The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison Essay

The author in this chapter discusses the characteristics of income and education density of the lower class and provides a comparison between the crimes of the poor and the wealthy. Mostly the people were sent to prison based on racial differences as the African Americans were excessively poor. One thing that must be cleared to all is that it is not our view that the poor people are all guiltless victims who suffer the persecution of the rich people but it is said in the book by the author that the poor are arrested and punished by the criminal justice system much more frequently than their contribution to the crime problem would warrant (Reiman).

Both black people and white people commit crimes but only one of them is not answerable for any of their crimes and the ones who are convicted and arrested are the poor people who do not get a chance to enjoy favoritism by the government and by the other authorities. Another argument begins on the fact that police usually use to arrest those people who have the least power or those who cannot save themselves from the devilish practices of the police and these are the people with less finances and .

Further, the third chapter concludes about the kinds of crime which are not committed by the poor people, but by the upper class people are never charged or convicted by the criminal justice system, and these types of crime are known as the which is not street crimes but are now spreading and are less convicted and if in some case they are prosecuted they are sentenced easily and are released very soon from the prison on bail.

This could only be possible by having a lot of finances to give the bail which is not affordable by the poor people due to which they have to face a lot of mistreatment for small crimes. Those upper class people who and are serious criminals they are because they are seldom questioned about their crimes so it is not surprising that poor are convicted more for the crime.

The next section discusses the point that the toughest sentences are given to lower class defendants while the better class of lawbreakers can make their way out by relaxed punishments and stay out of prisons. This chapter also discusses the conflict of improvement like sentencing criminals for committing crimes related to drugs that have devastating impact on the minority communities in certain cases. For example, the white collar criminals which costs public a loss of billions of dollars must get tough prison or should be sentenced for long time but still they remain less convicted or as compared to the poor people convicted of common type of crimes such as shop lifting etc.

The criminal justice system, however, that does not provide justice to the poor people and does not even protect the lower class society is still functioning. While pointing out at the well-off people who receive benefits from the present system, the author does not argue on this conspiracy but instead he says it as a part of the historical inertia.