When young men behave and live in relation to a world they view as constantly criminalizing them, they are being forced to ‘act lawful[ly].’
“Many of [the boys’] social relations were structured by their attempts to prove their innocence, what I refer to as ‘acting lawful’” (19).
‘Acting lawful’ influences the experience of living for these young boys, their worldview, their actions—they had to act in a state of apprehension to prove they were not criminals. ‘Acting lawful’ describes a “consequence of social control on the lives of young people” (9), which is the point of Rios’ project.
“Courtesy Stigma” (Sarah Edwards)
A negative assumption that is applied to an individual who is related to someone with a preexisting stigma.
“School personnel, police, and probation officers provided the boys’ parents with ‘courtesy stigmas.’” (82).
Courtesy stigmas are usually applied to the parents or relatives of criminalized Black and Latino boys, and thus can transform familial relations into another source of surveillance and punishment in the lives of these youths. Stigmas are applied by those in authority and reduce the possibility for a nurturing and supportive environment to emerge within an already unstable situation.
Criminalization (Andrew Durand)
1. The rhetorical construction of bodies as risks that are prone to illicit activity and the subsequent framing of those “risks” as needing juridical intervention in order to be stopped
2. “In this social order where young people placed at risk were treated as potential criminals, social relations, worldviews, and creative responses were often influenced by this process of criminalization” (5).
3. This definition is important because it provides insight into how specific bodies are framed within a law enforcement paradigm. Further, criminalization provides words to describe structural forms of oppression.
Critical Criminology (Nathan Gruenberg)
A theoretical perspective in criminology that contests hegemonic understandings and illuminates incorrect beliefs about crime and criminal justice (Nathan Gruenberg).
“In order to create a study that would uncover the process of criminalization that young people experienced, I combined the methods of critical criminology with urban ethnography to develop an understanding of the punitive state through the lens of marginalized populations […] Critical criminology, the study of crime in relation to power, which explicitly exams crime as a socially constructed phenomenon, allowed me to bring to light the mechanisms responsible for the plight of marginalized male youths in the new millennium (10).
This is a significant term because it further reinforces why Rios chose to conduct his research through shadowing marginalized youth. Furthermore, as Rios explains above, critical criminology allows him to identify what social institutions and ideologies that have allowed male youths to be marginalized in the urban settings.
Hotspots (Sam Jacobson)
1. Locations in a neighborhood or a community where violence has or tends to occur.
2. “Fifteen-year old Slick, a Latino kid born and raised in Oakland, showed me the ‘hotspots’: street intersections and sidewalks where life-altering experiences linger, shaping you people’s perspectives of the area.
3. Hotspots are important to understand in the context of understanding a community, how it operates and how its individuals experience and react to violence and fear. In knowing the hotspots, people learn which places to stay away from at which times and how to navigate in a world where death and violence are a constant concern.
“Jungle-book trope” (Andy Monserud)
1. A narrative employed by some writers in which the researcher “goes native” and emerges triumphantly having conquered an othered group.
2. “Narratives such as [sociologist Sudhir] Venkatesh’s create what I call a ‘jungle-book trope.’ This very familiar colonial fairy-tale narrative in the Western imagination of the ‘Other’ goes something like this: ‘I got lost in the wild, the wild people took me in and helped me, made me their king, and I lived to tell civilization about it!’” (Rios 14).
3. The jungle-book trope is a rhetorical device that both aggrandizes the user and simplifies the issues studied, making them easy to ‘conquer’ for the researcher (and you, too, reader! Etc.). Rios seeks to counter this mentality by normalizing the territory of his analysis. This is aided by the fact that he is not “going native” but by “going back” to his own roots, as he quips to a professor (Rios 15).
Moral Panics (Emma Dulaney)
The dominant circulation of "fear" discourse in order to reaffirm society's ideologies.
"Moral panics, those events or people- for example, black muggers, AIDS, pregnant teens gang members- deemed a threat to mainstream society," (7).
