CRIMINALIZATION AND DEINDUSTRIALIZATION

BY STUDENT

Deindustrialization is the process in which factories, manufacturing plants, and the general industrial capacity of a region declines. This process mostly took place during the late 19thcentury, but continues to this day- since 2001, the US has lost 42,400 factories. (Mccormack 2009).In this post I am going to talk about the effects of deindustrialization in my hometown Schenectady, New York, and how after its deindustrialization, criminal activity and violence became an issue. How did Schenectady, a small city in upstate New York become deindustrialized, and how did this affect the city itself?

Schenectady was a central location in the development of the electrical industry. It was the site of the GE Research lab, the first industrial research lab in the world, and Schenectady was known as, “The city that Lights and Hauls the World” (miSci, 2012). During WWII, GE employed over 40,000 employees in Schenectady. Currently, GE employs only 4,000.

Edison GE Company, 1891.                           Edison GE Company, 1923.

Two views of State Street, 1924.

    

Carl Company Electrical Department.   Workers around a water generator wheel.

Schenectady Works, 1980.

Images from Museum of Innovation and Science, Schenectady, New York.

Between 1970 and 200, Schenectady has had a 20.7% decrease in its population. According to the Summary of socio-economic stress indicators for New York State cities, Schenectady has an above average index of social stress, with 20.78% of residents below the poverty line, 7.24% of housing units vacant, and 22.18% of adults without a high school diploma. (Anzilotti, 2016). The property value of Schenectady from 1998 to 2003 has also decreased by -11.48% (Hevesi, 2004).

Population Trends in Schenectady from 1950 to 2000.

	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000
Population	91,785	81,5682	77,958	67,972	65,566	61,821
Percent change	-11.0%	-4.6%	-12.8%	-3.5%	-5.7%

50 year percent change of -32.6%.

Table adapted from Population Trends in New York State’s Cities.

Schenectady’s economy was largely dependent on GE. As Schenectady deindustrialized and became a lower income area, white workers began to emigrate the city and its demographics changed, and it also began to be linked to crime. 

Image from Times Union.

Schenectady boasts one of the highest crime rates in New York, and its rates continue to increase. According to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services there was a 7.6% increase in general crime in the city of Schenectady, and a 10.8% increase in violent crime, just between the years of 2000-2004. (Stratton, 2016).

Table from City of Schenectady Comprehensive Plan 2020

Schenectady’s history and current problems demonstrate how deindustrialization that leads to low income areas become linked to crime, and as Muhammad says, criminality was “crucial to the making of modern urban America.” (pg 272). A city with long history of being pivotal in technological discovery, its current city officials are now left trying to reinvent the city of invention.

Works cited

Anzilotti, Eillie, and CityLab. “Why 300 Vacant Buildings Will Light Up in Upstate New York.” CityLab, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 6 Oct. 2016, www.citylab.com/solutions/2016/09/breathing-lights-illuminates-blight-vacancy-upstate-new-york/502283/.

Hevesi, Alan G. “Population Trends In New York State’s Cities.” Www.osc.state.ny.us/Localgov/, Office of the New York State Comptroller Division of Local Government Series, Dec. 2004, www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/pop_trends.pdf. 

Mccormack, Richard. “The Plight of American Manufacturing.” The American Prospect, TAP, 21 Dec. 2009, prospect.org/article/plight-american-manufacturing. 

miSci. “GE Photograph Collection.” Schenectady Museum Archives and Research, MiSci, 2012. www.misci.org/archives/ge_photograph_collection.html#subjects.

Stratton, Bryan U. “City of Schenectady Comprehensive Plan 2020.” Http://Www.cityofschenectady.com, City of Schenectady, 8 June 2016, www.cityofschenectady.com/DocumentCenter/View/215/Community-Profile-PDF. 

MUHAMMAD, KHALIL GIBRAN. CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, with a New Preface. HARVARD UNIV Press, 2019.

CRIMINALIZATION AND DEINDUSTRIALIZATION

CRIMINALIZATION OF LATINOS

BY STUDENT

Imagine yourself walking in a cool winter night, you’re on way home after hanging out with your friends at the local soccer field. You’re wearing an all-black outfit because that’s your favorite color, and you decide hoodie up due to the weather. As you’re walking up the block, you hear police sirens behind you and somebody yelling “FREEIZE! HANDS UP!” Then officers slam your body against the wall to search your pockets and bag. As they’re emptying out my belonging, they start to ask questions like “Where you from?”, your name, your age, and start to mention the names of friends and neighbors from your block to see if you were associated with any of them which you were since you knew them your whole life. You keep asking them the reason of this search and they tell you to mind your business and answer their questions. After the search, the officer can’t find anything illegal on you and tell you to watch yourself because they are always watching you and your friends. You head home and tell your mother what happened, all she could do is give you a hug because she knows that isn’t going to be the last time that officers of the NYPD are going stop-and-frisk you. 

That’s what happened to me when I was fourteen years living in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, NY and it occurred six more times until the NYPD wasn’t allowed to stop-and-frisk due to the racial basis on who they conducted their unwarranted searches. Stop-and-frisk gave officers the right to search people of color under the basis of probable cause or suspicion which can mean anything. From the way people of color acted, looked, and even associated themselves with. In the academic article ‘Latinas/os and US Prison; Trends and Challenges’ the author, Jose Luis Morin states that “The formulation of public policy around crime and the fear of crime, like the role of the media in promoting fear and negative images, are both influential in producing high incarceration rates that unfavorably affect persons of color.” Meaning that the people of power can cause fear into their citizens to associate crime with people of color using the media to justify their high rates of incarceration and criminalization of Blacks and Latinos since that’s how the common person consume their information. Morin also mentions how “Latinas/os are subject to myths linking criminality to immigrant status” which plays a role on how Latinos are treated in today’s privatization of prisons in the United States

Criminalizing of Black and Latinos has made the privatization of prisons into a billion-dollar industry due policy makers creating harsher punishments for crimes to incarcerate people of color or people of low-income environments to increase the number of inmates for the private prisons. In Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s ‘The Prison Fix’ explains that the “prison boom” started to help fix to the capitalist society by fixing the “surplus” spaces in the inner cities in California to fill the newly built prisons that were being built in the suburbs. Meaning that people in living in low-income spaces were being targeted and most likely to end up in these newly built prisons run by private institutions like the CCA (Corrections Corporation of America). Inmates in these prisons would work in jobs around the prison like in the kitchen, sweeping, or making underwear for the pennies an hour. An example is in the article “$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies” written by Spencer Ackerman and Adam Rawnsley states that “work isn’t mandatory, but there’s nothing to inside” said by Yesica who’s an inmate of these private ICE prisons in Texas. She’s an immigrant from El Salvador but left her country due persecution by gangs due to her sexuality. She describes her experience in these prisons as “inhumane” and “It’s like a torture chamber.” The mistreatment of immigrants in these prisons has been on today’s news frequently due to the mass amounts of immigrants being taken away from their families and locked inside these private federal prisons that have poor living conditions. Immigrant children being separated from their families and locked up in cages to face deportation without legal representation. The Trump administration is finding new ways to criminalize Latinos, and they’re using the 2020 Census by adding a question that makes people state their legal status in the United States. This can cause millions of lost submissions due immigrants fear of deportation and criminalizing them in the process. The Census is meant to determine the amount of legal representation and funding each state gets from the government. If millions of submissions from immigrants are lost, then there won’t be enough representation or funding for the immigrant population or low-income individuals and that’s what the Trump administration wants to accomplish. To change social structure of the United States back to the white majority and not the Blacks and Latinos in the lower class of our society. 

Sources:

Adam Spencer Ackerman - https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar800-million-in-taxpayer-money-went-to-private-prisons-where-migrants-work-for-pennies?ref=scroll

Latinas/os and Us Prisons: Trends and Challenges

José Morín - Latino Studies - 2008

Golden Gulag

Ruth Gilmore - University Of California Press.

