Social problems do not exist in a vacuum as they are caused by other social issues within the same community. When people live together in a community, they have social similarities that cause them to be called a community and also social differences based on active and passive issues. In the USA, the main social issue that brings all the people together is the geographical fact that they are citizens of one nation (Lawrence, 2015). Among the major social issues that cause problems amongst the American people is the racial differences. The social factor of race in the USA result in the social problem of racism, which creates secondary problems such as poverty and injustice.
Criminal Sanctions and Victimization
For equality to be attained in any community, there must be equal opportunities and equality of rights for all. In the absence of the equality, a segment of the community will be placed at an economic disadvantage (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). With time, the disadvantage will result in the community not developing at the same level as the other segments of the community, leading to stratification and a cycle of poverty. Whereas there are no traditional social structures of lords and servants in the modern society, the unequal opportunities will guarantee that some segments of the community flourish more than others. Those who are bound to flourish will form the upper classes of the social stratum while those who do not will form the lower echelons. As long as the inequality subsists, it will be difficult to break from the cycle of poverty when one is born into the lower social stratum of a disadvantaged group (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006).
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Impact of Punishment
Humans are social beings and cannot exist in isolation since even their appearance in this world involved some form of social interaction (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). The social interactions form a kind of social chain where something that happens to one member affects the other members up and down the chain. For example, when a parent is incarcerated, the other parent or a secondary guardian has to take up the increased role of caring for the children. Further, the assumed role cannot be handled in the same way as it was when the parent was around hence the children will still suffer. Similarly, if the children had a single parent, they might end up being put in the system, which is even worse. If the incarcerated parent was an employer the employees also stand to suffer due to the absence (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). Punishing one person adversely affects several people with the person’s social chain.
African Americans Incarceration
There are less African Americans in the ordinary populace but more African Americans than whites in jail, a fact that shows a racial bias in the criminal justice system. Indeed, the rate of incarceration of whites is 321 per 100,000 as compared to 2,240 per 100,000 for blacks, making a ratio of 1:7 (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). Black people are more likely to be suspected for committing crimes even when innocent and more likely to be apprehended by police without probable cause. Further, due to the lack of resources to mount a proper defense and institutionalized racism, black people are more likely to be convicted (Jaffe, 2017). Discretion in sentencing is also more often than not used to the detriment of black people.
Variation in Criminal Punishment
Any form of incarceration has a major impact on the economic status of an individual whether or not they get a criminal record (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). After spending time in jail, the individual will have to look for a fresh job while suffering the stigma of being a convict, find a place to live, and make social reconnections. A community that has a higher propensity for incarceration while arrested will thus be economically marginalized gradually but definitively. The sequence of arrest will keep members from growing economically while the fear of arrest and incarceration will discourage them from economic ventures. A white youth who is arrested with cocaine might get probation and continue with education while a black youth, arrested with the same amount of crack cocaine goes to prison (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006). The two individuals might never match again economically.
Collateral Sanctions
When the black youth referred to above finally leaves prison, he will have a mountain of collateral sanctions that a person who was not convicted does not have (Lawrence, 2015). The criminal record will appear whenever he seeks a job. The reputation of a jailbird will affect any business venture he might be interested in. Further, there will always be the fear that if he does something wrong, no matter how minuscule, he will be going to jail for a longer stretch of time than the person who has not been incarcerated. The fear of arrest combined with the criminal record, stigmatization, and discrimination will make life worse than life in jail, a fact that drives recidivism (Wheelock & Uggen, 2006).
Conclusion
Racial difference is a social factor not a social problem, but it results in a social problem when it is used by a dominant race to ferment discrimination against a minority race. White and black people in America are bound together by the fact that they belong to the same country but separated inter alia by how they are treated in the eyes of the law. The average black man having seven times the chance of ending up in jail than the white man. The impact of the higher rates of incarceration, the effects that it has on other third parties, and finally the subsequent collateral sanctions have ensured that black people are economically handicapped in the USA. This has led to stratification and perpetuation of poverty among African Americans.
References
Jaffe, S. (2017). It's not you, it's your caseload: Using cronic to solve indigent defense underfunding. Mich. L. Rev. , 116 , 1465
Lawrence, W. (2015). The public defender crisis in America: Gideon, the war on drugs and the fight for equality. U. Miami Race & Soc. Just. L. Rev. , 5 , 167
Wheelock, D., & Uggen, C. (2006). Race, poverty, and punishment: The impact of criminal sanctions on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequality. Npc Working Paper, 06-15. Retrieved from http://npc.umich.edu/publications/workingpaper06/paper15/working_paper06-15.pdf
