Incarceration Rates of Minorities in the US

Incarceration Rates of Minorities in the US With law enforcement poised to eliminate crime and the people who commit it, the building of new jails and prison seem to be the likeliest answer to the problem. Throughout American history, minorities have always been portrayed as dark and evil to name a couple of stereotypes. With the help of television and other means of media the focus has been set to create a mental consciousness to presume every black, Hispanic, and anyone closely related as armed and extremely dangerous. This has cause an unfair disadvantage for people of color, but has left the perception of the white race crystal clean. Just as there are bad people everywhere, there are bad cops, judges, and politicians in every police department, court house, and legislative branch that forge evidence to meet arrest quotas that the system needs to have in place; setup by the elitist to fund their need to have slave labor for their manufacturing companies. Some minorities have been falsely accused and persuaded by police bru tality in order to coerce false confessions, and the judges fall in their place to announce the sentencing. Throughout years of focusing on media events that always place blacks and other minorities in a position of being the bad guy. Today the jail and prison population is primarily made up of blacks. Although there are Hispanics, as well whites, the main overcrowding comes from blacks being locked up on frivolous charges. But there’s a deeper reason behind why this injustice is happening to blacks, and it all stems from the system’s need of the incarceration of minorities. To test the influence of local county politics on minority incarceration rates, data are collected at the county level in most states to create a pooled cross-sectional data set. OLS regression models predicting black, Hispanic, and white incarceration rates in state prison are used in the analysis. Counties ideological orientations and racial and ethnic contextual characteristics significantly impact minority incarceration rates. Greater ideological conservatism within counties is associated with higher rates as a proportion of their population of both black and Hispanic incarceration. Consistent with racial threat theory, results show counties with greater racial and ethnic diversity are more likely to incarcerate blacks and Hispanics. Tests for interaction effects indicate that greater county diversity decreases the punitive effects of ideological conservatism on minority incarceration. Political forces nested within states systematically shape how state government incarceration p ower is distributed across different racial and ethnic groups. (Bridges and Crutchfield, 1988; Greenberg and West, 2001; Western, 2006; Yates, 1997), The punitive paradigm that has characterized U.S. crime policy over the past three decades has led to important concerns about the distribution of one of government’s most intrusive powers; the ability to deprive citizen of their liberty through imprisonment across different racial and ethnic groups. It has been well documented that blacks are six to eight times more likely to be incarcerated relative to whites. (Western, 2006). Hispanics are over three and one-half times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Blacks and Hispanics, together, account for nearly two-thirds of the state prison population. Disparities such as these within the criminal justice system have long engendered heated debate about principles of equality and civil rights. Imprisonment rates between the states are shown to be a function of a variety of state-level political and legal factors. From this research, there is clear evidence that political forces cause states to incarcerate at widely different rates, with minorities living in a particular state either more or less likely to be imprisoned, depending in part, on the politics within. Yet, while these studies have significantly advanced our understanding of the politics of incarceration, state-level studies often mask the fact that a state’s ‘‘use’’ of incarceration is largely a byproduct of political processes found at the local (county) level of government. When analyzing the politics of incarceration from the bottom up, top-dow n political forces like the partisan control of state-level institutions or state sentencing laws effectively become standardized, suggesting that local politics retains significant leverage over how a state’s imprisonment powers are allocated Given this, however, we know little about the extent to which incarceration rates are systematically tied to local environments and whether local politics systematically shape the imprisonment ratesof racial and ethnic minority groups. Two primary questions motivate this research: Do political forces shaped by the local ideological and racial and ethnic environment affect incarceration rates in ways that are disproportionately detrimental to racial and ethnic minorities? Second, to what extent does the racial and ethnic context interact with localized Ideological orientations to affect minority incarceration rates? Or, put another way, can diversity levels in a given jurisdiction work to strengthen or weaken the propensity of those who might, because of their ideological beliefs, be already more inclined to incarcerate minorities? Conservatives tend to view criminal activity as a matter of personal choice and focus on deterrence and incapacitation based policy responses. Beckett and Western (2001). Conservatives have been more likely to use incapacitation as a means to control a marginalized ‘‘underclass’’ of citizens that threatens the economic and political interests of elites. (Scheingold,1984), In contrast, ideological liberals tend to view crime as a function of structural impediments to success and place more emphasis on crime prevention policies rather than punishment after the fact. Beckett, and Sasson (2004). If ideological conservatives are more inclined to incarcerate, these orientations might also be expected to influence the target of those policies with racial minorities more likely to be targeted relative to whites. (Edsall and Edsall, 1992; Weaver, 2007), Republicans used crime and punishment as an effective tool to realign the political electorate by pursuing law and order policies that linked financially secure fiscal conservatives and middle to lower class conservatives who had little else in common, while