Does enforcing established law depend on "who" is breaking it?

Throughout history people have committed crimes for various reasons, some of those reasons are the will to survive, the needs to survive, accessibility, resources, products, and the demand for those products, established law and the strength and intelligence of their victims or customers. This does not account for the actions of a sociopath; this only speaks to the crimes of the poor, oppressed and economically deprived men and women.

Although you would have to twist a criminologist arm to get him to admit it, most honest criminologist will admit that the kind of crimes committed by poor people is condition driven. This is why city officials know and understand that when unemployment is up, crime is up; there is a direct link between out of work people and crime. When we look over organized crime in America we will see that it all began with a few poor individuals looking to attain the so-called American dream. This can be witnessed in how the mafia came to be in the U.S.; this can be witnessed in the bootlegging of liquor, and in a more modern sense it can be witnessed in the selling of drugs amongst poor Black folk.

In America, it appears that how and where the law is enforced depends on who is breaking it. I will seek to explain this by looking at the criminality of two groups; Black folk and Asians.

It is no secret that Asians have a reputation for being smart and very entrepreneurial but the criminal actions of Asians continue to be rewarded with Billions of dollars each year. I am talking about Asians participation in the making and distribution of counterfeit goods that include but are not limited to purses, clothing, jewelry, music, movies and games. You can go to any swap meet in this country, outdoor or indoor and you will see the counterfeit goods for sell, you can go to plenty of local shops in most major cities and you will see these stores are owned and operated by Asians selling counterfeit goods. The second form of criminal activity Asians are engaging in and is some how escaping the microscope of local law enforcement is Asian women not having the proper certificates to do nails in these Asian run nail shops. Many people do not know, but to do nails one must go to school just as beauticians must go to school.

The same can’t be said of Black law breakers; Take for instance Black women who like Asian women are required to have a certificate to practice their trade, for Black women that trade is braiding hair. All over America, cities and states are coming down hard on Black run Salons about having Black women working braiding hair and not licensed by the city or state. The same can not be said of the Asian run Nail Salons. Many of the Asian women that do nails vocabulary is limited to the work they are doing and they are incapable of holding a conversation at length in English which is further proof that they did not attend a school and get the licensed needed to do nails. And no matter what one says, it is an absolute fact that the counterfeiting of goods and the distribution of those goods by Asians are like the selling and distribution of drugs by poor Black folk. Some will argue the immediate and negative impact of one versus the other and the residual affects of one versus the other which I understand can not be ignored but I am talking about the principle of getting rich from the crimes ones condition allows them to get involved in.

When Poor people engage in illegal activity, they use the means and opportunities available to them to earn money; this is true in America and around the world. However, there is a not so subtle difference in how various people illegal activities are viewed and how law enforcement seeks to end those illegal activities. One would think that when the enforcement of laws produce a high number of prisoners from one particular community when statistics show that the crimes these prisoners are in jail for is committed at the same rate amongst other groups of people that it would be as easy to bring an end to such disparities.

This is not the case when it comes to Black men and women in America, our crimes are seen as more than crime, it is seen as proof of one thing or another about all of us particularly that we are inferior and prone to committing crime, thus victimless crimes committed by us receive almost the same time crimes with victims by others get. When we look at how the states are going after Black women that braid hair versus Asian women that do nails, and when we consider that Asians open up stores selling mostly counterfeit goods only to have their illegal activity rewarded and seen as entrepreneurial we can easily see that enforcing established law is not always about going after law breakers but particular law breakers just ask the brothers arrested for selling bootleg movies on the same street that Asian stores are free to sell their counterfeit goods.