 

                         

            

CRIMINALIZATION AND DEINDUSTRIALIZATION

BY STUDENT

African-Americans and Latinxs have been targets of the American justice system for decades. As a result of racism, as well as colorism, Black and Brown people have struggled with misrepresentation and stereotypes. Unfortunately, White Americans use these racial stereotypes to further perpetuate Whiteness in America. Stereotypes of being lazy and criminals labeled Black and Brown individuals, making social mobility difficult. The label “lazy” gives the impression that African-Americans and Latinxs do not want to work, and prefer to live in poverty. In reality, Black and Brown individuals want to find jobs, but the American institution is designed to benefit White people, making it very difficult for people of color to get jobs. This can be seen through deindustrialization in the 1980s in the United States. The process of deindustrialization resulted in the loss of jobs for many low income families, especially those of color. This further continues the cycle of poverty within African-Americans and Latinxs communities, causing a generational curse. From this, I pose the question “What is the correlation between deindustrialization and criminalization? 

Many African-Americans and Latinxs people traveled North during the Great Migration. This was a means of opportunity because factories were built in multiple cities. In cities such as New York and Chicago, this meant an increase of employment (“Great Migration”, 2010).  When deindustrialization was implemented, many African-Americans and Latinxs lost their factory jobs. Deindustrialization negatively impacted low income communities because people of low income communities were the main ones working in the factories. Usually these lower income communities consist of African-Americans and Latinxs. With job loss, on top of a lack of resources, sometimes people in these communities feel as if they do not have any choice but to result in illegal activities to support themselves and their families. I believe many of these crimes are results of the situations that society puts people of color in. Being that the government neglects these communities, African-Americans and Latinxs people feel as if they have no other choice but to commit certain crimes to survive. I personally believe this legacy of poverty and mistreatment of people of color is not something of the past; it is evident today. 

There is a difference between the perception of crime within white communities versus African-Americans and Latinxs. Because of the intense criminalization of African-Americans and Latinxs, it is believed that they commit more crimes than white people. I personally negate that claim. It is not that Black and Hispanics commit more crime than white people; it is that white people get away with crimes because of White privileged (“Myths about Black Crime Rates”, 2017). Community policing perpetuates the idea that people of color commit more crime, because they are basically in the communities not to help better the area, but to arrest individuals. People of color are at a disadvantage when it comes to the justice system because the criminal justice system views them as animals. Consequently, the concept of “writing crime into race and place” was perpetuated. This can be seen through Americans and Latinxs youth being sentenced as adults or being labeled as thugs, whereas white youth are labeled as youth when they commit crimes. This leads me to the question, “Why don’t police see people of color worth enough to give them the proper resources and proper protecting that they need”? 

Sources:

“White Supremacists' Favorite Myths about Black Crime Rates Take Another Hit from BJS Study.” Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/23/white-supremacists-favorite-myths-about-black-crime-rates-take-another-hit-bjs-study.

History.com Editors. (2010, March 4). Great Migration. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration

STRUGGLING FOR SPACE, CREATING LATINA/O/X URBAN CULTURES

STUDENT

New York City is one of many cities that have been Latinized in the U.S. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and more Latinized all around the U.S. But in New York there was a mix of all the Latinx population.I believe that migration from all these different countries have made New York City what it is now. Today many cities have been gentrified by Latinx community. Many families came to work in factories just so that they can provide for their families. My family shares that experience. By the 1950’s Puerto Ricans were migrating and Williamsburg, Brooklyn was becoming a home too many. Numerous countries have been migrating to the United States, especially to New York City. Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and Greenpoint are becoming gentrified but Williamsburg has been the face of gentrification. Now that I have seen everything that’s new in my neighborhood, Williamsburg Brooklyn,I have realized that Williamsburg has been the most gentrified area in Brooklyn, especially when it comes to demographics and it shows. Different ethnicities have been brought together in this community to share where we all come from. How does gentrification in a neighborhood where Latinx have migrated affect the Latinx community?

