Case Analysis : Preston Simmons 's ' Baby On The Way '

The book being reviewed in this papers is Code of the Suburb: Inside the World of Young Middle-Class Drug Dealers by Scott Jacques and Richard Wright. This book is written on the context of 30 different individuals from a small location referenced as “Peachville” in Atlanta Georgia (Jacques & Wright 1). Each of these known individuals during their time in high school were selling drugs. Marijuana was the particular substance to be sold, but few dove into other illicit drugs including ecstasy, cocaine etc. (3). Generally speaking, the first questions that appears is what pushed these students to dive into the prospects of peddling and using drugs? Better yet, why continue to use them? The 7 chapters included in this book contain various stories of popularity and financial gains and losses along with the destruction of relationships.

In Randol Contreras’s The Stickup Kids, Contreras explores the South Bronx through the lens of a sociologist. He describes the lives of the stickup kids such as Gus, Pablo, and other teenagers living in the South Bronx. Contreras uses the research method of ethnography to provide a sociological analysis of the drug trade and business in the South Bronx. His research shows how social factors impact the lives of these stickup kids to become active in the drug trade. Through his field notes and interviews with the stickup kids, Contreras examines in depth of how social factors such as, socialization, social class, the thrill of crime, deviance, and culture affect the individual.

Prior to being assigned the reading of the memoir “Always Running”, by Luis Rodriguez, I had never given much thought on juveniles involved in gang life. Rodriguez achieved success as an award-winning poet; sure the streets would no longer haunt him - until his own son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the vivid memoir, “Always Running.” “Always Running” is the compilation of events Luis experienced during his youth in San Gabriel. The theme of the book is to always strive for the best things in life and to always take a stand for what you believe. Lured by the seemingly invincible gang culture of East L.A., he witnessed countless shootings and beatings, as well as senseless acts of street crime against his friends and family members. As a Latino in a poor neighborhood, Luis struggled through criticism, stereotypes, and mistreatment. With the help of his mentor, Chente, Luis saw a way out through education and the power of word to successfully break free from years of violence and desperation.

Culture in urban communities, also referred to as inner-cities, are growing increasingly violent. In the article, The Code of the Streets by Elijah Anderson, he begins to take an in-depth look at the root of the evil. He deduces that economic factors, parenting and the troublesome environments largely influence the violent norms within this culture.

Tony had started dealing drugs in those shadowy hallways of Murphy Homes before he was ten. By the time he was fourteen, Tony had built a fierce reputation in the neighborhood. Despite his skinny frame and baby face, his eyes were lifeless and hooded, without a hint of spark or optimism. Tony’s dead-eyed ruthlessness inspired fear. He spent much of his time in West Baltimore but had decided to try to open up a drug sales operation in East Baltimore as well.

Wes making a critical decision in his life, without a voice around to say otherwise entered the drug game. Both Wes Moore’s shared a common thread while growing up. They both grew up in single parent environments, both were raised in inner city neighborhoods, and both had run-ins with the law. As author Wes Moore states in the introduction, “The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine . . . .

The article “The Ghetto Made Me Do It” comprises of context and analysis of the criminal case of Lisa Morgan. Lisa Morgan, a progenitor of the harsh ghetto is being convicted with six armed robberies and a murder, but this article questions if this happened because of her personal responsibility, or society’s responsibility, or lack thereof, to effectively handle young, black, and poor children. One particular attorney, Robin Shellow, goes into detail about exactly what Lisa had to go through. Her Mom shot her dad, her uncle was murdered, her sister’s boyfriend was shot and paralyzed from the neck down, she was raped at aged 12 (1). These are all things that Morgan had to face growing up. The author then introduces the idea of the “ghetto defense” The “ghetto defense” basically states that (in regards to Morgan’s case) “… violence is a norm, an occurrence so routine that Morgan’s 17 years of exposure to it have rendered her not responsible for her actions” (1).

