SOC371H5 Chapter Notes -Poorhouse
Document Summary
People think dangerous crimes are committed mainly by poor people. Seeing the population of prison reassured this belief. They think cjs gives ture fefliction of dangers that threaten community. The reality is, jails are full of poor people not because they are the ones that threaten community the most, but because cjs lets the wealthy escaple. Also, out definition of crime excludes the kids of crime wealthy people engage in. Justice has two transmission belts, one for the rich and one for the poor. the healthier the accused is, the greater the change of being ignored/released/treated lightly by system. Hence the cjs functions in a way to make sure that prison is filled with lowest social and economic groups in county . As a result, the image of the criminal population we see in jail is distorted due to cjs"s malfunction. Common methodological mistakes in research on race in cjs that hide racial bias:
