"Apocalypse, New Jersey: a Dispatch from America's Most Desperate Town" basically just talks about how some places in the U.S., New Jersey in particular, has fallen into social disorganization. Societies that have become so crime infested its as if the Apocalypse has already started. We get interviews from several different people who have commited crimes or have been the result of those crimes. One of the first lines that reallt caught my attention was how "instead of shaking hands people here are always lifting hats, sleeves, pant legs, and shirttails to show you wounds or scars, then pointing in the direction of where the bad thing just happened." This statement in itself is disguisting. Its as if the people in these neighborhoods are used to it. As if its just a part of life. That is why I consider these areas victims of social disorganization. Social disorganization is the theory that there is something wrong with the communities that cause people to commit crimes. In areas like specific townships in Chicago or New Jersey crime rates don't decrease after prison sentences are served. People who have commited a crime do so for some reason, weither its to survive or just because they feel they need to, and when they are released right back into the same community they commited the crime they will just relapse. When I say relapse I don't just mean they will go back into jail or prison again but even if they don't they are living in the same environments they first commited the crime. They will fall into the same Lifestyle that they had previously fallen into. In this article in specific it leaves the impression that the entire neighborhoods are corrupt as if anyone could attack you for anything that you do, even if its just to turn and look at something. Even police have thier own stories. The worst part is that noone feels ashamed that they have these stories rather that they are proud to have survived in such a bad area.
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