Can you survive?

  Play a simulation game of trying to survive on a minimum paying job.  Can you avoid being dragged down below the poverty line?  Try to honestly answer the questions.  At the end of the game it will ask for a donation. You are not expected nor would I donate to it.

The simulation is at:   playspent.org

Feel free to play a few times by taking the other jobs.

What surprised you about the simulation?  What did you learn about life near the poverty line?

People Like Us

The past few days we've watch parts of the documentary "People Like Us".   The film gave us insight into various stigmas and indicators of various social classes.  

The WASPs, the Black Middle Class, the Working Class and Poverty like Tammy.

In the movie People Like Us we met Tammy and her sons from Pike County, Ohio. (Watch the videoon youtube here or watch it on mediacast here.) They live in poverty. Tammy was from a family of 22 kids and she grew up in poverty. She wants to be a teacher. Her son wants to be an architect or a lawyer. Will they be able to achieve these goals? What are the factors that will hold them back? What will their life chances be? One of the ways that Tammy’s son copes with his situation is by trying to dress preppy and act preppy. He cleans the house so it looks better and he tries in school, winning awards and succeeding in sports. Can these actions move him up to a higher class or is he kidding himself? What are the chances he succeeds in the "American Dream"?If you want to help Tammy and her family, here is a link to how you can help.

Deviance Blog Post--March 22

For this post, explain the concept of norms (mores and folkways) and deviance and how it is relative.  Discuss the unjust problems that relativity in deviances causes.  You may also explain how deviance labels people and creates a stigma as well as how it is connected to social class. How is deviance positive and negative.  Can you relate to being positively deviant?  Examples? Reflections on the action?  Some sources we looked at that must be included are Saints and Roughnecks, 30 days in Jail, Power and Violence Chicago Tribune article, and the John Oliver's look at Criminal Justice System. What do the sources reveal about our criminal justice system(CJS)?  How is the social construction of reality present in the CJS?  

Due WEDNESDAY March 22

The Criminal "Justice" System

Sorry I am out today.  The lake effect snow in Chicago was pretty gnarly this AM. I had to drive Luella to grandma's house and the traffic at 5 am was already over an hour which meant the roads were atrocious.  For her safety I didn't want to risk the chaos that is Chicago streets in a windy snow storm.  I hope we are all doing most excellent though!



After viewing and reflecting on the 30 Days in Jail episode and the problem of recidivism, I want you to watch a couple video, albeit humor ones, on the sad state of the justice system.  One that needs to be fixed to truly help make America safer and more just.


1) Go to the website at the end of the instructions after you read all the instructions.
2) Each person at your table should watch one of the following videos but do not watch the same video as you will be discussing with them the issue that your video dealt with.
                One person at your table should watch the video on: Mandatory Minimums.
                One person should watch: Public Defenders
                One person should watch: Prison Reentry
                One person should watch: Bonus Segment on Prisons

3) After watching your video discuss the issues of the video with your table.

HERE IS THE LINK: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/12/18/john-oliver-s-year-in-criminal-justice#.JIO3Hx1PT   Please use headphones!

Warning: There may be some swearing in the video, the video is also uses comedy to look at a difficult and problematic issues, although things he say may be funny the sad reality though is disturbing and problematic.

Cycle of Poverty and Violence

Read the following and look for explanations of why there tends to be a cycle of poverty, violence and deviance in the economically depressed neighborhoods of Chicago.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-poverty-violence-glanton-met-20170309-column.html

Roughnecks, Saints and Deviants

Deviance: Saints, Roughnecks and Patriots?

Please answer the following:

1. Describe the Saints.
2. Describe the Roughnecks.
3. How does money play a role with the Saints and Roughnecks?
4.  How are they affected in life after high school?
5. Are there Saints and Roughnecks at SHS?  Who (no names, please) and why?



