Effects of Labeling and a look at Critical Theory

Reviewing my reading for Community Social Work Practice, a few points from the chapter on "The Nature of Social and Community Problems" stand out (Community Practice by Hardcastle and Powers).

LABELING: People who have violated drug policies and are incarcerated, on parole, on probation, are felons, or have been publicly known to have committed minor drug crimes are all often labeled.

Labels include loser, jailbird, felon, druggie, criminal, and many others.

As the book points out, labeling can have serious social and economic consequences. "Public labels such as..."ex-con" are conceptualizations that can create or sustain a problem." (p. 67)

In addition, the book discusses how incarceration intensely labels people, but that once you have served your term you can't get rid of that label.

I have observed this phenomenon in action in my internship last year as a medical social worker. The social workers at the hospital that I worked at were referred the patients who had risk factors, including a known history of legal problems, or in the case of new mothers in the OB, partners with legal problems.

Automatically, if your chart mentioned felonies, probation, or other legal involvement you would be referred to one of us.

Therefore, if you were an identified 'troublemaker', you would be more likely to be analyzed closely on matters such as child welfare, drug screenings, visitations, and other aspects of your life.

Therefore, if you were an identified 'troublemaker' you would be more likely to get in more trouble by virtue of more attention being put on you.

I see this as a microcosm of what is happening everywhere in the US: Police are policing poor areas more and therefore targeting the poor and minorities. Police are policing those who are already on probation or parole more, so it makes it harder to break free from the system.

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE:

Hardcastle and Powers tell the reader to think about "...who is benefitting from maintaining a particular problem..."(p.66)

This is a thought process that reveals a lot about the state of our country when it comes to incarceration.

When 1 in 99 are incarcerated, who benefits or has benefitted in the past?

As I have mentioned in past blogs,

1. The democratic party benefitted when it passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, creating Mandatory Minimum Sentencing, by appearing to be "tough on crime" right before an election

2. The Reagans benefitted by riding on the glory of creating these laws and the "Just Say No" slogan, almost like a product line

3. Many other politicians have benefitted by being "tough on crime", I mean, who is going to vote against getting those evil-doing drug lovers off the streets?

4. Private Prison companies benefit from full prisons, they certainly can run their businesses unless people are being incarcerated.

5. Alcohol companies have benefitted. They have a stronghold on the mind-altering business.

Hardcastle and Powers go on to mention how different people, classes, cultures, countries etc. can have varying perspectives on a problem. This is certainly true when it comes to the mass incarceration of drug offenders, when coming from an impoverished area.

Example Upper class view: *Get those druggies out of my neighborhood!

*Those addicts are dangerous monsters, did you see her teeth?

*This is America and they could be anything, stupid druggies!

*Nothing wrong with a little Xanax and Scotch

Example Poor view: *Get those cops out of my neighborhood, they target us!

*My husband is in prison for drugs, now I have to raise the kids alone.

*It seems impossible to get ahead when you're stuck in the system.

*Sometimes drugs seem like the only way to make money, or to be happy.

The rich and powerful have little room for drug offenders, they have no value and in fact have no voting power.

33 CA prisons 33 thoughts

Here are the quotes from the Youtube video that my classmates and I just posted... and the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-5byiEu_CA

1) The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons ~ Dostoevsky
2) The United States incarcerates more of its citizens per capita than any other nation in the world
3) 1 in 99 adult US citizens is behind bars
4) 1 in 33 adult US citizens is incarcerated, on probation or on parole
5) The US has 5% of the world's population but 23% of the world's prison population
6) The US cages its citizens at a rate of 751 per 100,000
7) The world average is 125
8) The average of the nations in the European Union is 135
9) Nearly one million of those incarcerated in state and federal prisons, as well as local jails, are serving time for committing non-violent crimes
10) The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration ~ Barry McCaffrey, former US Drug Czar
11) Since 1980, incarcerated drug offenders have increased more than 1200%
12) More than half of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug charges
13) “In 2000, the number of persons behind bars for drug offences was roughly the same as the entire US prison and jail population only twenty years earlier.” ~ Beckley Report, King’s College, London
14) “For comparative purposes, it is noteworthy that at the beginning of the Twenty-First century, there were 100,000 more persons imprisoned in the US for drug offences than the total number of prisoners in the EU, even though the EU had 100 million more citizens than the US” ~ Beckley Report, King’s College, London
15) "The drug war is primarily being waged against African American citizens…”~ Justice Policy Institute
16) In 2007 the incarceration rate for white men in the US was 773 per 100,000.
17) The incarceration rate for Hispanic men 1,747 per 100,000.
18) The incarceration rate for black men was 4,618 per 100,000
19) According to the US based Sentencing Project, nearly one in three (32%) of Afro-American men between the ages of 20 and 29 were under criminal justice control in 1995.
20) 1 in 9 black men between the age of 20-34 years old are incarcerated
21) 7% of black kids have parent incarcerated
22) In every year from 1980 to 2007 blacks were arrested for drug crimes at a rates relative to the population that were 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than whites ~ Human Rights Watch
23) 1 in 36 Hispanics over 18+ are incarcerated
24) 1 in 15 Black men over 18+ are incarcerated
25) California has the largest prison system in the US
26) 33 prisons in CA and 170,000 inmates
27) 1 in 5 California prison inmates is serving a life term
28) CA spends 9.66 billion on corrections per year, more than all its colleges and universities
29) Nearly 10 cents of every state $1 goes to CA state prisons
30) We (US or CA?) spend $35,000 per inmate and $9,000 per pupil
31) Between 1980 and 2004, the CA prison system grew from 24,569 to 159,695 inmates (550%)
32) CA is #1 in prison spending and #431 in educational spending
33) A federal three-judge panel has ruled that California is violating the Constitution by not providing adequate care to its prisoners and must release 55,000 inmates