Alex Kotlowitz follows the lives of two young boys, Lafeyette Rivers and Pharaoh Rivers, in their Chicago neighborhood, living in the Henry Horner Project, a housing scheme for underclass black people. The boys grow up in a rough neighborhood, where the only option is to join a gang once they enter adolescence. Their mother is 35 years old, and she had eight children, among whom, one is serving a jail term and the second born, an eighteen-year-old, has been arrested for a record forty-six times, making him a strong candidate to serving jail terms like his elder brother. When Alex suggests to the mother about writing the story of the two boys with the title ‘The story of two boys growing up in the other America,' the mother exclaims that there are no children there, as they have seen so much for kids of their age.
Over the period that Alex Kotlowitz observes the lives and the changes happening in the boys (Lafeyette was 10 and Pharaoh 7), they undergo tremendous changes, with Lafeyette getting accused of delinquency at the age of twelve. Lafayette’s role model, a boy who had succeeded in getting off the hands of the Conservative vice Lords, gets shot by police by mistake, breaking the spirit of Lafeyette, as it seems clear that no one can escape the gang and life in the ghetto. Pharaoh goes through similar changes, but he is smarter and sharper, a trait that keeps him balancing his life between the good side of education and rapport with gang members. LaJoe Rivers, the boys' mother, dreams of having one of her eight children break off from the Henry Horner Project lifestyle.
The plight of Lafeyette and Pharaoh is a common spot in the lives of many young people living in America. In most black communities, the business and other commercial services are controlled by a gang or conflicting gangs; that recruit young boys from an early age. There are more than 33,000 gangs in America with membership running up to 1.4 million young people. The gang lifestyle usually highlighted and celebrated in the hip-hop culture, a music genre that is famous with the black people takes over thousands of young men and women. Comparable to the Conservative Vice Lords gang of Henry Horner project is the 18th street gang, which runs in 32 states in the United States, with a membership of 15,000 people. In essence, the gang problems are still rife in modern America, and thousands of youth still join them, either willingly or forcefully, painting a similar picture like the one in the book, There are No Children here.
The role of historical context in the lives of Lafeyette and Pharaoh
In the Chicago Westside, poor people have been living in disenfranchisement for many years, and the Henry Horner Project was one of the government initiatives to create better living conditions for the black people. Despite them having jobs outside the project, and some living well off as middle-class black people, they are still part of the underclass. That still affects the lives of young people. To Lafeyette and Pharaoh, the historical impact of racism and discrimination pours them into a society that is controlled by a gang and drugs. They do not have same privileges with white kids living in peaceful neighborhoods, and their lives are wired into crime and drug abuse. Also, racism brought black people into fights and fierce exchanges with police, an aspect that makes young black boys ‘guilty until proven innocent’. Lafeyette friend is shot dead by police, despite his determination to stay away from the gang, showing the kind of bad taste between the black Chicago community and the police. That particular shooting affects the hopes and dreams of Lafeyette, as he believes that it is impossible to escape the Henry Horner Project life.
Examples of social learning and social control theories from Alex Kotlowitz’s book
Social learning theory recognizes the role played by delinquent peers, punishment on criminal behaviors and influence of imitation of peers on criminal behavior. The theory notes that many young people are introduced into crime by their friends, and the government reaction and punitive members (like police shootings) only add to the extent of criminal behaviors. For instance, in Chicago, and specifically, the Henry Horner Project, crime is fueled by the constant police brutality. Lafayette's friend was shot innocently, an act that killed the soul in Lafeyette, making him give up on his quest for a clean life. Shortly afterward, he was arrested for delinquency. Another example is the exposure the children had to crime and delinquency. At the age of 10 and 7 for Lafeyette and Pharaoh respectfully, their mother thought that they had seen too much to be children anymore. This exposure to crime and drugs acted as a social learning platform, where the kids got to an expectation of the kind, of course, their lives would follow, considering the influence of the gang. On the idea of social control, the punishment for avoiding the gang was immense, as kids who refused to join it were forced to stay indoors for most of the time. Ideally, this was an automatic control over their lives, as either joined the gang or lives boring lives.
Police Relations and Juvenile Courts of Cook County
The book portrays police as a violent arm of government that makes uninformed arrests and killings of the young people of the Henry Horner project and Chicago. The community does not trust the police, and this leads to tussles that make the people live in constant fear. The lack of police protection to the population makes the people depend on the gang, an aspect that feeds crime, the more. In perspective, having the gang control the people means that young boys could not get an education, which means that they wallowed in poverty for long moments, as without good education they cannot get good jobs and break off from poverty. The disillusionment with the police system makes the people indulge in drugs (the way Lafayette's father had sunk into drugs despite being a qualified driver).
The Juvenile courts did not provide a good alternative for the young people in Henry Horner Project, either. The boys are beyond reform, and attempts to reclaim them to people of good character often go futile. In this vein, the police come out as brutal forces who use instant justice (killing of the boys) instead of pushing them to rehabilitation centers through the juvenile courts, As the writer says, though, there are no children in Henry Horner and Chicago, as they have had it rough, too rough for their young ages. The challenge of reclaiming the lives of the boys in Henry Horner can partly be blamed on the brutal police force or the government that has failed to provide basic services to the black communities.
Creating a comparison with recent police shootings of unarmed black men, like the incidence in Ferguson, it occurs that racism is still a very dire problem in the United States. Many people don the colors of gangs, and the informal economy is controlled by criminals. Moreover, the rise of the gangs came as an offshoot of government inaction and police brutality, which left poor black people to survive in low income, and sometimes, no income at all. That pushes many young people to crime, as they look for ways to make a living, and the gangs offer the frameworks within which the members commit crimes.
