What Are The Problems Of Inner City Ghettos

The mass media and many other people have attempted to define the problems of inner city ghettos in terms of American racism and brutal police tactics; however, according to Sociologist Victor Rios in his book Punished Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, the inner city ghettos exist in many of American’s largest cities and are a vicious web of concentrated poverty, disconnected youth, and a culture of gang violence. Adding to these incorrigible conditions, are the punitive social controls used by the police, politicians, school officials, mass media, businesses, and families that prioritize racial profiling and violent control. The reality of the inner city culture is extremely genuine with an arrangement of norms, values and habits

Even though these parents try to approach normal family life, their lives are usually disorganized with many frustrations including low paying jobs and complicated relationships. Many of these parents fall into the trap of criminalizing their own children by the method of using the authorities “courtesy stigma” when their children went out or acted negatively in any way as a means of controlling their youth by giving the police or probation officers a heads up. Some of the boys in Rios’ ethnological study of 40 Black and Latino boys reported not having a trusting relationship with their parents because their perceptions of being watched, managed and treated as criminals began when they were at a young age and worsened after their first offense whether it was a minor infraction or not. One minor misdemeanor quickly became a criminal record for these boys because their names were placed in a criminal gang database used for tracking them; consequently, legal authorities could impose tougher policing and harsher sentencing (Rios 2011:

Ultimately, Rios counted twenty-two occasions in his study where the formal social control, the police, were called to resolve minor community problems and the police only intervened in one of these instances; otherwise they just took the information and left, exemplifying the under-policing that exists in these inner city communities (2011:54). Consequently, these young men lived in a vicious cycle of having very little informal social control and a reality of harassment, profiling, discrimination, and punishment from the formal social control of police, probation officers, community centers, and school personnel. Furthermore, the role of masculinity is an important element of survival to these young men as they try to navigate through the world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized. Rios found that the boys were consistently told by various adults, including probation officers and other criminal justice personnel to “man up”. This resulted in hypermasculinity which, according to Britannica.com is the exaggeration of stereotypical male behavior such as an emphasis on physical strength, aggression, and sexuality. This behavior was taught, learned, and greatly influenced these young men throughout their youth