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Monthly Archives: August 2011
Haldol
This is an advertisement for the psychotropic drug Haldol. It was featured in a psychiatric journal in the sixties, which will bring a couple of things to mind. The “belligerent” man depicted in the picture is clearly a black man, in an aggressive, assaultive stance.
This advertisement was run right around the civil rights era, which does something to explain the unexplained aggressive, assaultive, and belligerent behavior. What do you do when someone just wont stay in their place? You confine and medicate them against their will. This ad is a lot to swallow.
I don’t know whether such a thing actually did take place at the time, but the insinuation is enough for me. Everything about this advertisement screams social control. The words are made to instill fear within the reader, to cause a sort of panic about what could be, and will be possible, if certain measures and precautions are not taken.
The ad is also careful to add: Usually leaves patients relatively alert and responsive. Relative to what- a vegetable? What happens not usually? Who cares, this guy just wont stay in his place.
Seriously though, this is maybe the most racist ad I’ve ever seen, even for the time. The way it panders to a deep-seated psychological fear about the unrest of a disenfranchised race is pretty low ball. It’s hard to think of something more offensive. And again, the implications of locking someone up and medicating them because they threaten your political and economic stability is just terrible. Really, really terrible.
Social Control Tool? Absolutely.
Posted in Assignment 5
Tagged control, deviant behavior, medicalization of deviance, Moral Panic, racism, society
92 Comments
EyeWitness ID’s
In this article of the NY Times, it talks about eyewitness id’s, and how most of the time they are wrong. These is actually interesting because this interferes with statistics. Of course we have the statistics of what percent are wrong, but it makes you think why would you call something in if you are lying. I think this is what they are trying to do in the supreme court now. Can those who lie of eyewitness be convicted for lying and providing wrong information? Then it brings up the issue of maybe it was just an honest mistake. How will the court know what an honest mistake is, or whether maybe you are trying to cover up someone or something. The supreme court will visit this issue after 34 years where it has not been brought up. I think this also links to women and their statement. Even though the article does not mention anything about women and their statements, but after all of our readings, we know that we can sound convincing, and if we convince the jury of something that we did not see, then someone innocent might get to go to jail. Eyewitness “research shows that juries tend to ‘over believe’ eyewitness testimony.” In the long run a lot of innocent people might be wrongfully convicted because of this.
-Armenis P.
Bad Police Officers
In the Daily News on Aug 15, there was an article of police officers robbing. Now this has become a too often coincidence that police officers are abusing their power. Not only did they commit these crimes guns, knifes and even “bogus warrants,” they were getting away with it for almost a year. This string of robberies started in Oct of 2011, and they have continued until the feds caught up with them. I feel that once again police officers have betrayed their citizens trust. We do know that they are some good police officers out there, but finding those bad picks from bunch, is giving the nypd such a bad name and reputation. These type of news are happening way to often. We talk about surveillance on us, and how it deters us from doing something wrong, so i wonder what type of surveillance are these police officers not receiving, that they are doing all these terrible things?
-Armenis P.
Broken Windows Theory
This article in the Washington Post, talks about the broken windows theory and depending on what race you are then it depends on how you view the theory. They did a couple of studies around this theory and what they found was very interesting. Depending on your race, you viewed certain situations differently. They took surveys, home videos, phone interviews to gather all of their information. Whats interesting about the whole thing is that they all had negative things to say about other races, but nothing about their own. The look at the faulty things on other people, and think that no-one from their race is capable of doing such graffiti on the wall, or throwing litter on the floor. If something such as this is not part of their everyday lives, then they are against it, but me, growing up in the south bronx, its a normal everyday thing for me. Of course its wrong, but no-one is the neighborhood seems to care. They actually stand back and let it happen. I see the difference when sometimes there is a home game at yankee stadium, and the white people (no offense to no-one) will not dare go pass the grand concourse, because everything seems different to them. Its an environment that they are not used too, so they are against it. Then again you hear so many bad things about the bronx, but its not always true, so i dont blame them for not wanting to stick around after the game.
-Armenis P.
