Cops: Pathology, Decency, and the Ghetto

I thought it was especially interesting that Moskos discussed Anderson's work so much in "Two Shades of Blue: Black and White in the Blue Brotherhood." Moskos seemed to clearly echo what Anderson said about how whites seem to view all poor black people through a single stereotypical lens, and have trouble differentiating the "ghetto" (or "street") people from the "decent" people. Moskos claimed that unlike the white officers, black officers made a clear distinction between different types of people in "ghetto" areas. I found Moskos' observations about the different uses of the word "ghetto" to be particularly interesting. Both groups used the term to refer to majority black impoverished regions, but white officers were more likely to label people themselves as "ghetto", whereas black officers identified people's behavior as "ghetto" by claiming that people were "acting ghetto." Both groups of officers tended to subscribe to a pathological view of social problems. White officers seemed to see social problems as resulting from individual decisions which, for them, were strongly tied to race, class, and location. The black officers, on the other hand clearly differentiated themselves as "decent" from "ghetto" blacks whose problems resulted from personal character defects. All of the officers made statements about how living in the "ghetto" was a personal choice (one which they had little or no sympathy for), and in some cases, black officers used their own lives as evidence of other people's moral shortcomings. In light of what we read in Anderson about how the code of the streets is centered on violence, I found it particularly interesting that nearly all of the officers, regardless of race, were disciplined with corporal punishment. It would seem that violence plays an important role in the socialization both urban police and the people they arrest. Furthermore, in light of Anderson, I would assume that much of the success that Smith discusses was made possible because the members of Lifeline, as former residents of the "ghetto" and former participants in "street" culture have a knowledge of the "code of the streets," and are better able to discourse with members of the oppositional culture.