Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys by Victor M. Rios A Book review: Social Lives of Black and Latino Boys

Abstract

The societal consequences of the War on Drugs may already be clear to the majority who read this review: mass incarceration, escalating correctional and other criminal justice costs, neighborhood deterioration, and the erosion of basic American civil liberties. In contrast with this societal perspective, Victor Rios has provided a powerful microscopic perspective from shadowing the lives of 40 African American and Latino adolescents for three years (2002 to 2005) in Oakland, California. Participants were recruited through snowball techniques and the inclusion criteria required previous identification as an at-risk delinquent. Thirty had been arrested but all lived in highcrime neighborhoods and had siblings or friends who had been involved with crime. Nineteen reported gang membership. In addition to the 40 participants he shadowed, Rios interviewed an additional 78 youths of which two-thirds reported gang membership. Their stories and Rios’s conclusions contain much that can inform social workers, law enforcement and probation officers, school personnel, and others concerned about addressing the social problems anchored in poor, urban communities.