Graffiti Summit and the Broken Windows Theory
The embedded video relates to the class reading “Broken Windows” by Wilson and Kelling. A news anchor woman interviews the Corpus Christi Police Chief about a Graffiti Summit taking place in his town that night. The PC says that graffiti has been happening in bigger, higher profiler areas, churches, etc. He said past graffiti summits in their town have attracted elected officials, citizens, and other law enforcement agencies looking to collaborate with and help the CCPD prevent graffiti. The PC mentions that state representatives proposed new laws to combat graffiti, and that judges have issued harsher penalties for graffiti. The news anchor even comments that the community’s involvement is necessary for this undertaking to be successful. All of this reflects the article’s emphasis on collaboration being important to police maintaining order in a community:
“These rules were defined and enforced in collaboration with the “regulars” on the street…If someone violated them the regulars not only turned to [the police officer] for help but also ridiculed the violator” (Wilson & Kelling, 2).
When the PC said
“we’re not there yet, but we’re definitely taking a bite out of graffiti”
this reminded me of an officer’s description of running out gang members from neighborhoods in the article:
“We kick ass” (Wilson & Kelling, 8).
By pursuing these quality of life issues, not violent crimes, the police do really feel like they are accomplishing something and not wasting their resources.
When the news anchor comments that
“Graffiti leads to other crime.”
the PC says she is right. He says that it not only leads to other crimes such as petty theft, but that it’s an important quality of life issue. This harkens back to the “Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program” that was done in Newark in the 1970’s, which was
“designed to improve the quality of community life…” (Wilson & Kelling, 1).
The news anchor brings up criminology’s Broken Windows Theory. According to her, the theory says that when a community isn’t taken care of, then people stop caring about the community and commit more crime. The class article says this about the theory:
“Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken… one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing” (Wilson & Kelling, 2-3).
The PC affirms the anchor’s statement, and says the Broken Windows Theory was used to deter crime in NYC. The way he says this suggests to me that, because NYC used this measure, that it is a good idea to use it as a model for other police departments.
– Kelly Reznick
PA Flash Mobs (again)
I remember discussing this topic 2 weeks ago in regards to the issue of flash mobs. Well this article clearly exposes the dangers related to this practice, where several muggings, attacks or teenage/gang fights occur, endangering other innocent bystanders. The solution to this problem has been found by imposing a curfew for minors or youngster in University City.
Laurentiu Stan
Medications Are a Form of Social Control
This video ties into the reading “From Badness to Sickness: Changing Designations of Deviance and Social Control” by Conrad and Schneider. In Frontline’s documentary “Medicating Kids”, a 6th grader Noelle is diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin following misbehavior at school, including fights and suspensions. Her initial reaction to being prescribed is that the Ritalin helps her to do better in everything that she’s doing, increases her attention span, and helps her concentrate. This is important because she is involved in gymnastics and performing poor in school, and the Ritalin’s effect on her increases her performance in both. Her teachers are happy that her behavior has changed and that they no longer have to deal with her past aggressive behavior.
Noelle’s parents were hesitant to put her on Ritalin, but her mother said that she decided to go through with it after talking to two doctors. The doctors told her that so many studies had been done on Ritalin, proving it’s safety and effectiveness. This relates to the article, where it says that the technological advances of the 20th century have legitimized medical treatment of behavioral problems.
However, Noelle eventually wants to stop taking Ritalin when she realizes how it affects her mood. She is no longer vibrant and as socially active as she used to be. But Noelle’s parents encouraged her to take the Ritalin, citing her better performance in school and gymnastics. Noelle reminded her parents that they told her that she did not have to take medication if she didn’t want to, that it was up to her. This reflects the issue of patient’s rights brought up in the article, when conflicts arise between what the physician and patient want:
“In modern technological societies, medicine has followed a technological imperative- that the physician is responsible for doing everything possible for the patient- while neglecting such significant issues as the patient’s rights and wishes…” (Conrad & Schneider, 149).
Her physician’s aim was to legitimize his job and control her behavior by prescribing Ritalin. Noelle’s wish was to have a better social life in school, which was severly impeded by the Ritalin.
At the end of the video, Noelle says that ADHD is
“not something you can prevent.”
This reflects the second condition mentioned in the article pertaining to the patient’s “sick role” as part of the physician-patient relationship.
“It is this relationship that serves the key social control function of minimizing the disruptiveness of sickness to the group or society.” (Conrad & Schneider, 145).
