Children Raising Themselves Send To Printer | Close Window

By A. Scott Washington, Esq., Workplace ReConnections, Inc.

Today, it is nearly impossible to find a single African American family that had not been impacted, in one way or another, by American criminal justice policy. Moreover, our prison population is overwhelmingly composed of African Americans. The deteriorating condition of our inner city communities and, in particular, the violence among inner city youth are a consequence of the collision of current criminal justice policy and poverty. All of the evidence and data indicates that the criminal justice system in this country is dysfunctional to its core; the statistics suggests this, the demographic profile of juvenile and criminal court dockets across the country suggests this, but most importantly, the social conditions that our urban youth must endure suggests this.

The collision of the contemporary criminal justice policy and poverty has created social pathology like none seen before in urban America. For many inner city residents, and African American children in particular, criminal justice policy and poverty have contributed to a blurring of cultural, as well as social values. As a result, an entirely new urban phenomenon has arisen within the inner city. During the welfare reform era we spoke about children raising children. What we have today is children raising themselves. A significant proportion of our inner city youth today are the children of prisoners that inhabit our nations prisons. Whether placed in foster care, raised by a grandparent, auntie, cousin or some other distant relative, when these children reach adolescence they are typically raising themselves in the bowels of contemporary urban America. The violence that has become prevalent in these communities is simply the rippling effect of this phenomenon. If you question my premise just take a drive through any poverty stricken area in this country in the evening, what you will find is teenagers roaming the streets in survival mode. The things that we take for granted, a warm plate at dinner time, a comfortable bed, and people who truly care about our well-being are often what these bands of roving young people are really seeking.

The simple rationale is to label them drug addicts, dealers and street criminals. In reality, however, for the vast majority of these young people, the streets are a mechanism for survival, a way to secure meals, places to sleep, transportation, but for the most part, the “things” we take for granted.

A significant factor in the development of this urban subculture is the deterioration of the institutions that are critical for social and personal growth. First, the institution of family has disintegrated. Fathers are almost always absent. The blame here is placed squarely on the shoulders of the burgeoning American criminal justice policy which has incarcerated African Americans at unconscionable levels over the past three decades. Thus, we now have generations of African American boys who have been raised with little or no positive male influences within the immediate family or the broader general community. These social, economic, political, and cultural forces have helped shape, and unfortunately define, the inner city African American identity. The consequence of this collision between contemporary criminal justice policy and poverty is a prison culture that is deeply imbedded in inner city life for African American families.

Second, the popular media has chosen African American youth as poster-children for violence, misogynism, materialism, and over-sexualized bravado. Third, but not nearly least, our education system has failed African American children. African American children from backgrounds of poverty often attend run-down schools with overcrowded classrooms, less experienced teachers, outdated textbooks and outmoded technology. According to Gloria Sanders, president of Associated Chaffey Teachers (“CTA”) and chair of CTA's Brown v. Board of Education Commemoration Committee, “there is a disproportionate number of black children in special education - especially black males - because it's easier to push them into special education and label them learning disabled than it is to work with them."

Essentially what we have here is the social disenfranchisement of African American children. The forces of history, poverty, and human vulnerability have conspired to create a new and peculiar universe within the inner city. The rules and imperatives of traditional inner city culture do not apply within this new universe of the inner city. The apparent evolving nature of this new inner city culture, and its intersection with poverty and social pathology has created an environment ripe for urban violence to flourish. Combine these factors with the American Criminal Justice process which incarcerates African Americans at unconscionable rates and what has arisen is a tragic malady of social despair within the cities of this country.

A. Scott Washington, Esq. has a Bachelors Degree in Urban Studies with an emphasis on contemporary urban problems and a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Dayton School of Law. Also, he is a Staff Attorney In the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court and Executive Director for Workplace ReConnections, a Miami Valley grass-roots community service organization that assists juvenile and adult ex-offenders make the transition from lifestyles of criminality and incarceration to a more productive crime free lives. Contact: Scott@workplacereconnections.org