Social Inequality In The United States

Social Inequality and Minorities in the United States

In this course I have learned about many different kinds of social problems in societies around the world and in the United States, such as poverty, social inequality, race and cultural discrimination, gender stratification, environmental damage, population growth, and urbanization. I chose my final essay to be on Social Inequality and Minorities in the United States. For me this subject raises many points of our daily life and brings us to the point of reality in our world. My paper will discuss why is deviance found in all societies? How does who and what are defined as deviant reflect social inequality? What effect has punishment had in reducing crime in the United States?
Let’s
Inequality is socially created by matching two different kinds of processes. “The social roles in society are first matched to ‘reward packages’ of unequal value and individual members of society are then allocated to the positions so defined and rewarded” Social inequality is different from economic inequality but the two inequalities are linked. Economic inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. While economic inequality is caused by the unequal distribution of wealth, social inequality exists because the lack of wealth in certain areas prohibits these people from obtaining the same housing, health care, etc. as the wealthy in societies where access to these social goods depends on wealth. “The degree of inequality in a given reward or asset depends, of course, on its dispersion or concentration across the individuals in the population”. (Dictionary.com) I also feel economic inequalities goes well with these examples before I go further…… Economic inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to
When asked this question the first thing I thought of was the four justification of punishment in our text book. Which is Retribution The oldest justification for punishment? Punishment is society’s revenge for a moral wrong. In principle, punishment should be equal in severity to the deviance itself; deterrence an early modern approach. Deviance is considered social disruption, which society acts to control. People are viewed as rational and self-interested; deterrence works because the pain of punishment outweighs the pleasure of deviance. Rehabilitation a modern strategy linked to the development of social sciences. Deviance is viewed as the result of social problems (such as poverty) or personal problems (such as mental illness). Social conditions are improved; treatment is tailored to the offender’s condition. Societal protection is a modern approach easier to carry out than rehabilitation. If society is unable or unwilling to rehabilitate offenders or reform social conditions, people are protected by the imprisonment or execution of the offender. Currently, 2 million people are imprisoned in the United States. In response to tougher public attitudes and an increasing number of drug-related arrests, the U.S. prison population has tripled since 1980. The size of the inmate population is going up in most other high-income nations as well. Yet the United States imprisons a larger share of its population