Changing Places - How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color docx

C H A N G I N G P L A C E S

CHANGING PLACES
H O W C O M M U N I T I E S W I L L I M P R O V E
T H E H E A LT H O F B O YS O F C O L O R
Edited by Christopher Edley Jr.
and Jorge Ruiz de Velasco
With a foreword by Robert Phillips
The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race,
Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California
at Berkeley School of Law is a multidisciplinary,
collaborative venture to produce research, research-
based policy analysis, and curricular innovation on
issues of racial and ethnic justice in California and the
nation.
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Cover: The cover image was designed by Oakland,
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interdependence. She has lectured widely on the use
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Rodriguez is coeditor of Reproduce and Revolt! with
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Foreword by Robert Phillips ix
Acknowledgments xv
PA R T O N E
A DE M O G R A P H I C OV E R V I E W :
R ACE A N D G E N D E R DISPARIT I E S
1 Let’s Hear It for the Boys
Building a Stronger America byInvesting
in Young Men and Boys of Color
Angela Glover Blackwell and Manuel Pastor 3
2 Young Latino and African American Males
Their Characteristics, Outcomes, and Social Conditions
Belinda Reyes and Monique Nakagawa 36
PA R T T WO
PUB L I C E D U CAT I O N SYSTE MS A N D THE I R COMMUNIT I E S
3 Invisible Students
Bridging the Widest Achievement Gap

David L. Kirp 67
4 Doing What It Takes to Prepare Black and Latino Males
forCollege
What We Can Learn from Efforts to Improve
NewYork City’s Schools
Edward Fergus and Pedro Noguera 97
C o n t e n t s
5 Alternative Schools in California
Academic On-ramps or Exit Ramps for Black, Latino,
and Southeast Asian Boys?
Jorge Ruiz de Velasco and Milbrey McLaughlin 140
6 Beyond Zero Tolerance
Creating More Inclusive Schools by Improving Neighborhood
Conditions, Attacking Racial Bias, and Reducing Inequality
Susan Eaton 156
7 Stopping Gangs with a Balanced Strategy
Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression
James Diego Vigil and Gilberto Q. Conchas 188
8 A Radical-Healing Approach for Black Young Men
A Framework for Policy and Practice
Shawn Ginwright 205
PA R T T H R EE
Tr a n s iTi o n s T o P o s T s e c o n da ry e du caTi o n
a n d e m Ployme n T
9 Building Pathways to Postsecondary Success
for Low-income Young Men of Color
Linda Harris and Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield 233
10 The Equity Scorecard
A Process for Building Institutional Capacity
to Educate Young Men of Color

Frank Harris III, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Robin Bishop 277
PA R T F O U R
H e a lTH, H um a n s e rvice s, an d Ju s Tice sys T e m s
11 Improving the Health of Young Men and Boys of Color
Natalie Slopen and David R. Williams 311
12 The Geography of Opportunity
A Framework for Child Development
Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Lindsay E. Rosenfeld, Nancy McArdle,
and Theresa L. Osypuk
358
13 Approaching the Health and Well-being of Boys and Men
ofColor through Trauma-informed Practice
Theodore Corbin, Sandra L. Bloom, Ann Wilson, Linda Rich,
and John A. Rich
407
14 On the Outside
The Psychological and Practical Consequences of Parental
Incarceration on Children
Sarah Lawrence and Jennifer Lynn-Whaley 429
15 Big Boys Don’t Cry, Black Boys Don’t Feel
The Intersection of Shame and Worry on Community Violence
andthe Social Construction of Masculinity among Urban
African American Males: The Case of Derrion Albert
Waldo E. Johnson Jr., David J. Pate Jr., and Jarvis Ray Givens 462
PA R T F I V E
THE B UI LT E NVIRO N M E NT
16 Trajectories of Opportunity for Young Men and Boys of Color
Built Environment and Place-making Strategies for Creating
Equitable, Healthy, and Sustainable Communities
Deborah L. McKoy, Jeffrey M. Vincent, and Ariel H. Bierbaum 495

PA R T S I X
THE R OAD AHE A D
17 Minding the Gap
Strategic Philanthropy and the Crisis amongBlack Young Men
and Boys
Tia Elena Martinez, Susan J. Colby, and Lisa Quay 537
18 Getting to Root Causes of Social and Economic Disconnection
María C. Ledesma and Jorge Ruiz de Velasco 578
About the Contributors 587
Index 603

i x
AN UNHEALTHY LEGACY
In  my boss, Dr. Robert Ross, president and CEO of The California
Endowment, sat down at an East Los Angeles elementary school with a
group of mostly Latino parents. Their children had taken part in an after-
school program called LA’s BEST. Over a plate of chicken, rice, and beans,
Dr. Ross asked them what it would take for their kids to be healthy. They
told him that the neighborhood streets were unsafe for their children to
play on and get exercise, and the local park was no better. What’s more, the
city’s Parks and Recreation Department had begun to charge for summer
programs that used to be free.
Parents are not alone in lamenting the state of many neighborhoods and
communities that make it dicult for young people to grow up healthy.
The youth themselves are also talking. At the Oakland, California – based
youth development center Youth Uprising, the question “What is a healthy
community?” was posed. They described a place where bullets don’t fly
and their friends don’t die young. One young woman described the abun-
dance of liquor stores in her community and the scarcity of healthy foods.
Others wished for positive activities for young people.

