Inequality also strongly influences societal responses to social problems. Research consistently shows that victims of social problems are treated differently within various social institutions. This is especially apparent in studies of the criminal justice system, although this is not the only institutional site for seeing the influence of inequality on social problems. Yet, a multitude of studies show that the race of the accused produces differential rates of arrest, prosecution, and sentencing. Studies of rape, for example, show that not only are black perpetrators more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced, but the rape itself is more likely to be reported when the perpetrator in black, regardless of the victim's race. There is also an interactive effect between the race of the victim and the race of the alleged perpetrator in how justice--or perhaps better stated, injustice--is administered. Studies of the death penalty, as just one example, find strong evidence of racial discrimination in death penalty verdicts. And race of the victim, as well as race of the defendant, is an influence, with the death penalty more likely to result when the victim is a white woman. Throughout the criminal justice system, racial minorities experience disproportionate punitive treatment. They are more likely than whites to be arrested and convicted, and they are given longer sentences than whites, even when the crime is the same.

Empirical evidence of societal reactions to social problems is also evident in the influence of social class. Corporate crime, for example, if measured in terms of dollar value, is far more severe than street crime, but corporate criminals are not punished as harshly as street criminals. Furthermore, corporate crime is also less likely to be detected, and when corporate criminals are punished, they receive more lenient punishments. Gender matters, too: Together with race, gender is predictive of whether a defendant secures pretrial release.

The societal response to social problems can also be seen in the context of how clients are treated in other social institutions. The simple fact is that authorities, generally speaking, tend to treat people differently, depending on factors like class, race, and gender. Social stereotypes, even when unintentionally expressed, guide people's judgments about one another in various realms of life. Thus, employers tend to typify black women as single mothers-- regardless of the employees' actual parental or marital status; drug offenders who most closely resemble stereotypes of dangerous drug users receive substantially more punitive sentences than those who do not conform to the stereotype; teachers' perceptions of students' race and ethnic status influence their judgments about the students' likely academic success; and racial prejudice underlies public attitudes about punishment for crime with those likely to support the most punitive policies holding the racial prejudice. In each case, social judgments not only influence how people are perceived but also produce consequences for how people are treated.

This is the essential insight of labeling theory, especially when considered in the context of structural inequality. Labeling theory is the idea that, once given a "marker" (or "label"), the so-labeled identity tends to stick and others perceive that person accordingly, regardless of the person's actual social behavior. The person so labeled may even adopt the so-designated identity, thus becoming what others perceive him or her to be. Labeling theory has been extensively applied in the study of deviant behavior, explaining how, once people are labeled as deviant, whether or not they engage in deviant behavior, they are treated as such.

Although used primarily in studies of social deviance and crime, labeling theory is also useful in thinking about other social problems. In schools, for example, who is perceived as "at risk," and what are the consequences of this perception? Race, gender, and class strongly influence such judgments, with young black men especially vulnerable to such attributions.

Where do these social judgments originate? Although surely the mass media are not the only source of such learned assumptions, clearly media depictions of various groups and various social problems strongly influence social stereotypes. How the news portrays social problems, for example, can influence public understanding of social problems. On the one hand, the media, for example, tend to depict violence as if it were random, with anyone having an equal chance of being victimized--an assumption that directly contradicts sociological evidence of the patterned character of violence. At the same time, however, the media also portray social problems via strong class, race, and gender stereotypes. News reports on the state of the economy disproportionately discuss economic events as they affect economic elites and investors, much less often reporting on problems that affect the general workforce. The media's depiction of welfare also shows an increased tendency to identify African American women with images of dependency. And, although media depictions of women have improved in some regard in recent years, women are still highly sexualized and degraded in popular culture. Exposure to sexualized imagery of women has an effect on men's and women's sexual relationships, making relationships more adversarial and making young people more accepting of interpersonal violence.

In summary, although inequality has a strong influence on the generation of the likelihood of social problems, social problems may be more evenly distributed across the population than is commonly perceived, but societal judgments influence the perception and detection of social problems. Because disadvantaged groups are more likely to be overseen by official agencies and are more likely stereotyped in the dominant culture, the appearance is created that they are more prone to social problems.

Bibliography:

1) Andersen, Margaret L. 2008. Thinking about Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

2) Ferguson, Ann Arnett. 2001. Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

3) Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin Doy. 2004. Jurors' Stories of Death: How America's Death Penalty Invests in Inequality. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

4) Hays, Sharon. 2004. Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

5) Kennelly, Ivy. 1999. "'That Single-Mother Element': How White Employers Typify Black Women." Gender & Society 13(April):168-92.

6) Kozol, Jonathan. 1992. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. New York: Harper.

7) Kozol, Jonathan. 2006. The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Three Rivers.

8) Lewis, Amanda. 2003. Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

9) Pellow, David. 2002. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

10) Reiman, Jeffrey. 2006. The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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