The moral panics of 'the war on drugs' and the 'war on gang violence' were rhetorically constructed to excuse the criminalization of marginalized bodies. Moral panics cause all people, from teachers to police officers, to treat the marginalized youth body as criminal and subhuman.
O.G Sociology (Andrew Durand)
1. A method of investigation whereby an individual conducting ethnographic research shares common ground with the subjects being researched from previous experiences of “putting in work.”
2. “I often saw myself conducting O.G Sociology, similar to John Irwin’s Convict Criminology, where someone who had previously been incarcerated—in my case, someone who had also “put in work” (belonged to a street gang)—became an analyst of this very same experience” (13).
3. This term is useful because it provides specificity to the method being employed by Rios. Because Rios comes from a similar background as the people he interviews, the knowledge he constructs will be shaped by those experiences, this necessitates a unique term to describe what exactly it is he is doing.
Panopticon (Sam Jacobson)
1. A structure of control by which prisoners self-discipline and regulate themselves because of the perception that they are constantly under surveillance by a disciplinary power.
2. “The practice of constant surveillance, what he calls “panopticism,” makes individuals internalize their punishment and become self-disciplined docile bodies (88).”
3. The panopticon is a very “scientific, neat,” structured system of control and reform. Because of its architecture, when in place, it becomes possible for prisoners to all but watch themselves.
Paradox of Control (Logan Miller)
A phenomenon where the ones in control of young people rely on criminal justice discourses and metaphors to attempt to control the young, yet by trying to instill fear in them it only creates hatred of the police and the criminal justice system and has them more likely to commit crimes.
"A paradox of control took precedent: based on informal conversations with officers, I found that many of them seemed to sympathize with the poverty and trauma that many young people experienced; however, in an attempt to uphold the law and maintain order, officers often took extreme punitive measures with youths perceived as deviant or criminal."
This paradox of control leads to the general negative attitude of many youths towards the police. Yet since their parents cannot control them outside of their homes the only method of punishment that is effective is the police, which leads to more hatred of police.
"Play" (Emma Dulaney)
Time spent participating in activities that are 'unproductive' by Capitalistic standards.
"Labor historian Robin Kelley argues that young people become involved in 'play'- the seeking of personal enjoyment despite their detrimental circumstances," (76).
The criminalization of 'play' represents the policing of the marginalized body's use of time and place. When community members accuse young people of "loitering" they are promoting the hegemonic criminalization of the marginalized.
Probation (Andy Monserud)
1. Following their first release from jail, prison or juvenile detention, young Black and Latino men are typically put on probation (or, in the case of prison, parole), which forbids them from participating in a number of behaviors seen by the state as conducive to reoffending.
2. “According to the boys I interviewed, probation officers served the purpose of punishing them by branding them criminals in front of the rest of the community and by marking their territory in the settings through which the boys navigated” (Rios 84).
3. Probation is a losing game for many of Rios’ subjects. Rather than providing services aimed at enabling rehabilitation, probation officers typically spend most of their time policing their charges’ behavior. They put the focus on punishment rather than on any kind of positive change, and the stigma around probation often further alienates boys and men from disapproving communities.
Punishment (Nick Hochfeld)
The act of placing consequences onto “criminals”, which perpetuates the idea of criminality and strengthens the dichotomy between “good” and “bad” members of society.
"Punishment is one of the many institutions which helps construct and support the social world by producing the shared categories and authoritative classifications through which individuals understand each other and themselves.” (75)
This term is significant because it highlights the constructed nature of the divide between “good kids” and “bad kids” and reinforces the common definitions of criminality. Through continued punishment in every aspect of the lives of urban youths, these children are trapped in a system of scrutiny and sigma, eventually coming to see themselves as criminals and becoming disillusioned to the state and their communities.
Snitching (Nate Olson)
Working with social control agents and the system of social control by separating ones friends and community.
