That is, what others can do in their houses or backyards the poor do on the street making them much more visual to police. The most important thing however is that police training conditions officers to be suspicious of certain kinds of people. This means that they already have a cognitive schema of the type of person they are looking for and thus are more likely to detect their criminality. This means that police officers, along with others viewing a situation through the biasing effects of an criminal schema containing those with low socioeconomic status, may overlook or reinterpret action of people with low socioeconomic status that do not fit the criminal schema. Also, they may overemphasize actions that do fit the schema and interpret ambiguous information, such as nervousness, as consistent with the schema.
Officers have many stereotypes about a poor youth's family.
There seems also, to be a difference in the way the court system views criminals of different socioeconomic status. They are more likely to attribute the criminal behavior of people of low socioeconomic status to their dispositions, while they attribute the criminal behavior of those of high socioeconomic status to their situation. An example of this is drug use. When someone of low status gets arrested for possession of drugs they are seen as a drug abuser and are likely to get sentenced to jail, whereas when someone of high status is arrested for drugs their behavior is seen as coming from the situation they are in. Rock stars or professional athletes who are arrested for possession of narcotics are more likely to get probation or sent to rehabilitation, than are those of a lower socioeconomic status.