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SOC104 Exam 3 Study Guide (Righteous Dopefiend, Neoliberalism, Crime Theory)

Terms in this set (37)

Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914
A tax to make it prohibitively expensive (though not technically illegal) to put opiates such as cocaine in food/medicine. Government put out racist "scare-tactics" news articles about "cocaine-crazed" African Americans.
Differential Association Theory (Sutherland)
Similar to learning anything else, criminals learn (are socialized into) their attitudes, motives, rationalizations, and criminal techniques from others. If their viewpoint of a situation makes breaking the law seem justified, they are more likely to do it.
Biopower (Foucault - RD)
Individuals are controlled through their internalization of society's ideals of self-discipline; they police their own bodies and thoughts as a moral responsibility. Example: parents vaccinating their children so they can attend public school.
Harm Reduction Program (RD)
Health organizations will give clean needles and lectures on sanitary injection practices. This can be helpful, but is also a form of symbolic violence: it focuses on the individual choices the heroin injectors make (agency) while ignoring the social reality of their living situation (structure), causing them to blame themselves when they experience injection-related health problems.
Needle sharing (RD)
This occurred most frequently after a police raid, when injectors who would normally not share a needle are forced to share after having all their needles and cooking equipment taken, along with other risky injection practices.
Neoliberalism (lecture/RD)
An economic model featuring a "free market" with no government (public sector) regulation. Businesses (private sector) are in control. Supported by people across BOTH ends of the political spectrum (and opposed by people across the spectrum as well). Can lead to outsourcing, job loss, unemployment, which leads to lack of purchasing and eventual market collapse (as in the housing market collapse that started the 2008 Great Recession).
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
"War on Drugs". This turned the U.S. approach to drug use away from rehabilitative practices and toward a punitive ("punishment") model, which included mandatory minimum sentences for possession and sale.
Cotton (RD)
A ball of cotton containing a residue of heroin after being used as a filter. If filled with water and squeezed, it can produce just enough injectable heroin that injecting can stave off dopesickness.
Moral economy (RD)
If someone didn't have anything to inject and was about to be dopesick, another more fortunate person would give them a "taste" by sharing their cotton in the hopes that they too would be helped when they needed it. Injectors would also often "go in together" (split the cost of) a bag of heroin, even when it wasn't financially necessary, to reinforce the community sense of sharing. (See also "Gray Zone")
Methadone clinics (RD)
Methadone is a powerful drug used to wean people off heroin at special clinics. It has no high on its own, but is sometimes combined with Valium or crack (often sold outside such clinics). Methadone is MORE addictive than heroin and has WORSE withdrawal symptoms. The treatment program often FAILS due to addicts being weaned off too quickly (to save costs), or when an addict's life circumstances do not change along with them trying to quit heroin.
RD authors on "War on Drugs"
The authors feel a "cease fire" should be declared, because the punitive approach to the issue of drug use has been extremely expensive, not very effective, and reinforces social inequality. They suggest an alternative: prescription heroin programs ("magic bullet" instant solution) that include housing, rehabilitation, and vocational services to help addicts build a life good enough that they no longer need to rely on heroin to feel happy.
Rational Choice Theory
Before committing a crime, people consider the costs, benefits, and opportunities (the choice-structuring properties) of the crime.
Intimate apartheid (RD)
The racialized habitus (beliefs, emotions, attitudes) and accompanying ways of acting that led to the racial separation of the African American and white camps at Edgewater.
Techniques of the body (Bourdieu, RD)
The different racialized practices of injecting and experiencing heroin. The white dopefiends skin-popped (also called "muscling", injecting into fatty tissue or muscle), which led to slower heroin absorption, less of a high but a longer wait before dopesickness. They did not show much enjoyment of heroin. The black dopefiends always injected into a vein unless no other choice, and they showed more enjoyment at the rush of pleasure from this faster-absorbing injection.
Neoliberalism and homelessness (RD)
Neoliberal practices include deregulation of the housing market and cuts to public housing, which lead to very expensive rent. When combined with job loss from deregulation of industry (which leads to layoffs and outsourcing), many people are left jobless and without the ability to pay the high rent costs or move to a better area, so they become homeless. Living on the street in terrible conditions often turns the newly homeless to drug use.
Prescription heroin program (RD)
Dispensing of regulated prescription heroin in combination with housing, rehabilitation, and vocational services. A short-term "magic bullet" solution for the suffering of the homeless heroin injectors. To be effective, it must include services to help addicts build a life good enough that they no longer need to rely on heroin to feel happy.
Labeling Theory (Becker)
Acts are not inherently deviant; they are classified that way by the people in power (hegemony), who define what is deviant for society.
Becker's marijuana studies
Marijuana users learn the symptoms of being "high" and recognize them as pleasurable.
