Chapter 9 Deviance and Control

The Cause of death: Inequality article written by author Alejandro Reuss discuss the relationship between social inequality and health, comparison of the health dangers in lower and higher-income families, Health inequality in the United States; Comparison of the life expectancy .

It’s a very well written article. It details even the orders of the rich among themselves. Even the affluent can suffer as much as the underprivileged when it comes to health issues because of stress related issues.  

Now an interesting study showed that “the more unequal the income distribution in a country, state, city etc, the lower the life expectancy for people at all income levels.” That’s a scary thought. One would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to help those at the lower end of the scale.
 I won't be surprised to find those in the lower incomes suffer from higher heart disease due to inability to eat more nutritious meals, afford proper healthcare or poor health habits such as smoking or lack of exercise, however; it’s not limited to just the poor.

Infectious diseases kill 1/3 worldwide; AIDS is top cause of death in developing region Worldwide, one death in three is from an infectious or communicable disease, such as HIV/AIDS. However, almost all these deaths occur in the non-industrialized world. Health inequality effects not just how people live, but often dictates how and at what age they die. The pie graphs show the different causes of death between regions of the world defined by the WHO as high and low mortality regions. These areas correspond closely with the non-industrialized and industrialized parts of the world. As the graph shows, the majority of people in high-mortality countries die of communicable diseases, while in low-mortality countries deaths are due largely to non-communicable diseases.

Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System

    

In the Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System article by David Cole, he argues the points about the inequality of race and class in the criminal justice system, providing that white defendants have more power in the court room than such as being able to afford a Lawyer, having a jury composed of members of their own race and their faces aren't seen as image associated with crime and the black defendants are poor and a member of racial minority. Cole stated “My claim is not simply that we have ignored inequality’s effect within the criminal justice system, nor that we have tried but failed to achieve equality there. Rather, I contend that our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.”
In the O.J. Simpson case where he was prosecuted for the deaths of his ex-wife and her male friend, the split screen image captures in a moment the division between Black and White people as 3/4 of black students at the Howard Law School supports O.J. Simpson throughout the whole trial as oppose to students at the George Washington University Law School sit shocked in silence as they watched the same scene.

The lingering effects of slavery for contributing to the breakdown of the black family, for example: the rise of single-parent families headed by females ("matriarchy"). The lack of a father in the home led to poor socialization of young black males, e.g., inability to deal with authority; and that matriarchy severely reduced the esteem of men as the family "breadwinner". Black people are seen as very arrogant, defensive and loud, but I believe this image is steered from time of slavery, the way in which they were socialized, oppressed by the whites, and as a result they become rebellious. The criminal justice system for one does not make it better for people of color, because they plaster this image on black people.

Statistics have shown that more than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.