Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Police subcultures
Police subculture and corruption
Law enforcement subculture essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Police corruption is not something that is frequently talked about, and there are definitely very few films about the subject. One such film is Serpico, which is based off of the life of NYPD Officer Frank Serpico. The movie shows the issues of police corruption, and how the police subculture works to keep it covered. The police subculture is a very complicated and closed thing.
One of the central multicultural issues facing the criminal justice system today is the need for clear communication with recent immigrants and subcultural groups that have not been fully acculturated. Many such groups hold to traditions and values that differ from those held by the majority of Americans. Such differences influence the interpretation of things seen and heard. Even more basic, however, are language differences that might prevent effective communication with criminal justice system personnel.
Within any society there may be different cultures as well as subcultures. The components of cultures and subcultures are symbols, language, values and norms. Small societies tend be culturally uniform in comparison to large societies tend to contain numerous subcultures. A subculture is a group within a larger culture, that has norms, beliefs, values, and behavioral patterns that are distinguishable from the larger society. Examples of a subculture include bikers, skaters, hackers, gamers, etc.
Subculture is a term used to define a small culture within a bigger culture. This concept normally applies to smaller cultures within a bigger culture; but it can also apply to different groups of people within an organization or smaller groups within a society. Some examples of organizational subculture include the verity of justice professionals; although they are considered to be public servants, no one in society actually understands the stressful nature of the job except justice professionals, thus police subculture was created. Cop Code The movie “Training Day” directed by Antoine Fuqua, was as great example of police subculture because it exemplifies the cop code, which is “an informal code of conduct that new officers are taught through informal socialization (Pollock, 2015.
The study of prison subcultures investigates the way prisoners adjust to prison, scholars found that the subculture of women 's prisons was much different compare to the violent and predatory structure of the contemporary male prison. Women who did not define themselves as serious criminals prior to prison continued to hold conventional behaviors and attitudes during their imprisonment, however women who adapted to prison life became heavily invested in a prison based identity. The prison culture among women was tied to family, gender expectations of sexuality and relationships. Scholars Ward and Kassebaum study of Sex and Social Structure in the prison showed that depending on their prison term it made women display feelings of anxiety, as
Prison gangs have been and are a growing problem. Prison organizations throughout the United States have tried many different strategies to address the issue of prison gang members. One of the problems is that gang members are more of a threat to the staff and other inmates than regular inmates who are not in a gang. The prisons have problems begin able to house certain serious offenders that need to be kept separate because of the limited spacing. Gangs in the prison have a higher disruption and incident rate then non gang members.
The subcultural norms are those of the characters who want an uprising. These characters are the ones who will speak out for change because they are through with living in poor conditions. Subcultural norms shape the characters who wish to be the change they want to see in the
Now when discussing subculture, we must first understand what culture means. According to Raymond Williams, culture is ordinary; expressed in everyday life and discerned through patterns. Culture forms its own meanings while society shapes it and gives it purpose. These elements are shaped through patterns, and these patterns often involve the way we dress, talk, walk, our relationship to time, and our relationship to friends and family. The way these elements are brought together define our culture.
(Gangs) A deviant subculture is defined as a subculture, which has values and norms that differ substantially from the majority of people in society. When a neighborhood or community favors illegal activities, a criminal subculture is likely to develop such as gangs. Walter Miller states that deviant subcultures don’t arise from the inability of a community to achieve success, but because of a lower-class subculture whose values and norms are different from the rest of society. Subcultures can be a good thing, because they can provide a sense of belonging, interaction with people who have similar interests, and gives members the freedom to express individuality.
Cultural criminology’s “framework is concerned with meaning, power and existential accounts of crime and punishment and control” (Hayward, 2016:300). Which allows cultural criminologist to study crime in the relation to culture and its impact on criminality. Cultural criminology believes it is always “necessary to state and restate what crime is, if nothing else a human activity” (Presdee, 2004:276). The commodification of culture relates to Cultural Criminology in the sense of the many faucets of crime and deviance and what is getting exploited through the media to the public. Commodification of crime is becoming more prevalent as time goes on as the media has such a large influence on society.
In the formal criminal justice process, there are important decision makers that decide whether to keep the offender in the system or dismiss the suspect with no future consequences. Suppose a law was set in place
In the criminal justice system, there are three major components. They are the police, the courts, and the corrections. Each one of the components has a role to play in the system. The police are in charge of arresting and investigating crimes. The courts are charged with the responsibility of punishing offenders while the corrections implement the court rulings.
Subcultures are values and norms different from those of the majority and are held by a group within a wider society, these social groups are organized around shared interests and practices. A subculture is usually attached to clothes music and other visible fronts within the given community, that is part of the general society. Subcultures contain individuals who think alike who feel like they are not a part of the bigger culture of society and then create a sense of identity for themselves. The term Hip Hop is used as a subcultural movement. Scholars such as Carl and Virgil Taylor emphasize “Hip-Hop is not only a genre of music, but also a complex system of ideas, values and concepts that reflect newly emerging and ever-changing creative correlative expressive mechanisms including but not limited to song, poetry, film and fashion.”
In the criminal justice system, the corrections component is also responsible for the rehabilitation of the convicted individual. It is their duty to attempt to make the defendant a productive member of society once again. Based on the individual’s behavior while incarcerated, the court and corrections officials may decide to place them on parole, which ensures that the individual will comply with the rules of society once they are fully released from the system. The criminal justice system is an essential role in the organizational structure of not only the United States but also in countries around the world. If there were no criminal justice system to administer punishment, the world would be unstructured, disorganized, unjustified, cruel, and not to mention a chaotic place for it citizens.
According to Hofstede (1980), culture is the “collective programming of the mind” that differentiates one group of people from another. It is the variety of beliefs, customs and traits of a religious or social group that serve as the identity of people living in a specific place. The term ‘culture’ is used for nations as a whole. On the other hand, ‘subculture’ is a term that is being used for the level of an institution, occupation or family. Within the nation, subcultures of one organization may share the same trait with other organizations (p. 26).