A surprising sociological study about teenage boys that would actually change lives and make cities safer – if anyone in charge would read this and pay attention. It has already made a difference in the way I see the teenage young men who come into my place of work and will change how I deal with them in the future. This book has already helped make changes in California law.
Rios was a teen gang member in Oakland, California on the edge of a criminal future, but was fortunate to be guided in a better direction. He got a PhD from Berkeley, but this is not HIS story. This is a rewritten version of his Ph.D. thesis, for which he spent three years following and studying 40 young men from Black and Latino families on the very hard streets of Oakland. He took great care to make this study about those young men, not about himself.
Rios’s thesis is that, in spite of intentions to the contrary, the police, teachers, probation officers, and even families of these young men actually *caused* these young men to be formally labeled as “criminals” from a young age, often as young as 9 years old. One of the main ways this was done was through the use of a city computer database by placing a label of “gang-related” or “gang member” on any young Black or Latino male for the flimsiest of excuses. Placing a name in the database was permanent and it legally (by State law) allowed the police officers to search, question, observe, and invade the privacy of anyone on the list. Children would be placed on the list for talking back to teachers or police officers or for being seen in the company of other young men in the database (usually relatives or apartment neighbors). An especially cruel method was getting placed on the list because the young man was a VICTIM of a gang shooting or beating. And when this occurred, the boys’ teachers began treating the young men as criminals.
Even though this was rewritten for a more public readership than a sociological text, there are still places where the jargon takes over, so reading this takes some persistence. But it is worth the trouble if you want to understand what Rios calls the “youth control complex” that fails to “control youths” and instead fills prisons. This is an eye-opening book which deserves a lot more attention. Buy a copy for your mayor and district attorney.
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