In this essay, I will demonstrate that stigma is the underlying reason that make some segment of the population vulnerable and easy target for punishment. I will demonstrate how in the ghettos of Philadelphia young men are constantly harassed by the police. They are arrested, searched and arrested in the middle of their communities, with their neighbors and acquaintances watching while it happens.
It is indisputable that some populations are targeted for punishment in absence of crime. One of the contributing factors causing this practice is stigma. Criminal punishment is understood by several authors as a process of stigmatization. The designation of “criminal” confers on a person a mark that indicates it as having a lower status in the social order. Implicit in this designation is a message of contamination and risk (Whitman, 2003, p.21). We tend to think of criminals as risky (dangerous) and unreliable people. Proof of this are the few probabilities that an ex-prisoner has to obtain legal employment. From social psychology it has been proposed that one of the reasons why people cooperate with the community is that they identify with it, linking a sense of identity with the well-being of their group (Tyler and Fagan, 2008). The more identified a person feels with his community, the more he will tend to assume the values ??of it. Major and O’Brien (2005, p.397) point out that the knowledge of cultural stereotypes can lead to those who assume as a feature of identity a stigma to behave according to the stereotype attributed to this stigma. In other words, those who assume a certain stigma as part of their identity adopt attitudes and behaviors associated with that brand. The application of criminal sanctions such as imprisonment implies that when labeling the offender or accused person, conditions are created for him / her to behave in accordance with the criminal stereotype and remain within the group. This effect is even more serious when it comes to groups (certain sectors of society) that are stigmatized. In Mexico, young males from marginalized sectors are predominantly punished. If the hypothesis is true, the punishment in this case generates incentives for the group to identify with the stigma of the criminal and behave according to that stigma. Alice Goffman (2009) describes how this happens in the United States. The author studies how in the ghettos of Philadelphia young men are constantly harassed by the police. They are arrested, searched and arrested in the middle of their communities, with their neighbors and acquaintances watching while it happens. The vast majority of these young people have arrest warrants against them, many for minor offenses. Goffman (2009, p.343) tells how some young people who still do not have arrest warrants against them invent that they have them to feel part of the group. In this case, the criminal system has generated a culture of collective identity that revolves around illegality and rejection of authority. The same can be seen in certain Mexican sectors, where engaging in drug trafficking has become an identity issue.
According to Fagan and Tracey (2008), a stigma is an attribute that discredits an individual, which reduces him from a complete and common person to a marked and diminished one. Stigmatization occurs when a person possesses or believes he possesses some characteristic that confers a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context. In other words, stigmatization is coupled with a devaluation of the person in a certain social context. Both stigmatized individuals and other members of society share the idea that the former have an attribute (or brand) that distinguishes them from others and a belief that this attribute devalues ??them compared to others. According to Fagan and Tracey (2008), the attributes or attributes of the stigma indicate that those who have them: a) are unreliable partners in social exchange; b) are carriers of an infectious disease, and / or c) are members of a group that can be exploited for the benefit of the members of the dominant group. Likewise, Jeffrey, and Meares (2008) points out that societies commonly construct a stigma theory to explain the inferiority of those who are stigmatized, many times depending on the risk they represent for society. The members of society justify the exclusion and mistrust of certain marked (contaminated) individuals.
It is important to note that stigmatization is linked to specific social contexts in which values ??and categories are known and shared by the majority of members of particular societies. In this way, what is considered as a negative attribute in a society can be considered as a positive attribute in another. Fatness, for example, is considered a feature of beauty and fortune in some societies, while in Western cultures it is considered a negative attribute, linked even to serious failures of the person (Gitterman, 2014). To understand the context of the incarcerated / released, it is relevant that both the dominant and dominated groups can stigmatize and negatively evaluate the opposite group. Nevertheless, given that the former controls access to resources, their stereotypes tend to have a greater chance of prevailing and reproducing. What is relevant for a stigma to operate is that stereotypes and (negative) evaluations of the attributes that stigmatize a person must be known and shared by the majority of the members of a society or culture (Chan & Chunn, 2014).
