Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys - Book Report/Review Example

Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys Introduction “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys”, is written by Victor Rios, who was a gang member before becoming a professor at the University of California. The book is basically a study about 40 minority youth, 30 of which were in a juvenile facility, before the study even began. The book is written to examine the nature of the criminal justice system, particularly the role of the police and how they torture minority youth and even take their identities along the way (Rios, 2011). It is also about how these minority groups face difficulties, when they are let out of the juvenile facilities and how they are treated in the streets because of their labels. The author is addressing a wide audience here, as the book includes the status of the criminal justice system, the police, the different agents of a community like parents and schools and the community as a whole. However, more specifically, the audience here is the authoritative bodies of the criminal justice system. As the author has lived in the juvenile facility system and has gone through all the difficulties a criminal has to, inside and outside the juvenile facility, he has used first hand information. This first hand information has provided the microscopic view into the minds of the minority youth present in the juvenile facility; the writer has also used research from anthropologists, practitioners, criminologists and ethno graphics, to support his content better. Living in the Inner-City Rios described the life of people living in inner cities, those who were of minority youth and had arrest records, were treated by the police poorly. The police officer didn’t pay any attention to the efforts of the inner-city youths; they kept them under continuous surveillance and found ways to torture them, which made the youth angry. Rio was familiar with how the police treated inner-city youth and whenever the police demanded from him to know what he was up to, he pretended to be deferential, even if the police officer abused him because there was a cost attached to stepping on the line, like being physically abused. The concept implied in this study is social control; there are two types of social control, informal and formal. Informal means of control are found in Rio’s study, which is the internalization of norms and values, through socializing with other people and it is a process, whereby an individual behaves in a way, which is acceptable by the group he belongs to, thus, the potentials and behavior he was born with, doesn’t get to play a part. Here, as the African-American and Latinos are part of a minority group, they conform to their group and they behave in a way that aligns with police expectations (Monaghan, 2011). As Rio states that, even before an African-American or a Latino commits a crime, they are subject to scrutiny by the police. The police harass them; tell them how to behave, even if they haven’t done anything. It is the society which brought minority youth to the point that they started committing crimes, in order to conform to the expectations of the policemen and overwhelmed officials of the school. They harassed minority group boys, based on their racial identity; even the police used to beat the boys and portray them as gang members, which ruined their future. Another concept which the author uses in his book is the paradox of control; there were many police officers who knew that these boys are poor and traumatized, however, their priority was more about upholding the law and maintaining order. The police officers took measures, which were extreme in nature, when it came to the deviant youth. Rios determination to seek a PHD degree and then teach stemmed from his best friend, Simley’s death. The following quote explains how sociology plays a part in the life of these boys: “Smiley’s death, and my negative interactions with police, forced me to reflect on the larger picture of youth violence and criminalization in Oakland. Without knowing it at the time, I began to develop a sociological imagination. I began to realize that in order to understand my personal predicament; I needed to find out how youth and police violence became so prevalent in my community.” (Rios, pg xi) Macro and Micro Sociology Macro sociology is the study based on large scale, whereas micro is the study of individuals, as in what they say and do on a daily basis. The book is based on both micro and macro sociology because it explains the criminal justice system, juvenile facility and the minority group, while on the other hand, it explains the difficulties Latinos and African-American young men have to face on a daily basis and the attitude of policemen towards them. Using these two approaches together, helps understand why these young men involve themselves in criminal activities and how the criminal justice system and the juvenile facility worsens the situation for them (Novich, 2012). Learning about the attitude of the policemen and how the young men react to that attitude, helps make the stories real because if someone is being harassed all the time, because of a crime they didn’t commit or a path they didn’t chose, they are more likely to give up their good attitude and live up to those expectations. For example, in the book, Rios states that these young men don’t think about graduating from school or college, instead they think that if they have to prove their manhood, then they have to be jailed at least once (Boyd, 2011). The connection between the two sociological approaches is important, because if Rio didn’t address the justice system or the attitude of the policemen and only told about what the minority group’s face, then the reader wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate the subject line and neither grasps its full meaning. Without understanding the juvenile facility and the criminal justice system, the attitude and choices of the minority groups wouldn’t make sense. Neighborhood The neighborhood I have frequently visited, does share similarities with Oakland; there are policemen harassing young men, but not because they are Latinos or African-American. The young men of the neighborhood are not well educated, because they have limited choices and their parents cannot afford their education. All day long, they run and play on the streets and are targeted by policemen, when it comes to crimes. In the perception of the policemen, these young men are the source of crimes, as they are not educated and have no jobs, thus, they are more likely to commit crimes and are harassed by policemen. The similarity is that, after being pushed too much by these policemen, these young men then chose a path that leads them to different crimes like stealing, drug dealing or any illegal activity. Conclusion The author presented an objective view of the Latino and African-American young men living there, but not Oakland as a whole. With respect to the population, the writer has adopted a more micro approach, as he is able to share experiences of his own, the people he was with and the ones he had access to. This shows that he doesn’t not objectively represent the population of Oakland. However, his descriptions and stories are very convincing; he has used content from different studies which were conducted in the past and he shared his own experiences, which makes the story more personal and convincing. He has shared the emotions of the young men of the minority group and his own feelings when his best friend was shot in the head, by a member of the other gang and the police blamed him instead. This book held my attention from start till the end, because it tells about experiences that are often shown in movies or seen in the news. The things which happen to Latinos and African-American young men are known to everyone. However, this book provided an in-depth analysis about what actually happens on the streets and why these young men choose the path, they do. References Boyd, L. (2011). A Review of “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys” by Victor Rios, New York, NY: University Press, 2011, 217 pp. Journal Of Ethnicity In Criminal Justice, 9(4), 314--316. Monaghan, P. (2011). A Sociologist Returns to the Mean Streets of His Youth. Retrieved 20 April 2014, from https://chronicle.com/article/A-Sociologist-Returns-to-the/128193/ Novich, M. (2012). Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Review: A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America. Retrieved 20 April 2014, from http://clcjbooks.rutgers.edu/books/punished_policing_the_lives.html Rios, V. (2011). Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys (1st ed.). New York: New York University Press. Read More