blaming street crime and other social ills on a racial (black) underclass, conservative. Republicans made veiled appeals to anti minority hostilities among some lower income conservative whites by enacting punitive crime policies that were implemented in ways that put more blacks in prison, but invoked greater support at the ballot box. Insofar as these political pressures retain their influence on criminal justice policy making at the local level of government, as well as to minorities other  than blacks (i.e., Hispanics), it can be predicted that more conser vative counties will be more likely to incarcerate blacks and Hispanics (as a proportion of their respective population) in state prisons than are more liberal counties. Racial politics shaped by the local racial and ethnic contextual environment are also expected to influence minority incarceration rates. In racial politics literature, significant attention has been paid to social conflict or ‘‘racial threat’’ theory, which offers a ‘‘contextual’’ explanation for minority imprisonment. Dating back to the work of Key (1949), the main idea behind the theory is that when a minority population is small, it represents a relatively minor threat to the interests of the majority. However, as the number of minorities grows, they begin to threaten the economic and political interests of the majority population, increasing hostile attitudes toward minority populations among majority group members. Blalock (1967) argued that a majority groupà ¢â‚¬â„¢s repression of a minority group’s interests was based on two types of perceived threats those motivated by economic competition and those driven by competition over political power. A growing body of research has found evidence of a racial threat effect across a variety of institutional settings. (Hurwitz and Peffley, 1997). If racial hostilities increase in more diverse environments, there are more reasons to predict that these hostilities will spill over to influence criminal justice policy making. ‘‘Old-fashioned’’ white racism often concentrated on a perceived genetic inferiority of blacks to whites. Today, more common white stereotypes involve the perception of blacks as a violent, criminal underclass. These stereotypes, along with the assumption that objective demographic data which show blacks to be disproportionately linked to the U.S. penal system permeates the public’s consciousness to believe that most blacks are violent tha n whites. To a meaningful degree, likely increase the probability that whites associate crime and the criminal justice system with race. In conclusion; this research provides convincing evidence of ‘‘racialized’’ crime policy in the United States. The tendency among some whites to connect race with crime has important implications for state punitiveness and imprisonment of blacks more specifically. Whites who view blacks as violent have been shown to be more supportive of punitive policies like the death penalty and longer prison sentences. Following arguments associated with the racial threat idea, a more racially diverse environment is likely to trigger more negative stereotypes among whites living there, who, as a result, may be more apt to support punitive crime policies, particularly if there is the perception that the target population is black. However, existing tests of the racial threat hypothesis on black incarceration rates have brought mixed results. In so me state-level studies, once black arrest rates and other socioeconomic conditions are controlled, the racial threat hypothesis provides little predictive power (Bridges and Crutchfield, 1988; Yates, 1997). Others have found the proportion of blacks in a state does matter, but in the opposite direction predicted by the racial threat idea black imprisonment rates decreased in states with a greater black population (Yates and Fording, 2005). This mixed set of findings brings the possibility that a more appropriate test of a racial threat effect on imprisonment should be conducted at the local level. Measuring the influence of state racial composition on imprisonment has proven useful because it allows comparisons across jurisdictions; however, these efforts often gloss over the fact that state imprisonment rates are a function of decisions made by county law enforcement officials. If, indeed, incarceration rates are influenced by racial politics, it might be expected that county prose cutors, judges, or public defenders those with authority over prosecuting, sentencing, or defending offenders to/from state prison are most likely to be subject to racial ‘‘effects.’’ Assessing the influence of a racial threat on minority incarceration can also be advanced by considering whether political forces resulting from whites’ exposure to a variety of ethnic and racial minorities, rather than simply their exposure to larger black populations, affects minority imprisonment rates. References Percival, G. L. (2010).Ideology, Diversity, and Imprisonment: Considering the Influence of Local Politics on Racial and Ethnic Minority Incarceration Rates. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 91(4), 1063-1082. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00749.x Bridges, George S., and Robert Crutchfield. 1988. ‘‘Law, Social Standing and Racial Disparities cin Imprisonment.’’ Social Forces 66(3):699–724. Western, Bruce. 2006. Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage  Foundation. Beckett, Katherine, and Theodore Sasson. 2004. The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment  in America. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Edsall, Thomas B., and Mary D. Edsall. 1992. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights,  and Taxes on American Politics. New York: W.W. Nortan Company. Scheingold, Stuart A. 1984. The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy.  New York: Longman. Blalock, Hubert M. 1967. Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations. New York: Wiley. Key, V. O. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hurwitz, Jon, and Mark Peffley. 1997. ‘‘Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of  Racial Stereotypes.’’ American Journal of Political Science 41(2):375–401. Yates, Jeff. 1997. ‘‘Racial Incarceration Disparity Among the States.’’ Social Science Quarterly  78(4):1001–11. Yates, Jeff, and Richard Fording. 2005. ‘‘Politics and State Punitiveness in Black and White.’’  Journal of Politics 67(4):1099–1121.

