Kaylee Osterberger

Professor Rick Anderson

Social Problems
Journal #2

Prompt 8-Choose a reading to examine and discuss from #s 17-52.

3/26/19
Reading 45, “They’ve Got a Pill for That: the Medicalization of Society”
This reading states that the United States is a highly medicalized society. The country practically
runs on medicine because there is a pill for just about everything. The medical industry is one of
the most expensive and profitable industries in the nation. “Medicalization achieves social
problem status when medical intervention occurs regardless of medical need and causes harm to
members of society,” states Stephanie Medley-Rath. This means that people are getting treatment
when they don’t necessarily need it. As a society, the US relies heavily on medication and
doctors to be “cured” of something they may not even need medication for. This allows for
doctors and major drug companies to profit. Taking a look at how big of a profit can be made in
the medical industry has led me to take a look at cancer and treatment options. With all of the
research and money that is put into cancer, I have a hard time to believe that there isn’t a cure.
It’s sad that I even have to think this, but what if there is some sort of cure for cancer that isn’t an
option for the public. Since so many people profit from treatments, scannings, and surgeries, how
do we know that doctors and the medical industry are doing everything in their power to help
cure a patient. If there is a cure, people would pay anything to save a life, and that could bring in
a lot of profit. My other thought is that the industry doesn’t want to make this cure known
because they would make less of a profit. If you think about it, so much money is spent on
treatment options and even more is spent if someone relapses. Like I said before, it’s sad that this
thought is even one that come into mind. It just seems like the only thing the medical industry
cares about is making a dollar.

Prompt 1-Compare and contrast the family of the 1950s with the current state of the family.
3/26/19
The state of the family has changed drastically over time. In the 1950s, families were portrayed
as being these “perfect” on television. They were families with a housekeeping mother, a
working father, and generally two to three kids. The father worked to provide for his family and
he was the only one to provide. Because of this he was the superior of the husband and wife. The
mother/wife stayed at home to take care of all housework and to care for the children. Nowadays,
the family and roles of family members are perceived much differently and have more diversity.
Families can consist of single-parents, gay parents, foster children, and many other aspects. All
of these examples are still families, they’re just not the “picture” perfect family from the 1950s. I
think a lot of people, especially older generations, have a hard time with grasping the concept of
family life. It looks a lot different than is has in the past, and changing the way a person thinks is
sometimes hard thing to do. This also plays a role in how the parents of the family work. Much
of the family life changed drastically when women went into the workforce because they took on
a role as being another provider. From then on, gender roles within the family have changed. It
has been a lot harder for men to take on roles that have been previously perceived as women’s
duties, whereas women have integrated themselves into the manly society a lot easier. Like I
stated earlier, change is hard for a lot of people so men taking on these formerly woman roles has
been a challenge. This is likely due to the pressure we as a society put on men to be the
breadwinner and the provider for their families. I think we just have to examine these family
roles as changing, and maybe we shouldn’t have these perceived roles of what a man or woman
should take on in society.

Prompt 3-Select a problem related to the family and examine it further.

3/29/19
One problem within the family is children living in poverty. People always say that children are
the future, so why isn’t more being done to make sure children has adequate resources in their
lives? We live in such an individualistic society that people believe that if something isn’t
happening to them specifically or someone they know, then it doesn’t impact them. That’s the
wrong idea for us to have. Heiner chapter four states, “Poverty can affect virtually every aspect
of a child’s life. Poverty increases the likelihood of marital instability, alcoholism among parents,
and child abuse… poor children are one-third as likely to have had adequate prenatal care,
almost twice as likely to be born prematurely, almost twice as likely to be of low birth weight,
twice as likely to repeat a grade in school, and about three and a half times more likely to be
expelled from school.” Literally all aspects of a child’s life are impacted by the financial status of
their parents. In order for them to have equal opportunity and equal resources, the child’s parents
need to make a decent living. These children living in poverty don’t have access to as good of
schooling as other children. They have to go through stressful situations that children shouldn’t
have to go through. They may have to enter the workforce early just to provide for their family.
This could lead to them completely dropping out of school just to help their families. Because of
this stress of helping their families, children may not be able to get involved in activities at
school and so on. They may be so smart, or athletically or musically gifted, and they can’t apply
it because they have other things to worry about. I think as a whole, society suffers from child
poverty. Think about all of the people in the world that are intelligent, there could be so many
more people out there that are just as intelligent, but because of their upbringing they weren’t
able to apply it.

