andrew. The major conflict in the plot is that Jake, Melanie’s ex, never signed their divorce papers, making them still married.…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racial Policing Essay

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Policing is used to keep the peace, order, and regulation by the use of police force or power. The article outlines the racial policing of ethnic and black community conduct by the police to stop and search. Racial policing is the treatment of individual differently based on their color, race, culture, and neighborhood. To explain the role of racial policing in this article, I would like to mention the incident where enforcement officers used their power to stop the black men.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social Institutions regarding Racial Inequality Slavery ended over 150 years ago and In 1964 the Civil Rights Act ended all laws regarding segregation. Have you ever wondered why racial inequality is still prevalent in today’s day and age. Well a lot of the reasoning behind racial inequality still existing is in fact due to social institutions. Throughout the course of this paper I’m going to argue that inequality still presides due to institutional arrangements thus being unsustainable.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Inequality In Sociology

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages

    September 11, 2001 and in its immediate aftermath, was probably the last time that the people in the United States were unconcerned about social inequality. The terrorist acts that occurred on that day brought the nation together against a perceived common enemy. However, in the few years following that short lived period of solidarity, the nation went into a tailspin, beginning with the Great Recession of 2008 and climaxing in the current period of social unrest, the underpinnings of which reside in racial inequality, wealth inequality, and gender discrimination. The implications of these various social inequalities are the repeated outbursts of racial violence, the continued destabilization of the economy, and political strife that paralyzes…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deviance is found in all types of societies. Some sociologists such as, Emile Durkheim, believe that deviance is universal and not abnormal in a society. Durkheim puts his ideas of deviance into a structural-functional theory, which sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. Whereas other sociologists, such as Alexander Liazos, believe that deviance is a result of social inequality. Liazos ideas fit into a social-conflict theory, which sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conflict Theory and Michael Brown There is no arguing that recent police shootings of minorities have generated a great amount of controversy among minority communities. This sort of controversy leads to civil unrest which can explained through the conflict theory. Conflict theory is the belief that the Criminal Justice administration reflects the realities of social inequalities (Delone, Spohn, and Walker, 2012). This is evident in the recent shooting of Michael Brown. The people of the minority communities saw that an unarmed black male is was shot down by police.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    I think canon one is important because officers should be equal and fair to all citizens regardless of what crime was committed (Bohm& Haley, 2011). Racial profiling is one of the worse things that have been used by many officers. Black people say that black lives matter. God have left proof that all lives matter. Fairness is something that should be practiced all people.…

    • 212 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, there are many more factors that contribute to an accidental or intentional use of excessive and sometimes deadly force. One of them is lack of proper training and adequate control in police departments (Lee & Vaughn, 2010, p.193). For instance, some police departments failed to provide their officers with training where they would acquire communication skills regarding mentally ill or emotionally unstable individuals (p.201). Lastly, Bernasconi (2014, p.146) suggested that the media also play a large role in the exaggeration of facts and overrepresentation of certain individuals that can induce police officers’ emotions of fear and leads them to commit thoughtless split-second decisions. All things considered, there are many social,…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Due to the difference in the two classes, the lower class is looked at poorly and has limits in society. Money is power and the more money one side has, the more power that side has. The higher class, the side with the power and wealth, often has control over the lower classes. This power and control is misused and often treats the low class unfairly. Around the world, classism is occurring and many are being…

    • 1118 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays