7 Class and Stratification in the United States

What IsSocial Stratification? Systems of Stratification

SlaveryThe Caste System The Class System

Classical Perspectives on Social Class

Karl Marx: Relationship tothe Means of ProductionMax Weber:Wealth,Prestige, and Power

Contemporary Sociological Models of the U.S. Class Structure

The Weberian Modelof the U.S. Class StructureThe Marxian Model of the U.S. ClassStructure

Inequalityin the United States

Distribution of Income and Wealth Consequences of Inequality

Poverty inthe United States

Who Are thePoor?Economic andStructural Sources of PovertySolving the Poverty Problem

SociologicalExplanations of SocialInequality in the United States

FunctionalistPerspectives Conflict Perspectives Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives

U.S.Stratif ication in the Future

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W

e treat them in hospitals every day. Theyare young brothers, often drug dealers, gang members, or small-timecriminals, who show up shot, stabbed, or beaten aftera hustle gone bad. Tosome ofour medicalcolleagues,they are just nameless thugs, perpetuating crime and death in neighborhoodsthat have seen far too much ofthese things.But when we look into their faces, we see ourselves as teenagers, we see our friends, we see what weeasily could have become as young adults. And we're reminded ofthe thin line that separates us- three twenty-nine-year-old doctors (an emergency-room physician, an internist, and a dentist)-from those patients whose lives are filledwith dangerand desperation.Wegrew up in poor, broken homes in NewJersey neighborhoods riddled with crime,drugs, and death, and came of age in the 1980s at theheight of a crack epidemic that ravagedcommunities like ours throughout the nation ....Twoofus landed injuvenile-detention centersbefore our eighteenth birthdays. But inspiredearly by caring and imaginative role models,one ofus in childhood latched on to a dream ofbecoming a

•What are the main sources of crimes statistics?

Of ficial crime statistics are taken from the UniformCrime Report,which lists crimesreported to the police, and the National CrimeVictimization Survey, whichinterviewshouseholdsto determinethe inci- denceof crimes,including thosenot reported to police.Studies show that manymorecrimesarecom- mitted than areofficiallyreported.

•How are age and class related to crime statistics?

Age isthe keyf actor in crime statistics. In 2004,per- sonsunder age 25 accounted for more than 44per- cent of allarrestsfor violent crime andalmost 60 percent of allarrestsfor propertycrime. Personsfrom lowersocioeconomicbackgroundsare morelik elyto be arrested forviolent and propertycrimes;white- collar crime is more likely to occur among the uppersocioeconomicclasses.

•Who are the most frequent victims of crime?

Young malesof color betweenages12 and24have the highest criminalvictimization rates.Theelderly tend to befearf ulof crime butare theleast lik elyto be victimized.

•How is discretion used in the criminal justicesystem?

The criminal justice system, including the police, the courts, and prisons,of ten hasconsiderable discretion in dealing with off enders. The policeoften usediscre- tion in decidingwhether to act on a situation. Prose- cutorsand judgesusediscretionin deciding which casesto pursue and howto handlethem.

Key Terms

corporate crime 175 crime162 criminal justice system 181 criminology163 deviance160 differentialassociation theory169 illegitimate opportunity structures165 juvenile delinquency162 labeling theory 170occupational (white-collar)crime175 organized crime 176political crime 176 primarydeviance 171 propertycrimes 174 punishment 184secondary deviance 171social bond theory170 socialcontrol 162 straintheory164 terrorism 178 tertiarydeviance171 victimless crimes175 violent crime 173

Ouestions for Critical Thinking

1. Doespublictoleration of deviance lead to in- creased crimerates?If people were forced to con- form tostricterstandards of behavior,would there beless crimein the United States? 2. Should so-called victimless crimes, suchas prosti- tution andrecreational drug use, be decriminal- ized? Do these crimes harm society? 3. Asasociologist armed witha sociologicalimagina- tion,how wouldyou proposeto dealwith the problem of crime inthe UnitedStates? Whatpro- grams wouldyousuggestenhancing? What pro- grams wouldyou reduce?

The Kendall Companion Website

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Supplementyour review of thischapter by going to the companionwebsite to take one of the tutorial quizzes,use thef lash cards to master key terms,and check out the many other study aids you'll find there.You'llalsof indspecial f eatures such as GSS Data and Census 2000information thatwill put dataand resourcesatyour fingertipsto helpyouwith thatspecial project or helpyou do some researchon your own.

dentist,steered clear oftrouble, and in his senior year ofhigh school persuaded his two best friends to applyto acollegeprogram for minority students interested in becoming doctors. We knew we'd never survive ifwewent after it alone.And so we madea pact:we'd help one another through, no matter what.

-Drs.SampsonDavis,GeorgeJenkins,and RameckHunt

(2003: 1-2),

describing their path f rom the streetsof Newarkto being named amongthef ortymost inf luential African Americansby

E s sence

magazineand thus,in theeyesof manypeople, achievingthe

Am e r i can D r e am

T

he remarkable success of Sampson Davis,George Jenkins,and Rameck Hunt as theystuck togetherand worked diligently toget out of graffiti-covered New Jersey public- housing projects and toultimately complete their education in medical and dental schools might bedescribed as a contemporary version of the Amer- ican Dream. Whatis the AmericanDream? Simply stated, the American Dream is the belief that if people work hard and play by the rules, they will have a chance to get ahead (see Hochschild, 1995).Moreover,each generation will be able to have ahigher standard of living than that of its parents (Danzigerand Gottschalk,1995). The American Dream is based on the assumption that people in the United States have equality of op-portunity regardless of theirrace, creed, color, national origin,gender, orreligion. For middle- and upper-income people,theAmerican Dream typically means that each subse- quent generationwill be able to acquire more ma- terialpossessions and wealth than people in the preceding generations. To some people, achieving the American Dream means having asecurejob, owning a home,and getting a good education for their children.To others,itis thepromisethat anyone may rise f rom poverty to wealth (from "rags to riches")if he orshe works hard enough. In this chapter,we examine systems of social stratification, particularly the U.S.classstructure, to see how people's opportunities are aff ected by their position in that structure. However,before we explore class and stratification, test yourknowledge of wealth, poverty, and theAmerican Dream by taking the quiz inBox7.1.