"Snitching, for young men in this study, meant collaborating with the youth control complex" (22)
Refers to the conflict between criminalizing institutions and youth friend groups and provides a reference to how each side views the other. Presents the irreconcilable expectations of each group and the unenviable position of an individual who earns this moniker.
Social Control Agents (Nathan Gruenberg)
Authority figures/adults and institutions that are potentially affected by the living situations and well-being of youth. (Nathan Gruenberg)
“Although a study of authority figures and social control agents—school personnel, police, politicians, and other adults who hold a stake in overseeing the well-being of young people—could have provided a broader array of perspectives on punishment, I decided to focus on the voices of the youth. This is partly because I found that the perspectives of social-control agents were commonly represented in the media and institutional discourse and practices” (9).
This is a significant term because it shows the reasoning behind Rios’ decision to focus on obtaining his research by shadowing the youth. Furthermore, these social-control agents sometimes have ulterior motives, or biases that hinder them from disclosing the “real” and “lived” experiences that punished youth are experiencing; These social-control agents are important to consider because it is a group that must be questioned when trying to express the true experiences of these punished groups.
“Social Death” (Sarah Edwards)
A process in which individuals are systematically violated and denied participation in social relations which, if allowed, would confirm their humanity.
“Jose and six of the other young men in this study, all ultimately ending up in prison, experienced what sociologist Orlando Patterson calls ‘social death.’
Scholars have argued that social death is inherent within the prison system, yet Rios takes this concept and applies it to the entire criminalization process of Black and Latino boys. These smaller doses of social death, which Rios refers to as social incapacitations, prevent young boys from connecting to any form of support system or feelings of human dignity.
Standpoint Epistemology (Jenny Gruenberg)
Using personal lived experience to discern what you know.
"All knowledge is rooted in experience and those who have lived on the margins provide crucial insights to specific social problems" (14).
Rooting knowledge in the lived experience of those who experience the most discrimination is essential to figuring out how to make lasting social change; however, it is not a practice that is as valued as it should be in society today. Rios believes that it is his obligation to make this knowledge accessible to those who were not able to have his personal experience.
Urban Ethnography (Ione Fullerton) 1, Urban ethnography is a method of studying social relations and social life through examining the everyday, ‘on the ground,’ lived experience of a group of individuals.
2. Rios defines urban ethnography as “the systematic and meticulous methods of examining culture unfolding in everyday life” (10).
3.Rios combines urban ethnography and critical criminology, also defined on this Wiki, to understand the ‘punitive state’ from the perspective of those from the margins, the young boys, which furthers his project of understanding criminalization (10). Specifically, urban ethnography illuminates the complex lived experience of social relations and social life of the young men.
Wildling (Blake Ladenburg):
A term to describe youth, generally black, that are out of control, and free from disciplinary structures.
"The invention of terms such as wildling, as Houston Baker points out, reveal a discourse of black male youth out of control, rampaging teenagers free of the disciplinary structures of school, work, and prison." (76)
This term allows for an understanding of how marginalized youth's "play" is characterized and criminalized. The mobilization of this term constructs barriers between different groups by defining actions of one group as wild, and the same action of another group as play.
“Courtesy Stigma” (Sarah Edwards)
Criminalization (Andrew Durand)
1. The rhetorical construction of bodies as risks that are prone to illicit activity and the subsequent framing of those “risks” as needing juridical intervention in order to be stopped
2. “In this social order where young people placed at risk were treated as potential criminals, social relations, worldviews, and creative responses were often influenced by this process of criminalization” (5).
3. This definition is important because it provides insight into how specific bodies are framed within a law enforcement paradigm. Further, criminalization provides words to describe structural forms of oppression.
Critical Criminology (Nathan Gruenberg)
Hotspots (Sam Jacobson)
1. Locations in a neighborhood or a community where violence has or tends to occur.
2. “Fifteen-year old Slick, a Latino kid born and raised in Oakland, showed me the ‘hotspots’: street intersections and sidewalks where life-altering experiences linger, shaping you people’s perspectives of the area.
