Groups in society are policed differently. Discuss your answer in relation to class, race or gender

Civil society operates smoothly because most of its members retain respect of the rule of law. Law is to protect the individuals within a society from wrongdoing by others, providing a legal framework from which punishment may be meted out should the laws of a society be broken. In a system which promotes the equality between its individual citizens, all should expect to be subject to the same laws and also to receive the same punishment should it be deserved. However, it often seems that there are discrepancies in the way ‘criminals’ from different classes are policed when laws are broken. A member from a higher class can expect far different treatment than a citizen from a lower societal class. This essay will discuss how groups in society are policed differently in relation to the policing of different classes.
As evidence of the differences in policing between the classes, crime has even been separated into different categories in everyday vernacular. You have standard crime, committed by ordinary people, and then you have ‘white collar’ crime, committed by the upper class, and those with enough education to have a career which enables to stay clean enough to wear a white collar. The punishments for non-violent, white collar crime are generally less severe in terms of sentence time and conditions of detention, even though these crimes often affect greater quantities of victims in more permanent ways. Standard criminal activity faces longer sentences in harsher conditions, although often those from higher classes see leniency in this type of criminal activity as well.
“Except for the most serious crimes, it was found that the proportions of street crimes committed by middle-class and lower-class youths are similar (Currie, 1985; Elliott and Huizinger, 1983). The biggest differences are in how they are policed, charged and how punishments are meted out between members of different classes. It was further found that the lower-class offender is more likely to be arrested, charged, and convicted by the criminal justice system (Liska and Chamin, 1984; Sampson, 1986).” (Henry and Lanier, 1998, p. 33). It would often appear that that the seriousness of a crime is not important in determining the strength of a punishment, but more important is the neighborhood where you lived, or the school which you attended. Also, the poorer a neighborhood is, the larger the police force for monitoring the behavior of its residents. Studies have found that “the number of police (per population) hired by a community is related to the level of inequality in the community, not simply the rate of poverty in the community, (Kerbo, 2003 p. 250).
“The community policing doctrine does include an element of reforming society by arbitrating conflict and supporting interests that promote what police perceive as order and stability. …including occasional actions against the immediate interest of members of the capitalist class is . . . concerned with the implementation of legislation which will maximize the social reproduction of appropriate labour, repress the “social dynamite” of threatening . . . marginal groups and combat the power of organized labour'”, (Fielding, 1995, p. 32). With this in mind, it is simple to see there is even a difference in the way the different classes are policed in relation to mass disputes and protests. For example, when blue-collar, working class working wish to protest in regard to an injustice, their actions are restricted by policing mechanisms. In the South Yorkshire mines, in 1984, a heavy control was placed on the activities of the picketers by the police, even though ‘most of the picketing that took place during the coal dispute was peacefully conducted,” (McCabe and Wallington, 1988, p. 69). The restrictions of the civil liberties of the working class workers was legitimized through the reasoning that “the first duty of police…is to maintain the order and stability that will allow an elected government to pursue the purposes for which it was elected,”( McCabe and Wallington, 1988. p. 69). It was considered acceptable to use policing to control the working class in order of the middle/upper classes. This is even though protest and riots are one of the primary mechanisms that the lower classes use to be heard by lawmakers. “When the poor have gained political influence, it was often gained outside the normal channels of political influence-that is through social movements and riots,” (Kerbo, 2003, p 282).
This is not the only such example of policing working for the higher classes against the working classes. When a ban on fox hunting, a popular sport of the aristocracy and upper classes was put in to effect in February 2005, police were used to protect the upper class hunters against protesters when they persisted in the hunting activities. It was even noted by journalists that “Were the police to treat the hunters as they treat animal rights folk or the Muslim community, they would be stopping and searching toffs under the anti-terror laws.” (Thomas, 2004, p. 20).
There are many examples of white collar criminals getting a light touch by the authorities. In a recent incident in Florida, USA, a British historian and professor, Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto was arrested for jay-walking, and even though he resisted arrest, the charges were later dropped as his livelihood depended on being able to work in the United States. This is a classic example where an individual was ‘let off lightly’ because they were not considered to be an actual threat to society based on their position in the class system. Fernandez-Arnesto believed that “because my eloquence before a judge obtained my immediate release,” (BBC, 12 Jan, 2007). This story includes a word of warning for other British of less illustrious status, “Not every jaywalking Brit abroad will be similarly blessed, nor enjoy the intervention of the city mayor,” (BBC 12 Jan, 2007). Had the professor not been a member of a higher class, he would have been fined, and would have had a permanent mark on his criminal record.
Another discrepancy in the treatment of members from different classes is the different ways they carry out sentences when they are convicted of crimes. Those from the lower classes are far more likely to serve prison sentences in a real cell, and then afterwards to be monitored with parole than are those from higher classes. Those from higher classes are often punished with various forms of community service, given large fines which are easily affordable, placed under house arrest, or some even housed in ‘luxury’ prisons with no comforts spared. An example of this is the arrest and conviction of television home-making icon Martha Stewart. When convicted for lying to securities commissions and making inside trade deals on the stock market which reaped the profits of millions, she spent part of her sentence in a prison unit for prisoners with special exemption. She was even able to ‘bid’ for the facility where she wanted to serve her sentence. A far cry different to the overcrowded conditions of many standard prisons including exclusion from the joy of pot-scrubbing and brawls with other inmates. The last portion of her sentence was carried out in the luxury of her own million pounds home.
It is easy to see that the higher an individual’s standing within the social class system, the easier the policing and criminal justice system favours them. They are not considered to be as threatening to society, even though they are just as human as the classes beneath them. When labeling the different classes with different ‘risk levels’ and their need to be policed, Giddens says that “the politics in class society is concerned not with risk, but with the attainment and retention of social wealth (Taylor, 1999: 207),” (in Carrabine, et al. 2004, p. 104). If the social status of the upper classes can be maintained, then the policing system is working. The activities of the working-classes are likely to be viewed as in need of social control, thus the need for a police system. In fact, “Sidney Harring wryly notes: “The criminologist’s definition of ‘public order crimes’ comes perilously close to the historian’s description of ‘working-class leisure-time activity, ‘” (Williams, 2003, p. 16). If you are of the lower class, your activities are already deemed as being against social order even without a crime ever being committed. There is no applying the idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, guilt is automatically assigned by virtue of birth.
In a modern civilized society, it would be expected that each member of a civilization could expect to receive the same treatment by its formal institutions. But it is clear from the evidence and attitudes that there is great differentiation and disparity among treatment of the different classes in regards to how they are policed. Perhaps time and the trend towards greater social mobility will eventually help to eliminate this conditions, but until then should you find yourself in the wrong class through the unfortunate circumstance of birth, make sure you are able to maintain inculpability in the eyes of the law.