Malden Mills

The case of the Malden Mills fire poses many important questions related to ethics. At first look, a CEO paying his employees continually after his mill burned down seems to be the model for ethical behavior. However, when one looks deeper into the case and asks questions it is not so obvious. The first question that needs to be answered is what the factual circumstances of the case are. Malden Mills was a factory located in Lawrence, Massachusetts that specialized in making a high tech fleece called Polartec.The company was relatively successful in its industry until the factory was destroyed by a fire in 1995. After the fire, the company’s CEO Aaron Feuerstein declared that he would continue to pay his employees their normal wages for at least one month.In the end he paid the employees for longer than that and spent around 15 million dollars paying the employees while the new mill was being built. Feuerstein built the new mill for a cost of 400 million. He gambled that the m oney from the insurance company and expanded Polartec business would cover this cost.However, Malden Mills only received 300 million from the insurance company and the Polartec sales did not rise as Feuerstein had projected. The company was forced to claim bankruptcy in 2001 and Feuerstein lost control of the company to GE Capital in 2003. A second important issue related to this case is what the ethical issues are. In the case of Malden Mills, the main ethical dilemma was whether to keep paying the company’s employees or have a massive layoff. This dilemma was a mix of personal and business problems.Part of the problem was personal because the company was located in a small town where a majority of the residents worked at the mill. Because most of the people in the town worked there, the company had the feeling of a family business and the workers truly felt like family to Feuerstein.The family atmosphere made it a tough decision for Feuerstein when it came to making a decis ion after the fire. He knew that keeping his employees on the payroll could lead to a bad outcome for the business, but he felt like he owed it to his workers to keep them employed. The other part of the problem for Feuerstein was business related.Rebuilding the company after the fire was going to be a difficult proposition and that would only be made more difficult if Malden Mills had to keep paying its workers. In the end, Feuerstein had to decide if it was worth risking the future of his company to make sure that the workers he saw as family were paid as he tried to rebuild Malden Mills.In order to see why the case developed as it is, it is important to take a look at who the primary stakeholders and decisions makers were in the case. Once these people have been identified, one must look at their ethical perspective and see why they would make the decision that they did.In this case, there are three main stakeholders. They are Feuerstein, The Board of Directors and the Employees. Of these stakeholders, Feuerstein is the only one who is faced with an ethical dilemma in the case that affects the other stakeholders.Feuerstein was a devout Orthodox jew, and this helped form his ethical perspective. He believed that people would be judged on more than just how successful they were. He believed that people would be judged on how well they treated others and that he personally would be judged on the good that he brought to the world and not the money that his company made.One can see how his beliefs could lead him to make a decision that would be best for the good of his employees and not necessarily as good for the other stakeholders. Throughout the case, there are a couple of ethical standards being applied.The two standards are virtue ethics and Utilitarianism. Feuerstein applies virtue ethics when he decides that he wants to do what is good and right for his employees. This fits in with the virtuous idea of character traits that represent a good and meaningful life, which is what Feuerstein is trying to accomplish.Feuerstein is not only trying to be good to his employees, he is trying to do what could end up being best for all of the stakeholders. Feuerstein was applying the idea of Utilitarianism by trying to accomplish the best outcome for all parties when he gambled that a larger plant would be good for the company.Of