3. Hotspots are important to understand in the context of understanding a community, how it operates and how its individuals experience and react to violence and fear. In knowing the hotspots, people learn which places to stay away from at which times and how to navigate in a world where death and violence are a constant concern.
“Jungle-book trope” (Andy Monserud)
- 1. A narrative employed by some writers in which the researcher “goes native” and emerges triumphantly having conquered an othered group.
- 2. “Narratives such as [sociologist Sudhir] Venkatesh’s create what I call a ‘jungle-book trope.’ This very familiar colonial fairy-tale narrative in the Western imagination of the ‘Other’ goes something like this: ‘I got lost in the wild, the wild people took me in and helped me, made me their king, and I lived to tell civilization about it!’” (Rios 14).
- 3. The jungle-book trope is a rhetorical device that both aggrandizes the user and simplifies the issues studied, making them easy to ‘conquer’ for the researcher (and you, too, reader! Etc.). Rios seeks to counter this mentality by normalizing the territory of his analysis. This is aided by the fact that he is not “going native” but by “going back” to his own roots, as he quips to a professor (Rios 15).
Moral Panics (Emma Dulaney)O.G Sociology (Andrew Durand)
1. A method of investigation whereby an individual conducting ethnographic research shares common ground with the subjects being researched from previous experiences of “putting in work.”
2. “I often saw myself conducting O.G Sociology, similar to John Irwin’s Convict Criminology, where someone who had previously been incarcerated—in my case, someone who had also “put in work” (belonged to a street gang)—became an analyst of this very same experience” (13).
3. This term is useful because it provides specificity to the method being employed by Rios. Because Rios comes from a similar background as the people he interviews, the knowledge he constructs will be shaped by those experiences, this necessitates a unique term to describe what exactly it is he is doing.
Panopticon (Sam Jacobson)
1. A structure of control by which prisoners self-discipline and regulate themselves because of the perception that they are constantly under surveillance by a disciplinary power.
2. “The practice of constant surveillance, what he calls “panopticism,” makes individuals internalize their punishment and become self-disciplined docile bodies (88).”
3. The panopticon is a very “scientific, neat,” structured system of control and reform. Because of its architecture, when in place, it becomes possible for prisoners to all but watch themselves.
Paradox of Control (Logan Miller)
"Play" (Emma Dulaney)
Probation (Andy Monserud)
1. Following their first release from jail, prison or juvenile detention, young Black and Latino men are typically put on probation (or, in the case of prison, parole), which forbids them from participating in a number of behaviors seen by the state as conducive to reoffending.
2. “According to the boys I interviewed, probation officers served the purpose of punishing them by branding them criminals in front of the rest of the community and by marking their territory in the settings through which the boys navigated” (Rios 84).
3. Probation is a losing game for many of Rios’ subjects. Rather than providing services aimed at enabling rehabilitation, probation officers typically spend most of their time policing their charges’ behavior. They put the focus on punishment rather than on any kind of positive change, and the stigma around probation often further alienates boys and men from disapproving communities.
Punishment (Nick Hochfeld)
Snitching (Nate Olson)
Social Control Agents (Nathan Gruenberg)
“Social Death” (Sarah Edwards)
Standpoint Epistemology (Jenny Gruenberg)
Urban Ethnography (Ione Fullerton)
1, Urban ethnography is a method of studying social relations and social life through examining the everyday, ‘on the ground,’ lived experience of a group of individuals.
2. Rios defines urban ethnography as “the systematic and meticulous methods of examining culture unfolding in everyday life” (10).
3.Rios combines urban ethnography and critical criminology, also defined on this Wiki, to understand the ‘punitive state’ from the perspective of those from the margins, the young boys, which furthers his project of understanding criminalization (10). Specifically, urban ethnography illuminates the complex lived experience of social relations and social life of the young men.
Wildling (Blake Ladenburg):