Vance grew up in Middletown, Ohio, where his mother, Bev, was raised and where his grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw, raised her. As a child of a poor, working-class family, Vance witnessed his mother’s addiction to drugs and the multiple father figures she brought into his life over short periods of time. Many of her boyfriends did not last because of fierce arguments Vance’s mom would have with them. As a result, this caused his academic success to suffer as well as his mental stability.

However, as Billy Lamar Brooks Sr. explained in “The Case for Reparations,” if “you got a nice house, you live a nice neighborhood, then you are less prone to violence, because your space is not deprived.” But if “you grow up in a place like this, housing sucks. When they tore down the projects here, they left the high-rises and came to the neighborhood with that gang mentality. You don’t have nothing, so you going to take something, even if it’s not real. You don’t have no street, but in your mind it’s yours” (Coates). By Brooks’ standards, people turn to gang violence because they have no space and want something that defines them as a person. Once again, the negative assumptions associated with Blacks today, such as that all Blacks are criminals, derive from the segregation in the past. While some African Americans are criminals, they often are such because they were forced to live in segregated communities with fewer opportunities. To reduce crime, the government must open more programs that provide impoverished communities with “something that defines

Facts: In March of 1989 a Quebec couple named Jean-Guy Tremblay and Chantal Daigle conceived a baby after a 5 month sexual relationship. After being aware of the pregnancy Tremblay grew jealous, dominant and abusive towards Daigle. Fearing for the well-being of herself and her fetus, Daigle decided to leave Tremblay after he physically assaulted her in early July 1989. Shortly after Daigle, who is now 18 weeks pregnant decided to abort the pregnancy. Her main decision over the abortion was she alone could not raise a child in a peaceful environment with two parents and had no plans of ever seeing Tremblay again in her life.

“In that first year, my first way from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersection in Chicago, I could cross in front of a car stopped at traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk of the driver-black, white, male, or female-hammering down the door locks.” (Ackley, page 185), as I read in this essay, he was not a gangster, he was studying at the University of Chicago. Even though he has had a good education, people around him usually think he is dangerous because he is

Once upon a time, A kid that goes by the name of Demario went to school in chicago’s worst neighborhoods. Englewood area was not the best area to live in. Comparison to the Englewood in California. Demario was a humble teenager. He has a twin brother who goes by the name of Demacio. Demario was the oldest by one whole minute. They both attended Johnson college prep a local charter school ( high school ). The streets in englewood was every mans for themselves. They both lived by the motto “You live or die in chicago”.

The movie Boyz N the Hood is an illustration of how a group of early adolescents’ lives was affected negatively due to the environment they lived in. These adolescents lived in an environment where drugs, gangs, and shootings were the center of their community. Living in a predominantly African American community these adolescents were faced with many misfortunes. Ricky one of the adolescent characters I have decided to evaluate for this particular paper was faced with adversity.

The community I have chosen for this paper is The South ward of Newark, New Jersey where the hospital which I work is located. Newark is an urban community consists of primarily of African American and Hispanic population. The South Ward of Newark and contains 17 public schools, five daycare centers, three branch libraries, one police precinct, and three fire houses (City of Newark New Jersey, 2013). The city’s property and violet crime levels tend to be higher than New Jersey’s average level (Newark, NJ Profile, 2013). Observation of this community through a window

Phillipe Bourgois’s study of social marginalisation in inner city America in his ethnography ‘In Search of Respect – Selling Crack in El Barrio’, won critical acclaim when first published in 1995. For the first time, an anthropologist had managed to gain the trust and long-term friendship of street-level drug dealers in one of the nation’s roughest ghetto neighbourhoods – East Harlem (Bourgois, 2003). He had originally come to study poverty and ethnic segregation, the political economy of inner-city street culture, ' but found himself mired in a world conditioned by drugs, a world on which the literature is surprisingly sparse (Clatts, 1997). The people who inhabit it--men and women with names like Benzie, Little Pete, Gigi, Candy, Primo,