My family came to the states in the 1980’s, they were lucky enough to reside in a neighborhood where many Latinx have been settling for a while now. As Dominicans started to settle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn they realized how much culture a neighborhood was starting to multiply. When I was growing up, I saw culture everywhere in my neighborhood. From block parties to celebrating our motherland’s Independence Day with everyone in the community even if they weren’t Latinx, they still had a good time with us. As I grew older, I started to see change in my neighborhood, from seeing plenty of construction being done, down to seeing new faces on my block. Rent was affordable for the low-income families who were living in Williamsburg, which is why we always had a good time together. There was even times when my family had to attend protests so that developers wouldn’t buy out all the buildings in the neighborhood. The gentrification happened rapidly. It was a scary moment and still is today. We first saw it in bodegas, where owners had to leave because it was getting too expensive for them to continue offering low prices. Not only was the rent increasing but our local markets were getting shut down because big super markets were coming to the neighborhood. Usually people migrate for a fitter lifestyle, but people started coming to Williamsburg because they saw it was cheaper. The more people started coming the prices accelerated. Small businesses managed by Latinx had to move because they couldn’t afford what the newcomers were bringing. Majority of the Latinx in Williamsburg are low-income families, that must move because prices are increasing. The new buildings are coming in and are condos that cost millions, the developers have no sympathy for the people who have been here for years.

Many Latinx could relate to what the Young Lords have said in the past and what is still missing from many Latinx communities. Latinx having control of the communities they basically created when they arrived to the states. The Young Lords stand for Latinx having community control, housing plays a big role in this part. If Latinx had control, we wouldn’t have to move out of our first neighborhood because we can put our foot down and tell them why we deserve to stay. For that to take place today would be difficult and sometimes even a waste of time because the majority like to ignore the low-income families. Developers don’t think once about who use to live in the neighborhood they are now destroying. Not only is the Latinx community losing homes but their culture. These cities that are being gentrified have no memory of the culture that was once there and living. Culture that comes from a country they left to live the American Dream and to make their family who are back in those countries content. 

Readings

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/Young_Lords_platform.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/im-still-here-living-in-gentrification-a-puerto_us_57e17ee1e4b053b1ccf2a706

https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/gentrifiedwilliamsburg/community-1/

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

BY STUDENT

In the United States, our government has a set of laws that we all must abide by or else we face punishment. The punishment can range from miniscule fines to jail time and it’s determined on the severity of the crime committed. The government justice system also uses these laws to aid in the prevention of crime in communities by demonstrating the consequences of particular actions. However, the definition of crimes deserving jail time has changed. Nowadays people can get sent to jail simply for drug possession due to the perceived expectation that drugs will make them act violently and/or commit crimes (Gilmore, 2007, 109). But how does this concern the Latino/a/x population? In this blog post I argue how the justice system has been unfair toward the Latino/a/x community.

According to Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the “Prison Fix” there was an increase in the percentage of California prisoners of Latino/a/x ethnicity from the year of 1977 to the 2000’s. Starting at 21%, it has managed to reach 34.8%, making them the second biggest group in these institutions (Gilmore, 2007, 111). Throughout this time, there was also an increase in the percentage of inmates being in jail for drug offenses from 7.4% to 39%, making it more common than violent crimes (Gilmore, 2007, 112). How did it get to this? Well, it started with state officials fearing the loss of funding from the government for the lack of punishment in response to criminal activity. This then led to an increase in patrolling done by police officers to find people participating in illegal activities. By doing so, police officers began to patrol certain areas more than others, typically lower income neighborhoods, which would generally consist of minority groups of Latino/a/x and/or African American ethnicity. This can tie into the Broken Windows Theory. This states that policing will increase in these low-income neighborhoods due to the lack of reconstruction or repair which leads to the assumption of criminal activity. Situations like these would also add onto the pre-existing stereotype regarding the Latino/a/x community as being criminals and/or drug traffickers. 