Despite the differences that can be found in the various attributes that are stigmatized, the evidence suggests that the reactions to stigma are similar in different societies, including ours. We tend, as human beings, to reject and fear those we consider different, those who deviate from the norm (of the normal). We can see this in reality. The first and second National Surveys on Discrimination in Mexico (Conapred, 2005), for example, show how in our society certain minorities, such as the disabled, indigenous and homosexuals, are often rejected in different social spheres. In the case of homosexuals, the second survey reports that 39.1% of the respondents, belonging to an ethnic group, considered that they do not have the same opportunities as others to get a job. In the first survey (Conapred, 2005 p.49), 34% of the respondents indicated that what the indigenous people have to do to get out of poverty is to stop behaving like indigenous people.
According to James Q. Whitman (2003), criminal punishment has always involved some degree of stigmatization of the accused or accused. Historically, many punishments even involved physically marking the person to designate the offender quality permanently. In the early sixteenth century in England, for example, slaves who tried to escape were marked with an S on the face or hand. Until 1879, when the British Mutiny Act was abolished, army deserters could be sentenced to be tattooed with a letter D, with ink or gunpowder, not less than one inch, on the left side, two inches under the armpit (Jeffrey, and Meares 2008).
The current international norms, as well as most legal system assume, for the most part, a utilitarian or instrumentalist position (focused on the dissuasion and reintegration of the offender) of punishment and rejecting retributionist positions, those that justify the punishment as payment for having caused damage or violating the social pact (Schaefer, 2008). Therefore, our order rejects the permanent marks or that which prevents the reintegration of the offender. However, whether we understand punishment as a way of deterring offenders (utilitarian stance) or as retribution, the stigmatization or labeling of the offender continues to play an important role in punishment. For example, if we think of custodial sentences as a form of deterrence, as instrumentalism proposes, it is necessary to consider the totality of the “costs” that the punishment implies, to maximize the dissuasive effect. It is established that prison sentences have as main cost for the transgressor the loss of freedom and as secondary costs the loss of the family and the community; the loss of a present job (if any) and the stigmatization resulting from having been criminally accused and having been in prison, with the attached costs in terms of future employment opportunities and social prestige that this implies (Parekh & Childs, 2016). The theory predicts that, together, these costs will serve to deter potential offenders from carrying out illicit activities. The stigmatization is, therefore, from the utilitarian stance, not only something common, but desirable, since it helps the punishment to effectively fulfill its dissuasive function.
Retributionism has also emphasized the importance of stigma in punishment. Whitman (2003 p. 20) highlights the importance of the degradation of the offender as an intrinsic part of criminal punishment. According to the author, from the Greeks to modern retribution theorists such as Jean Hampton, the role of offender degradation is not only a collateral consequence of punishment, but an essential part of it. Even, Whitman points out (2003, p.23), sociologists such as Harold Garfinkel have studied the criminal trial (not just punishment) as a ceremony designed to ritually degrade the offender. A contemporary example that illustrates this process is that of the trials against military men in which the guilty party, as part of the punishment, is stripped of insignias on his uniform that denote hierarchy. The punishment, in this case, confers on the offender a lower social status, as part of the message of disapproval that the society or community has against the reproached act. It is precisely for this reason that several critics oppose sanctions that seek to humiliate publicly and generate embarrassment in the offender (shaming sanctions ) as a form of deterrence, because a system of punishments based on pointing out the inferiority of some is incompatible with the presuppositions of an egalitarian and liberal democracy (Spapens, White & Kluin, 2014).
Such is the case of the punishments that recently resurfaced in the United States, which seek to publicly expose those convicted of certain non-serious and non-violent crimes and generate shame in them. In New York and Texas, for example, those who have been found guilty of driving while intoxicated are forced to place stamps on their car that indicate that they have been violators of the regulations that prohibit the driving of vehicles while intoxicated. In Florida and Oregon, some judges have also condemned offenders of non-violent sexual crimes to place signs on their property or address indicating their crime and conviction (Goffman, 2009).