The condition that Noelle is referring to, that her doctor most likely taught her to think, is that
“…the individual is not held responsible for his or her condition and cannot be expected to recover by an act of will.” (Conrad & Schneider, 145)
– Kelly Reznick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAA1BR5-dR4
Posted in Assignment 4
Tagged ADHD, Conrad and Schneider, control, delinquency, medicalization of deviance
21 Comments
Disabled and Proud
The following video is a trailer for a documentary about the Empowered Fe Fes (females). These young disabled women take to the streets of Chicago to interview non-disabled people regarding their feelings about disabilities and the handicapped and disfigured. The women also talk about their experiences of being treated differently and discriminated against because of their physical disability. This video ties in to the Erving Goffman reading from class, “Stigma and Social Identity”, which discusses interactions between the disabled and the non-disabled.
In the video, a disabled interviewer asked a non-disabled man what he would do if he were to become handicapped. The interviewee responded that he would pray to God and ask God to make him like everyone else, meaning a non-disabled person. This reminded me of the part in the reading where it discusses that people develop justifications for discriminating against the disabled.
“Further, we may perceive his defensive response to his situation as a direct expression of his defect, and then see both the defect and response as just retribution for something he or his parents or his tribe did, and hence a justification of the way we treat him” (Goffman, 3).
The interviewee’s would-be plea to God to erase his disability reflects a view that can be held by religious people. A Christian might believe that if you do everything right in your life, you will be rewarded by God. Therefore, that Christian might feel that if one suffers from a handicap, then that person did something wrong and, as a result of their actions, is now being punished by God. This could lead the Christian to feel justified in treating the disabled person harshly, as if the person deserves the disability for some supposed wrongdoing.
A young disabled women in the video describes what non-disabled people call her:
“They call me stupid, slow.”
These words used to describe the girl are what Goffman calls “stigma terms.” These are words that people use to label and marginalize the disabled.
“We use specific stigma terms such as cripple, bastard, moron in our daily discourse as a source of metaphor and imagery, typically without giving thought to the original meaning” (Goffman, 3).
Another disabled girl tells us how she was treated in high school differently because of her physical handicap:
“It was totally awful! Because I would get talked about and put down because of my disability.”
And another girl says how people told her she wasn’t able of accomplishing certain things. They would say:
“You can’t do this, you don’t know how to do that…”
These situations clearly reflects the property of a stigma, that it is an
“attribute that is deeply discrediting.” (Goffman, 2)
– Kelly Reznick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8ZPEC4qSE
Murders in Retreat in the US
According to this article of the New York Times, murders have decreased in the United States from 24,000 in 1991, to 15,000 this past year. But then again we would have not known that because of so many crime shows that we watch on an everyday routine. The article talks about how crime shows are very popular now a days. It has its own channel, Investigation Discovery (i love this channel by the way) where they show, shows such as 48 hours and dateline. These shows are actually based on real life murders, or murders that happen in other shows or books, and they just add their little twist to them. These type of shows have become very popular within the last few years, maybe because it gives you that suspense, as to who was it really that committed the murder and why.
I now think if these type of shows is the reason why murders have gone down. If you really think about it, these shows for the most part, at the end of the day the culprit is found at the end, and technically in the perfect murder they are not. Maybe after watching these shows people are starting to think that there is no such thing as a perfect murder.
-Armenis P.
Public Surveillance History
In this article that i found, it gives you some type of history on how video surveillance became about. It gives you what rights you have, as well as what they can do with the surveillance that they just taped. What i thought was interesting was:
A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another. When [an individual] traveled over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.
This is a different side of the surveillance cameras, and if you think about it this way, then its true. Technically, if you are walking down the street, then you are in the pubic eye, and you are giving all your rights up, because at the end of the day, everyone can see your actions. You are not in a private property, hiding from everyone, but you are actually giving up that right when you step out in the public.
The article also gives us information on how different countries such as England, and France use the surveillance system to make sure everyone is okay. It also has different cases and charts, and lets you know what type of surveillance was implemented and how effective it was. For the most part, having that type of video surveillance did something positive for the community, either crimes being lowered, or local business benefiting from them.
-Armenis P.