This stereotype regarding the Latino/a/x community as being criminals has impacted the perceptions of the community in day to day life and the justice system. In California, this community has a higher chance of facing discrimination and struggles to be seen as innocent until proven guilty. There is an underlying assumption that since they typically come from low income neighborhoods, they are automatically deemed to be partaking in activities that they shouldn’t be. This relates to what Black Experts, such as W.E.B. Dubois, Ida B Wells, and Thorsten Sellin, claimed back in the 1900’s that crimes were determined by social circumstances, like class. This shows how the justice system has yet to truly see everyone as equal. Supposedly, the justice system uses jails as a way of keeping “bad people” off the streets, yet they struggle to be fair and unprejudiced. The justice system shouldn’t decide on who goes to jail based on false assumptions that pertain to social class. Instead, they should be putting people in jails based on facts that they are truly a threat to society. 

Bibliography:

Gazzar, Brenda. “Report: Latinos Overrepresented as Crime Victims and in Justice System.” Daily News, Daily News, 28 Aug. 2017, www.dailynews.com/2014/06/24/report-latinos-overrepresented-as-crime-victims-and-in-justice-system/.

Gilmore, Ruth. 2007. “Prison Fix”. Golden Gulag. University of California Press. 

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

BY STUDENT

Deindustrialization is the reduction or destruction of a nation’s or region’s industrial capacity._[1]The United States has been impacted by deindustrialization for many years. In this post, I will be going into depth about deindustrialization in my city of Brooklyn, NY and its effects on the Latina/o and black population. The question I pose is how does deindustrialization relate to the criminalization of black and Latina/o communities in Brooklyn?

In the early twentieth century Brooklyn was the leading manufacturer of processed goods and offered employment opportunities for long time New Yorkers and new immigrants. As deindustrialization came to Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Navy Yard closed and unemployed approximately nine thousand employees._[2]This affected the working class but made the rich even richer with the increase in city land value. New York started their new initiative of office buildings, with this many of the working class had no job opportunities

and were getting moved out. Former housing and development administration chief Roger Starr stated_[3]:

“We should not encourage people to stay where their job possibilities are daily becoming more remote. Stop the Puerto Ricans and the rural blacks from living in the city … reverse the role of the city … it can no longer be a place of opportunity… Our urban system is based on the theory of taking the peasant and turning him into an industrial worker. Now there are no industrial jobs. Why not keep him a peasant?”

-exert from The Long Default: New York City and the Urban Fiscal Crisis

William K Tabb

Latina/os and blacks were getting pushed out, with the downfall of their industry many were unemployed as stated before, with the hike in unemployment there was an increase in crime. In the class reading The Criminalization of African American Places, the author talks about the 1930s in Chicago, where it saw a hike in crime in African American youth. The explanation for this was the lack of jobs available to African Americans at this time. Nothing was done by Chicago and crimes continued to increase, this later became what the author called “writing crime into class”, this is the author’s way of emphasizing structural inequality during this time. Fredrick Hoffman considered this to be “the condition of life” since there was no actions being mad to stop the increase of criminalization of blacks. This was the same for Brooklyn, with the lack of employment and the addition of pushing Latina/os and black residents out of the city, there communities were unable to flourish as much as the upper-class communities, the crime rates were increasing, the education and health systems were not in their benefit. Thiscreated a never-ending cycle, the poor continued to be poor, and the rich stayed rich. As years passed Williamsburg was once dominated by Puerto Rican was now decreasing, with the climb of gentrification (talked about later this semester), deindustrialization had taken not only jobs away from these groups but later their communities to be occupied by the wealthy. Deindustrialization is just a case that lead to the increase of unemployment which lead to the increase in criminalization within the Latina/o and black population. 

Work  Cited:

[1] “Deindustrialization.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deindustrialization. 

[2] Day, Megan. “The Purge Of New York.” Jacobinmag, Jacobin, www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/new-york-gentrification-real-estate-deindustrialization.

[3] Tabb, William K. The Long Default: New York City and the Urban Fiscal Crisis. Monthly Review, 1982.