Habitus (RD)
Our conscious and unconscious beliefs, preferences, and attitudes, based on socialization and reinforced by life experience. These are feelings we are socialized into, but we often mistake them for "instinct" or for "common sense" beliefs about something (such as race).
Symbolic violence (RD)
Societal mechanisms (structure, widespread hegemonic beliefs, etc) that cause marginalized (less powerful) individuals to mistake inequality for the "natural order of things", and to blame themselves for their position in social hierarchy. So, the Edgewater homeless viewed inequality as natural and blamed themselves for being in poverty. These beliefs make it difficult for them to even imagine a better life: "Inequality is natural, I'm on the bottom because of personal characteristics that make me less good than other people, so there's no point in trying to get clean." (This conflicts with the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality: structural forces make it so difficult to improve their situation that, even when they exercise their agency to try to do so, they usually fail and then blame themselves for their failure.)
Employment of the homeless (RD)
It was difficult for the Edgewater homeless to get legal employment of any sort. When they did get a job, they were often exploited, paid less than illegal immigrants, and treated poorly.
The Gray Zone (RD)
A moral "gray zone" where the need to survive can be more important than human decency. Kind, generous acts of sharing occur in the Gray Zone, as do self-preserving acts of violence, shunning, and withholding. Rather than "black and white", "right and wrong" morality, the Edgewater homeless exist in such dire conditions that to survive, they must be morally "grey" - being generous when they can, being selfish when they must to survive. (Term comes from Nazi concentration camp survivor.)
Righteous Dopefiend methodology and purpose
Through 12 years of close observation and interviews with the Edgewater homeless, the authors hoped to bring a personalized view of their plight to the public. They used photos in combination with structural explanations and observations in what is called a "photoethnography". The authors wanted to show the relationships between societal forces and "intimate ways of being" (structure and agency).
Tina (RD)
African American woman in the camp. Starts off only using crack and alcohol, but eventually begins injecting heroin. History of abuse and prostitution, but does NOT view herself as a sex worker even though she is used to expecting payment (in goods or services or cash) for sex. Uses violent outbursts to protect herself on the streets.
Tina & Carter (RD)
They begin an "outlaw romance" relationship, based around shared theft and patriarchal fantasy (think "traditional" gender ideology from Second Shift - it was a fantasy because, while Tina liked playing the traditional housewife sometimes, she was also very independent and hated being left behind when Carter went on "licks" (stealing). They had a partitioned area of camp decorated like a living room at first, then were able to get a camper to live in. Went on "wood licks" together (stealing wood to sell).
Carter (RD)
African American man in the Edgewater camp. Had opportunities for work and getting clean, but honestly enjoyed the rush of stealing for a living. Fell in love with Tina. Eventually died of overdose.
Panhandling (RD)
Begging. Frequently practiced by the white homeless, shunned by the African Americans (who due to racism received fewer donations and were more likely to be targeted by police for panhandling).
Al & Sonny (RD)
Al & Sonny (RD) - Cross-ethnic running partners (Al white, Sonny black). They argued frequently, but maintained a strong friendship that violated "intimate apartheid" (the racial division between the Edgewater homeless).
Racialized expressions of masculinity (RD)
The white homeless tried to portray themselves as traumatized war veterans to maintain their sense of masculinity. The black homeless would sometimes do this too; they also were much more likely to show aggression toward women and talk about sexual exploits than the white homeless (who often had no sex drive).
Drug use history of Edgewater homeless (RD)
Almost all were over age 40. All but the youngest started injecting heroin on a daily basis in the late 60s/early 70s. White injectors tended to use more heroin than black injectors.
Lumpen (RD)
Originally a Marxist term for people who were excluded from participating in the labor market (people who didn't own a business and also couldn't work, such as disabled people). In RD, describes the homeless heroin injectors, who exist on the fringes of society and face multiple levels of structural and interpersonal abuse.
Lumpen abuse (RD)
The structurally-imposed everyday suffering of the socially vulnerable lumpen individuals
Subjectivity (Foucault - RD)
Individuals are subjected to the power of society (their agency is restricted by societal structure).
Governmentality (Foucault - RD)
Power in society is decentralized, residing in disciplinary institutions (such as hospitals and schools) that enforce society's hegemonic standards, rather than a single central source of authority telling everyone what to do. People internalize the rules of society and govern themselves accordingly (see also biopower).
Hogan (RD)
An obese man who had frequent medical issues, including abscesses. Sometimes shunned for his extremely poor hygiene. Eventually managed to get into public housing, where he died of an overdose.
Petey and Scotty (RD)
Running partners. Called the "island boys" because they panhandled and sold heroin from traffic islands.
Running partners
A pair of homeless heroin injectors who lived together, looked out for each other, and shared food, supplies, and drugs. Examples: Al & Sonny, Frank & Felix, Petey & Scotty.
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