Prompt 5-Examine the role of the media in shaping perceptions about crime and deviance.
3/29/19
Much of the media that portrays crime and deviance is often to get people to view it. It’s blown
up because crime shows and news stories sell to the general public. People like watching these
shows that seem as if they could be real life. The more a show relates to the average person’s
life, the more it’s going to sell. Because television producers want to make a profit, they provide
these shows with “real-life” scenarios to get lots of viewings. These shows provide mysteries of
murder and other crime that keep people hooked on watching them to find out what happens in
the end. For example, I used to watch the show Castle all the time when I was younger. I
especially remember three episodes in which the daughter was kidnapped and the detectives try
to find her. Of course, there is other drama added into the show, but what kept me hooked? I
wanted to find out what happened to her. These TV producers aren’t dumb, they know what
types of things will keep people hooked on watching their shows and keep viewing at a high rate.
While these shows are good to watch, little of them provide glimpses of what the world is
actually like. Many of the crimes seen on these television shows rarely occur to the degree of
which they are portrayed. This gives people the wrong sense of what happens in the world.
Heiner says, “With crime taking up a large portion of TV programming, the viewer can easily get
the sense that violent crime is skyrocketing and is taking place everywhere, all the time, in spite
of the fact that violent crime has been trending downward for the past two decades.” Since
people get into watching these crime shows, they may know that some of these situations are
real, but subconsciously they wonder if they do. I know that I have done that in watching all sorts
of television shows and movies. Maybe the exact situation didn’t occur, but something quite
similar to it may have. This is what gives people the wrong idea about crime. We tend to view
crime as being a violent act, when much of the crime committed is white collar crime.

Prompt 9-Choose another reading to examine and discuss from #s 17-52.

3/29/19
Reading 50: Mass Shootings and Masculinity
I found this reading to be very interesting because it calls out the United States for not taking
action against the terrorism that takes place within the country. As a country, we focus a lot on
terrorist acts, especially after the attacks on 9/11, but there are still these preventative acts that
take place within the country. In this reading, there was a research study that took place on men
and their responses to gender identity threats. Many of them resulted in men showing dominance
over women, homophobia, and sexual prejudice when they are being questioned. Men turn to
things that demonstrate their dominance if they are even questioned and many of these acts are
violent. This reading ties back to Heiner chapter four in which we talked about gender roles. Our
society has these strict gender roles and these roles force men and boys to be masculine. This
basically means that men have to dominate, be tough, and not really so much emotion. Any time
a boy is questioned he has to fight back and may the tougher one win. This promotes violence in
society, so why are we so surprised when violent acts are committed? I kind of see these violent
acts as something that society has created. Society teaches males these roles that they are
supposed to take on and yet we’re surprised when they take out their anger in such violent
manner. I think the change has to start from when children are young. We can’t force children to
act a certain way or to conform to societal norms, they have to figure themselves out. I think this
would change how we perceive masculinity and everything that goes with it.