Besides time and place, deviance is also relative to perception. Deviance must be perceived to be real. And in a capitalist society that values money, perceived deviance is related to social class. This is one revelation in William Chambliss's study called "The Saints and the Roughnecks" Chambliss argues that money was a key factor. If you have enough money it helps you cover up the deviance. Do you think this applies to kids at our school (no names please). Who is deviant? How do they hide it? Does money play a role? Is everyone at school a "saint"? Another important revelation in Chambliss's research is that the kids who accept the label of "deviant" then act upon that label. In other words, if I think that everyone expects me to be deviant, I may accept that as the truth and then I act deviant. Once you are labeled as "deviant", that becomes a stigma or a badge of disgrace that you carry with you. Sociologists who study this perspective call it the labeling theory.


A second way that we see this relativity in drugs depends on who is getting caught using them. In a landmark study, The Vicious Circle, the Chicago Urban League wrote about how a Chicago Police drug sting operation was handing out felonies to impoverished minorities busted near the projects, but upper middleclass white kids from Naperville who were being caught there (instead of being given a felony) were having their parents called by the cops, or in some cases having their license suspended, but then they were released with no felony on their record. Dr. Paul Street of the Chicago Urban League writes,

Perhaps nothing reveals more dramatically Illinois authorities’ penchant for waging the War on Drugs in…disparate ways than the state’s enforcement of two 1989 bills mandating that a 15 or 16 year-old youth automatically would be prosecuted as an adult if he or she was charged with selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or a public housing project. Under the state’s Automatic Transfer laws…youth who have been convicted as adults can be transferred to adult prisons upon their 17th birthday and are automatically transferred on their 18th birthday….Of the 393 young people automatically transferred to adult facilities in Cook County from October 1999 to October 2000, 99.2 percent of them were minorities….
These findings are disturbing in light of evidence that white youth use illicit drugs at the same or higher rates as youth of color. They are doubly troublesome in light of recent reports on how local and state criminal justice authorities have chosen to deal with the rising number of ‘young [white] suburbanites’ purchasing heroin and other illegal narcotics on the city’s predominantly black West Side. In August 2001, The Chicago Tribune reported that city police and DuPage…drug cops… had selected a rather mild sanction for the suburban offenders. ‘Officers,’ the Tribune noted, ‘have seen teens make drug buys, traced the license plates of their cars and notified the registered owner, often a parent, where the vehicle has been.’
Last June…Cook County prosecuters and police had increased the level of punishment for the young suburbanites, threatening to impound their automobiles and suspend their driver’s licenses. William O’Brien, Chief of Narcotics for the State’s Attorney’s Office gave the following rationale for this ‘new crackdown,’ which contrasted sharply with the prison sentences faced by 15-year-old inner city youth caught selling narcotics next to a public housing project; when it comes to young and automobile centered suburban kids, O’Brien explained, ‘driving privileges may resonate more…than the threat of jail.’
The Vicious Circle by Dr. Paul Street, The Chicago Urban League, 2002. (pp.13-14)

Some other examples of how this applies to life beyond high school are the ways in which our society focuses on street crime as opposed to white collar crime.  Most of the news each night is spent on street crime: murders, burglary, robbery and rape.  The popular media likes reporting on these because they are action-oriented, personalized and fearful.  Each crime is presented like a mini-drama story.  However, white collar crime is far more costly and perhaps more dangerous.  White collar crime includes tax evasion, bribery, embezzling, negligence.  For example, a department store defrauded poor customers of over 100 million dollars;  tire company executives allowed faulty tires to remain on vehicles despite recalling the tires in other countries - 200 people were killed before the tires were removed; an oil company skirted safeguards which resulted in an explosion and environmental disaster killing 12 people and costing billions of dollars.  In each of these cases, there may have been fines imposed on the companies involved, but no one went to prison.  No one received a felony record.  I bet you cannot name an individual person involved in the incident because no one person was labeled as deviant.
Another example of this is Freaks and Geeks episode 13 is an example of Chambliss's thesis. Lindsay is experimenting with pot but she does not get caught, but her freek friends get caught. They are expected to be deviant. They may have even accepted the label of being deviant and they now see themselves as deviant and that influences their actions. 

HOMEWORK:  READ THIS INTRODUCTION TO COURTROOM 302.   CLICK HERE