these two ethical standards, Feuerstein’s first priority was virtue ethics and second priority was Utilitarianism. The final ethical choice that was decided on by Feuerstein was to keep paying his workers while the mill was closed and to try and build a bigger factory so his workers might have a better future.Feuerstein made this decision because he truly believed that his first responsibility as CEO was to go good by his workers even if that meant a possibility of failure. This approach was very popular with the workers and in the community, which relied on money from the mill to thrive.The author of this case ha s a couple questions of her own. One of the questions was whether or not is was bad luck that the Polartec business went downhill because of a warm winter or if it was a mistake to build such a larger plant in the first place. The answer to this question is both.In retrospect it was a mistake to build a large factory that could not survive a drop and business, but without that warm winter it is possible that the Polartec business could continue to grow and that the larger factory would have been a good idea.Another question that the author poses is whether or not Feuerstein’s generosity to his employees after the fire ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the company. In this case, the answer seems to be no. The 15 million dollars that was paid to the employees is small compared to the 100 million dollar gap between the cost of the new factory and the insurance payment received.The gamble to build a larger factory is what really caused problems for the company because it was ne ver able to cover the cost of the plant when the Polartec business went downhill. In the end, Feuerstein will be remembered by most people as a virtuous man who put his employees before making a profit.The question still remains if he really made the best choices for his employees. Other choices may have kept the plant from bankruptcy and given the employees more secure future. Feuerstein did what he believed was right and ultimately it did not work out for Malden Mills.

Globalization Is A Utopian Dream Of A Humanist Universality

The main assumption of this report is to discredit the false claims that globalization of Capitalism is the only viable path to greater prosperity and development for a society. This report identifies that there is in fact a necessity to explore other economic systems because neoliberal capitalism is currently observed to be greatly impacted by economic and ecological predicaments. The annotations below show numerous possibilities of using alternative economies as an altenative for growth and prosperity. Dacheux and Goujon’s article address the growing international reality that is at the very heart of the current economic sphere, that globalisation is a utopian dream of a humanist universality. Their forum suggests that a solidarity economy is a humanistic economy and would return trust in democratic deliberation. Solidarity economy offers a combination of initiatives, these include; linking productive activity to social demands rather than profitability; equal participation from both men and women towards the production of goods and services; structuring of local, national and international networks cooperatively based on consensus; collectively working towards a democratic regulation of economic activity. The development and production of solidarity economies are found in many varying forms through the world that reflect differing local conditions. The solidarity economy encourages individual developments by organised participatory community efforts that restrictsShow MoreRelatedOrganisational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pagesneomodernist perspective A new-wave perspective A postmodern perspective A reflective perspective A critical theory and psychoanalytic perspective A managerialist perspective The paradigm debate The practical utility of organization theory Current trends Globalization Institutional and neoinstitutional theory Discourse The aesthetics of organizing One final look at organizational culture Conclusions 432 432 434 434 434 435 436 437 437 438 438 442 446 446 450 452 453 457 459 Index 466 Supporting

How Do Sociological And Psychological Needs Affect Form,...

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