Prompt 7-Select a problem related to crime and deviance and examine it further.
3/31/19
One problem in crime and deviance is racism within those convicted of crime. Going back to the
mass shooting section, every white-male that was the criminal in the case was said to have some
sort of mental disability. If the criminal were to be anyone other than a white male, they wouldn’t
have the same said about them. There would be something wrong with the way they were raised
or some sort of other issue. I’m not saying that any mass shooter has never had a mental
disability, but it seems like it’s used as an excuse for the criminals actions a lot of times. This
isn’t an attack on the individuals, but it’s almost like a privilege thing: since that person is white
there must be something wrong with them mentally rather than just them actually committing a
hateful crime. This doesn’t just show in mass shooting cases, but in any sort of criminal case.
White people often don’t serve as much time, or aren’t sentence to as much, as any other
ethnicity. In a country that’s founded on equality, we still don’t have much of it in the criminal
justice system. African American individuals are often portrayed as the ones to be deviant and
commit crime, and the white individuals are portrayed as the innocent ones. There is a
disproportionate representation of minorities in prison. Alan Elsner writes, “African Americans
make up only 2 percent of the population in Iowa but 20 percent of the prison population.” So
any minority group already has a target on their back. There is a sense of racial bias within the
criminal justice system. Two people, one African American and one Caucasian, could commit
the same crime and I could almost guarantee that the punishment for the two would be entirely
different. The African American individual would have a cruel punishment, and the white
individual would have virtually nothing compared to the other. We are supposed to have a fair
criminal justice system, but when you look back and examine it, how fair is it?

Prompt 10-Choose another reading to examine and discuss from #s 17-52.

3/31/19
Reading 52: For Profit Justice: How the Private Prison Industry and the Criminal Justice System
Benefit from Mass Incarceration
The reading begins with some stats comparing the United States to countries such as Germany,
Japan, South Korea, Russia, China, and Iran. According to the reading, the US imprisons about
760 people per 100,000, a rate higher than any of the previously listed countries. This is because
private prison corporations are paid for having high incarceration rates, and they have to pay if
the rates aren’t met. Then people are put in prison for a longer time and for a small criminal
offence because these private prison corporations want to make money. This means that even the
slightest crime can put an individual behind bars for a long period of time. The government and
states invest so much money into funding incarceration, and prisoners aren’t treated well at all.
Someone in our class stated that prisoners in Germany are able to utilize resources for rehab and
even get a job while being supervised. In the US, prisoners are left to fend for themselves. We
don’t invest money into getting them the help they need, and we certainly don’t allow them to
work. This only creates issues for when an individual completes their sentence because they have
nothing. They may relapse with their addiction because they never learned a different coping
mechanism and it’s going to be even more difficult for them to find a job with a felony of their
record. The government invests so much money in the criminal justice system and we don’t see
the results of the spending. Another part of this reading refers to the disproportionate spending of
money on incarceration rates compared to education. In some states there is three to four times
more spent on inmates than on public school students. Referring back to the saying, “Children
are the future,” we must invest in them to make the future a good one. We have to make sure that
they have the resources they need, just as inmates do. Maybe the country needs to spend more to
give people the resources and care they need, so the criminal cycle doesn’t continue.

Prompt 14-Choose your own topic appropriate for the course.

I found a study on parents choosing to use an electronic book over a paper copy that relates to
the state of the family. “The research, led by University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's
Hospital and involving 37 parent-toddler pairs, found that parents and children verbalized and
interacted less with e-books than with print books,” quotes the article. I think this goes to show
the disconnect between all individuals because of technology. We ignore our surroundings when
technology is involved. While technology is great, there are many drawbacks to it. For instance,
people don’t know how to communicate anymore and it stems from a young age. I think my
three year old cousins know how to operate a smartphone better than my grandparents. This
study that was done on parents and children used books, basic electronic books, and advanced
ebooks to show what technology does. It found that when using the ebooks, parents tended to
talk less with their children about the story they were reading and more about the device they
were using. I think this leads the child to believe that the technology they use is the most
important thing and interactions with people don’t matter. We put so much focus on our
technology that we don’t even know how to communicate with each other anymore, and this is
learned in childhood. In this study, parents who interacted with their children while reading a
regular book, increased the child’s literacy and communication skills. This goes to show that
even the simplest thing, like reading a child a story and interacting with them, can impact their
future and how they handle situations.
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190325080459.htm