When the class discussed Marked I was really surprised by how many people used anecdotal evidence of working with felons to make a point that there are reasons employers may not want to hire them. I'm certainly no expert on felons, and to my knowledge have never worked with a convicted felon, but it does surprise me that so many people stereotype a group of people based on certain common experiences. I guess what Dr. Hobby was saying about the difference in the prison system of rehabilitation vs. punishment is really evident here in our assumptions about felons. A person who has in the past committed a felony can no longer be trusted because past actions reflect on their future. Their prison sentence was punishment for crimes committed. Being released from prison does not mean the person will not commit another felony. Instead it is just the opposite. A person who has proven themselves untrustworthy in the past will do so again in the future, because past actions give people an indication of future behavior. The classification of felon will follow that person throughout his or her life, affecting potential employment possibilities. Even people who have managed to rehabilitate themselves and really do not want to commit more crimes will have difficulty re-integrating into a society that no longer trusts them.
Honestly I can absolutely see why a potential employer, given the choice between a person convicted of a felony and a person not convicted of a felony, would choose to employ a person not convicted of a felony. I don't see it the same way I would as an employer hiring on a racial basis, since the person has in the past actually done something illegal and until that person proves otherwise, he or she is going to be judged by past behavior. However, the study described in Marked finds that potential employers are more likely to hire Whites with criminal backgrounds than Blacks with no criminal background, meaning that employers are not always discriminating on criminal backgrounds but are definitely discriminating on a racial basis.
Also, it is a concern that a felon would have such trouble finding a job when he or she needs a job to provide for themselves. If the person can't earn enough money in a legal way to survive, he or she is much more likely to turn to earning money outside the law leading to repeat convictions. This is definitely a problem that affects racial minorities considering the study's findings that Blacks with felony convictions are less able than their White counterparts to find employment.
I don't know what the solution is to this sort of discrimination. Are there tax breaks for employers hiring felons? Maybe some kind of halfway house program for felons released from prison that will both provide job training and personal references to employers hesitant to trust and hire a person who has committed a felony in the past. I think the first problem is that our prison system punishes instead of rehabilitates, meaning that there is no effort within the prison system to figure out why the felony was committed in the first place and address those problems if they can be addressed. In these cases I'm thinking of mostly drug charges. Maybe then a person coming out of a rehabilitation program that teaches job skills would have a positive impact on society's perception of convicts.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Unequal Childhoods
This may be a weird connection to make but I couldn't help but think of Unequal Childhoods while I was reading The Hunger Games for my Political Science Fiction class. We had a prompt the other day in class to compare some aspect of the book to the United States and my response was influenced by Unequal Childhoods.
In The Hunger Games, Katness lives in District 12, the coal mining district. Each of the 12 districts produces a certain resource for the Capital and there is a very limited range of professions available to people in these districts. Katness' father was a coal miner and most children expect to also be involved in this industry when they turn 18. Schools in the region exist mainly as a means of propaganda distribution by the Capital, not to teach and prepare students for further education or different professions. While it is true there are merchants and townspeople at a social class above Katness, most of the district is composed of members of what Katness calls the Seam. The Seam is composed of poor and hungry coalmining families.
Within District 12 there are harsh lines of socioeconomic class between members of the Seam and townspeople, however there are even harsher lines between districts. What your skill set is depends on where you have grown up. People in District 4 know how to fish because they live on the coast and people in District 3 know how to create mechanical things because they produce electronics for the Capital. People in District 8 mainly produce textiles, so they work in factories their whole lives (the revolution starts in the factories).
Two children from each district are chosen to compete in the hunger games, which are basically events held each year where children from each district fight to the death to reestablish Capital control after the districts rebelled decades before the book takes place. In the hunger games, the idea is that each child has an equal chance of winnning when that is not the case at all. To begin with the children are chosen from between the ages of 12 to 17 so there is an immediate disadvantage to 12 year olds. Other advantages fall to children of wealthier districts who are well-fed and trained to compete in the games. For children of District 12 who are often malnourished and without knowledge of weapons, the games are equivalent to a death sentence.
In my mind, The Hunger Games is similar to the result of different kinds of upbringing depicted in Unequal Childhoods. Districts that have the resources and ability to do so train their children to suceed in the games while parents in less wealthy districts also want their children to succeed but simply do not have the resources or knowledge to prepare their children the way that other districts can. It isn't that the children in poor districts aren't learning anything since they often come to the games with skills unique to their districts. It is just that they are not trained the way wealthier districts are.
One other thing I thought was interesting was the hint in the book that where you are born determines you as a person. For the people in the Capital, the games are a source of entertainment and throughout the book Katness writes them off as frivolous for worrying about their own entertainment when she is likely to die. After she gets to know her prep team, she acutualy thinks "I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I'd been raised in the Capital?"
The Hunger Games are definitely written for young adults and are pretty quick reads. However I think there are a lot of interesting concepts and ways to interpret the story. In my political science class we will likely be talking more about the revolution described in the final book.
In The Hunger Games, Katness lives in District 12, the coal mining district. Each of the 12 districts produces a certain resource for the Capital and there is a very limited range of professions available to people in these districts. Katness' father was a coal miner and most children expect to also be involved in this industry when they turn 18. Schools in the region exist mainly as a means of propaganda distribution by the Capital, not to teach and prepare students for further education or different professions. While it is true there are merchants and townspeople at a social class above Katness, most of the district is composed of members of what Katness calls the Seam. The Seam is composed of poor and hungry coalmining families.
Within District 12 there are harsh lines of socioeconomic class between members of the Seam and townspeople, however there are even harsher lines between districts. What your skill set is depends on where you have grown up. People in District 4 know how to fish because they live on the coast and people in District 3 know how to create mechanical things because they produce electronics for the Capital. People in District 8 mainly produce textiles, so they work in factories their whole lives (the revolution starts in the factories).
Two children from each district are chosen to compete in the hunger games, which are basically events held each year where children from each district fight to the death to reestablish Capital control after the districts rebelled decades before the book takes place. In the hunger games, the idea is that each child has an equal chance of winnning when that is not the case at all. To begin with the children are chosen from between the ages of 12 to 17 so there is an immediate disadvantage to 12 year olds. Other advantages fall to children of wealthier districts who are well-fed and trained to compete in the games. For children of District 12 who are often malnourished and without knowledge of weapons, the games are equivalent to a death sentence.
In my mind, The Hunger Games is similar to the result of different kinds of upbringing depicted in Unequal Childhoods. Districts that have the resources and ability to do so train their children to suceed in the games while parents in less wealthy districts also want their children to succeed but simply do not have the resources or knowledge to prepare their children the way that other districts can. It isn't that the children in poor districts aren't learning anything since they often come to the games with skills unique to their districts. It is just that they are not trained the way wealthier districts are.
One other thing I thought was interesting was the hint in the book that where you are born determines you as a person. For the people in the Capital, the games are a source of entertainment and throughout the book Katness writes them off as frivolous for worrying about their own entertainment when she is likely to die. After she gets to know her prep team, she acutualy thinks "I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I'd been raised in the Capital?"
The Hunger Games are definitely written for young adults and are pretty quick reads. However I think there are a lot of interesting concepts and ways to interpret the story. In my political science class we will likely be talking more about the revolution described in the final book.
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