It should be clarified that not only the criminal punishment, but also the criminal process (since the accusation is made), has a component of dishonor for the accused. According to Whitman (2003), there is a degree of contamination involved in the criminal process itself. It is not necessary, in this sense, to be found guilty before a competent court to acquire the social status of a criminal and be considered risky. The mere act of being designated as suspect (or) normally involves part of the burden of “criminal” status. For example, after an arrest we often see the defendants exhibited by the prosecutors on television and in the press as the result of their work, not as the starting point of an investigation or criminal process (Ryan, Leversee & Lane, 2010). These subjects have not been found guilty by any court, possibly they have not even been formally accused. However, because they are publicly identified as possible culprits, the message that they represent a risk to society is transmitted. That is why it is advocated to prohibit the public display of the image or names of suspects and defendants, as it also states that said exhibition violates the right of presumption of innocence (Tyler, 2006).
This is also why the current use of pretrial detention for those awaiting a sentence (which today represents more than 40% of prisoners in the country) is worrisome: the message conveyed is that they are too risky to allow their free passage, even when they have not been found guilty of any crime (Thompson, 2008). The effectiveness of criminal law has as a precondition the existence of social norms that reinforce it. New work done from behavioral economics show the subtleties that this implies, by showing the importance of incorporating to the analysis of compliance, in addition to the probabilities of punishment and the severity of it, the role of emotions, such as shame or contempt, for the social order (Massaro, 1997: 654). Thus, it is tried to account, from the economic rationality, of why the disapproval of others produces adherence to the norms, in spite of the personal cost that represents to comply with them.
To conclude, the goal of the paper was to give some of the reasons why some populations are targeted for punishment even for crimes they have not committed. I have demonstrated how and why are some populations targeted for punishment in the absence of crime. The underlying reason, according to the paper, is stigma. Stigma makes the law enforcing agencies behave irrationally towards some segments of population and even adopt any way to ensure that they punish them for mistake and offense they did not commit.
References
Chan, W & Chunn, DE (2014) Racialization, crime, and criminal justice in Canada. Available from: https://openurl.uquebec.ca:9003/uqam?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.isbn=9781442605756. [Accessed on 10/6/18]
Fagan, J and Tracey M (2008), “Punishment, deterrence and social control: The paradox of punishment in minority communities”, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. 173 (6) pp.173-229.
Gitterman, A (2014) Handbook of social work practice with vulnerable and resilient populations. Available from: https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1634824. [Accessed on 10/6/18]
Goffman, A (2009), “On the run: Wanted men in a Philadelphia ghetto”. American Sociological Review 74 (3), pp.339-357.
Jeffrey, F and Meares, T (2008), “Punishment, deterrence and social control: The paradox of punishment in minority communities”, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 173 (6), pp.173-229
Major, B and O’Brien, L (2005), “The social psychology of stigma”, Annual Review of Psychology 56 (3) pp.393-421
Massaro, T (1997), “The meaning of shame: Implications for legal reform”. Psychology, Public Policy and Law 3 (4) pp.645-704.
Parekh, R & Childs, EW (2016) Stigma and Prejudice: Touchstones in Understanding Diversity in Healthcare. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27580-2. [Accessed on 10/6/18]
Ryan, G, Leversee, TF, & Lane, S (2010) Juvenile Sexual Offending Causes, Consequences, and Correction, Hoboken, Wiley.
Schaefer, RT (2008) Encyclopedia of race, ethnicity, and society. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage Publications. Available from: https://ihcproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7C9781412956314&v=2.1&u=mnainver&it=etoc&p=GVRL&sw=w. [Accessed on 10/6/18]
Spapens, AC, White, RD, & Kluin, M (2014) Environmental crime and its victims perspectives within green criminology. Ebooks. Available from: https://cmich.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://lib.myilibrary.com/detail.asp?ID=674539. [Accessed on 10/6/18]
Thompson, A (2008) Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities: Reentry, Race, and Politics. New York: New York University Press.
Tyler, T (2006), Why People Obey the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Whitman, J Q (2003), Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe. New York: Oxford University Press.
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