The movie “The Interrupters” (James & Kotlowitz, 2011) provides powerful insight into the needs of Urban Communities located in the Southside of Chicago. This documentary exposed the the reality of revenge, lose, and the ever shifting power struggles occurring in communities entangled in gang activity. This paper will explore the concepts of belonging, fear, discouragement, and courage and how each impact our everyday life. It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so it makes sense that we are a product of surroundings. As children we absorb the world around us and cling to moments and people that make us feel special.…
Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys Dr. Victor Rios is an award winnings college professor, author and speaker. Dr. Rios provides captivating, evidence-based professional developments to educators about the power of positive quality of interactions in the lives of young people. Rios was hanging out with teenagers on some of the country 's toughest street, in Oakland, California.…
Bruno, a character from the City of Orphans, sat in the grime of New York City’s streets and thought to himself how he “can’t remember when he wasn’t by himself, finding ways to live on his own. Now like always, he’ll have to take care of himself.” (Avi, 304) This child represents the children who resorted to crime during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century of New York City. Times were hard during this moment of history to the point that many children needed to work in order to survive. Some became factory workers and newspaper boys.…
Realism, family having your back, and dysfunctional systems are connections I made from Stickup Kid to The Wire. The Wire uses a realistic approach where they tell real stories that have happened. Also, The Wire has characters that are ordinary citizens from Baltimore. For example, in The Wire, they chose to film in Baltimore, and they use characters that represent the police and criminals of Baltimore. Thus, The Wire radiates realism because the show, characters, plot, and setting all represent the struggles and stories of Baltimore.…
In Punished by Victor Rios, besides labeling, opportunity theory of crime is the most visible in the lives of the young men because for most of the participants, the only available opportunities for survival are through crime or other deviant behavior. In chapter 3, Rios follows two boys who each found their way into crime because of the lack of other options. In the case of Tyrell, with his father being unable to get a real job, Tyrell saw selling drugs as the only way to make money with which to support himself. “They chose to commit a crime,” Rios comments of the boys in his study, “consciously calculating the potential risk of arrest and incarceration. Many of the boys came to this assessment after believing that they had no other choice,…
Not only is it not sufficient on its own, but it is no more important than either of the two other pillars. He argued that all three persuasive appeals are necessary. Is he right? What do you think?…
Zuriel Davis Joel Williams 1101-16 0ct 29, 2017 Close Reading of Malcolm Gladwell "power of context" The general contention made by creator Malcolm Gladwell in his work "Power of Context" is that condition plays hard on your result in actuality. all the more particularly , Gladwell contends that adjustment in your condition influences the earth as in wrongdoing" he composes, broken window hypothesis " was the brainchild of the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George kelling. Wilson and Kelling contended that wrongdoing is the inescapable consequence of turmoil". Gladwell is recommending that if the earth change then wrongdoing goes down, robbing , assault , murder lessens.…
The Cocaine Kids is the story of eight kids and their roles in the fast lane of the underground illegal drug ring. William states, “My intention is to throw light on a major and complex social problem, but without blaming the victims and without placing teenagers in stereotypical roles.” Williams argues the poverty and drug ring leads to a social problem for the young dealers, “grow to adulthood with little time to be young” For four years, Williams spent time with the “Kids”, earned their trust, and observed their weekly routines, some more in depth than others. Williams’ observations were recorded from 1982 to 1986 in Washington Heights (Spanish Harlem), in New York City, during the Reagan era. Williams, a well- known sociologist, with…
As I reviewed literature already done by scholars, I came across a scholarly pair by the names of Jennifer Castro and Bart Landry as well as a handful of other authors who had formerly touched on different pieces of my research question. In 2005, Castro and Landry wrote an article by the name of Race, Gender, and Class Variation in the Effect of Neighborhood Violence on Adolescent Use of Violence. In this article, the scholarly pair examined how Neighborhood Violence led to the Adolescents use of violence and how Race, Gender and Class played a huge part in it. Neighborhood Violence can range from Drive by shootings, to neighborhood gang fights. In Castro’s…
Bullying: Why It Happens The documentary Bully, directed by Lee Hirsch argues that bullying is an on-growing social problem occurring in America that is not receiving the acknowledgment it deserves. The film shows how oblivious adults ignore the issue and classify it as a normality, while also showing a clear insight to the mental and physical abuse kids face everyday. Hirsch supports his argument with his successful use of ethos, logos and pathos by weaving together the stories of five different families who have first hand experience with bullying, making them reliable sources. The directors purpose is to inform the audience on bullying and to create a new realization of this ongoing issue, so kids can rise above and empower one another…
In Randol Contreras’ book, “The Stickup Kids” he does an ethnographic study of what is known as the Crack Era in the South Bronx. Contreras studies how society shaped people growing up in the South Bronx that led them into the world of drugs and crime in order to fulfill the American Dream. He does so by providing detailed field notes, creating a sociological framework of how components such as culture, deviance, socialization, crime and race contribute to the society as a whole. In this book, Contreras specifically studies a small community of friends in his neighborhood and how their life changes along with the loss of jobs and deindustrialization of the economy. Contreras starts off by describing how his friends started to become “stickup”…
Popular culture and mass media has a large influence on our identities, behaviors, and interacts with people in society. Thousands of movies are made and watched throughout the globe, it is a form of entertainment that presents a bigger picture than most of us can capture. When we begin to analyze films using sociological theory, we are introduced to new themes, conflicts, and emotions that we do not originally notice. In this case, I will be analyzing a clip from the movie Mean Girls, one of the most popular films in mass media today, and use it to demonstrate how class conflict and dramaturgy occur. A well-known sociological theorist by the name of Karl Marx spent his time analyzing and understanding how class conflict arises.…
In the memoir, Always Running, by Luis J. Rodriguez, Luis takes the readers on a journey of his life and the hardships he had to face as he grew up. This memoir shows segregation, racism, and discrimination. How small choices can change someones life instantaneously and the people Luis meets influences him to join gangs to create a structured life and to find a sense of belonging. The choices he makes pushes his family away and when this occurs he begins to lose hope. Not only does losing a home and a family cause for Luis to get more involved in gangs, but the lack of education he receives and the police brutality he faces are major factors; which means in order to be saved he must find a purpose, a reason to live without violence or hate.…
For this juvenile delinquency film assignment, I viewed the movie Juice. I will attempt to highlight some of the delinquencies depicted in the movie in this sociology paper. Juice is about 4 teens growing up in Harlem, New York. They often skip school, and instead spend their days hanging out at their favorite spots while dabbling in petty crimes. They are constantly harassed by police and their rival, a Puerto Rican gang.…
The Central Park Five The Central Park Five is a documentary that tells the story of five teenage boys who were accused of brutally raping, and beating a woman in New York City's Central Park. The five boys accused are Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise. This film contains many opinions from journalists and reporters who provide a deeper understanding of why these five victims were innocent. The filmmakers convince me through the use of pathos, ethos, logos that there was no way these five young teenagers could have done this.…