There Are No Children Here By Kotlowitz Essay - 1236 Words

In There Are No Children Here, Kotlowitz describes the experiences of Pharoah and Lafayette to highlight the racist and classist undertones existing within the criminal justice system of Chicago in the late 1980s. This essay will utilize the theory of critical criminology to illustrate the structures of inequality within the criminal justice system and the subsequent marginalization of youth that exists within the Henry Horner community, leading to youth deviance and violent crime. Beginning with a brief outline of the major characteristics of critical theory, the essay will then address the increasing focus on gang involvement as an explanation for inner-city youth crime, using examples from the Disciples and Vice Lord gangs, and how that focus demonstrates the bias and inequality within the criminal justice system. Next, the necessity of the Henry Horner community creating a system of â€Å"self-help† will be analyzed, a result of the perceived inadequacy of the criminal jus tice system in addressing the problems that the community faces. The theory of critical criminology demonstrates how structures of inequality are represented in the criminal justice system: the incessant focus on gangs and inadequacy of the system to provide protection causes the marginalization of youth like Pharoah and Lafayette, reinforcing instances of youth deviance and crime. The theory of critical criminology looks to examine how â€Å"the criminal justice process contributes to structural inequalitiesShow MoreRelatedThere Are No Children Here By Alex Kotlowitz Essay1933 Words   |  8 PagesRenee Driver CCJS 454 0101 November 22, 2016 Final Paper There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, tells a story about the family of LaJoe and Paul Rivers. The book focuses on Lafayette and Pharaoh, two of the younger children in the family, and their interactions with each other, the neighborhood, their family, their friends, and the police. Following the family over three years shows the importance of neighborhood factors when it comes to crime. According to Sampson and Groves (1989)Read MoreThere Are No Children Here By Alex Kotlowitz Essay1909 Words   |  8 PagesThere Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz tells the harrowing story of the Rivers family and their shocking experiences living in an underserved Chicago public housing project. The story focuses on Lafayette, a middle school aged boy discovering his identity, Pharoah, an elementary school aged boy with high ambition and goals, and their resilient mother LaJoe. Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization discuss how people can create rationalizations to justify d elinquencies and crimes. Specifically applicableRead MoreAnalysis Of Alex Kotlowitz s There Are No Children Here1695 Words   |  7 PagesAlex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here is a documentary exploring life in inner-city Chicago during the late 1980’s. The book follows the lives of two African American youth, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, who live in Chicago’s Horner Homes over the course of two years. It tells of a lifestyle that is a reality for many Americans and forces the reader to acknowledge a broken system that so many turn a blind eye toward. Kotlowitz does not sugarcoat the struggles and hardships that the citizensRead MoreKeeping Our Youthfulness in No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz1459 Words   |  6 PagesThere are No Children Here; by Alex Kotlowitz is a story about two brothers and their mother, Pharaoh, Lafayette and LaJoe Rivers and them growing up in the late 1980s in the (HHH) Henry Horner Homes, a housing project in Chicago. 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He has aRead More There are no Children Here Essay1736 Words   |  7 Pages nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Alex Kotlowitz’s book, There are No Children Here, is a story about two boys, Pharoah and Lafeyette Rivers growing in the late 1980’s in Henry Horner, a housing project in Chicago. The boys try to retain their youth while they see constant gang violence, death of close friends, their brother in jail and their dad struggling with a drug addiction. In Horner, there are two gangs that claim it as their turf, and the Rivers family is constantly ducking from shots of gunfireRead More Effect of Environment in There Are No Children Here Essay633 Words   |  3 PagesEffect of Environment in There Are No Children Here In There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, the way of life in Chicagos Henry Horner projects has a profound effect on all the residents who live there. The children become desensitized by the constant violence that they are forced to witness every day. Children are forced to walk home from school through the urban war zone of these housing projects. It is not unusual for the children to run home from school to avoid becoming casualtiesRead More The Effect of Gangs in There Are No Children Here Essay949 Words   |  4 Pagesin There Are No Children Here  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚   Throughout There Are No Children Here, a continuous, powerful tension always lurks in the background. The gangs that are rampant in the housing projects of Chicago cause this tension. In the Henry Horner Homes, according to Kotlowitz, one person is beaten, shot, or stabbed due to gangs every three days. In one week during the authors study of the projects, police confiscated 22 guns and 330 grams of cocaine in Horner alone (Kotlowitz 32).    Read MoreDeviance Essay911 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿Theories Of Devaince Presented In There Are No Children Here The four theories of deviance are The Learning Theory, The Strain Theory, The Social-Bond Theory and the Labeling Theory. These theories alone can explain the reasoning behind someone’s deviant behavior. But, in There Are No Children Here we see all of these theories being demonstrated. This lets us have an understanding of exactly why we are seeing the deviant behavior that we are. This learning theory is basically the idea thatRead MoreA Photographer By Alex Kotlowitz1761 Words   |  8 PagesAlex Kotlowitz met Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers in 1985 while working as a journalist. He was interviewing them for a photo essay in Chicago magazine on children living in poverty. The violence that occurred every day where the brothers lived in Governor Henry Horner Homes, or Horner, disturbed Kotlowitz. Lafeyette and Pharoah are 12 and 9 years old at the start of the book but have experienced more than many kids their age. The boys did not seem sure of what life held for them. Lafeyette told