These answers rearm what many of us who work with children and
youth — particularly those in low-income communities and communities
of color — know to be true: the inequities they face are persistent, pro-
found, and have long-lasting eects. This doesn’t mean the deck can’t be
reshued in their favor, but to do so, we first must redefine what it means
F o r e wo r d
x / F O R E W O R D
to be “healthy.” The absence of illness does not guarantee the presence of
good health. According to the World Health Organization, “health” is “a
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity.” In this volume we define “healthy commu-
nities” as homes, schools, and neighborhoods where all citizens experience
physical, mental, and social well-being. On the one hand, if you grow up
in a neighborhood with a good school, where it’s safe, where you can walk
and play outside, and where you have access to good food, you are more
likely to live a long and healthy life. On the other hand, if you grow up in a
neighborhood where you’re not safe, where your school is failing you, and
where you do not have access to a park or a basic grocery store, you are
far more likely to live a shorter life, to earn less money, to be a victim or
perpetrator of violence, and to be less healthy emotionally and physically.
In California, if you are African American or Latino or Southeast Asian
or Native American, you are likely to face not just one of these challenges,
but many or all of them. Children from communities of color are dra-
matically less healthy than the national population as a whole. A wealth of
literature documents racial and ethnic disparities across almost all areas of
society, showing how these dierences have developed — and in some cases
metastasized — over time. Bad policies, practices, and programs have insti-
tutionalized disadvantage so that, according to the King County Equity
and Social Justice Initiative in Washington State, the “inequities that exist
at all levels of society have persistent, profound, and long-lasting eects.”

Within this context boys and young men of color are particularly vulner-
able. The consequences are literally a matter of life and death.
If you are an African American male, you have the lowest life expec-
tancy of any racial group of either gender in the country. Latino males
are next in line. These grim statistics are driven by a higher prevalence of
preventable diseases, homicide, and accidental death. Astoundingly, for
example, African American men are sixteen times more likely to die vio-
lently than white men. The majority of children growing up in low-income
communities and communities of color witness some kind of violence
in their youth. This exposure has damaging, long-term eects. African
American and Latino boys and young men are three to four times more
likely to be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than
their white counterparts — a rate comparable to the incidence of PTSD in
veterans returning from Iraq.
When it comes to health care, African American, Latino, and Native
American males are less likely than white males to have access to health-
care services. When men of color do get health care, that care is more likely
F O R E W O R D / x i
to be inadequate. Add to this the fact that men of color experience higher
levels of poverty, unemployment, and incarceration. They are also more
likely to experience discrimination, a driving force in these other issues.
These inequities in the lives of African American, Latino, Native American,
and Southeast Asian boys and young men are one of our country’s bleak-
est legacies, and continue to cast a long shadow over the promise of our
nation’s future. I don’t say this to dishonor the strides made by people of
color and others who have agitated and struggled for hard-earned rights.
But the fact remains: for several decades now, the health and well-being of
males of color have been in steady decline. For the men of color who live in
low-income communities, the drop has been even steeper.
PLACE, RACE, AND GENDER MATTER TO HEALTH

So how do we change polices, practices, and systems to give young men
and boys of color — as well as their children, their families, and their com-
munities — a fair shot at a healthy life and future? This is the question at the
heart of this book. This volume grew out of the shared realization among
community leaders, public ocials, foundation leaders, researchers, and
advocates that a growing body of research has emerged about young men
of color and that this research tells a very specific — and dierent — story
relative to the research on young people of color in general. This gender
distinction exposes a number of stark fault lines that have put young men
of color at higher risk for health problems and a host of related issues. The
research has fueled an urgent, moral imperative to do more to address these
gaps — starting with taking a hard look at the failures and limitations of
existing approaches.
One thing is clear: what we’re doing is not working. Society’s eorts to
deal with the “problem” of young men of color have been largely reactive.
In California, for example, one in thirty-six people is behind bars today —
the majority of them being young men of color. Yet when these young men
and boys of color are released, they are unprepared and unsupported to
assume the responsibilities that come with being a productive member of
their communities. At the same time they bring with them harmful health
challenges that burden their respective communities and the community
at large.
1

Other researchers have tried to advance the discussion by placing
greater emphasis on poverty prevention. Although these steps are laudable,
they aren’t enough. As the contributions in this book make clear, what’s
needed is a preventive strategy that starts much earlier and goes much
x i i / F O R E W O R D
deeper. We have to get smarter and better at addressing the underlying and

interconnected social dynamics that contribute to whether or not people
are healthy. What does it mean to go deeper? For starters, it means under-
standing that positive health outcomes are tied to an individual’s ability to
participate fully as a member of the community instead of languishing on
its fringes. It means taking into account how masculine identity is formed
by its societal context and how this construction can aect the attitudes
of young men of color toward health, and others’ attitudes about their
health. Many men, for example, find it dicult to acknowledge trauma
and pain or to seek help because doing so would fly in the face of their
internalized ideal of manhood. And many systems charged with caring for
their trauma and pain inadvertently reinforce their attitudes by interpret-
ing their responses as a sign of delinquency or being sociopathic rather
than as a sign of physical and emotional traumatic injury.
Finally, we must find the right balance between personal responsibility
and collective responsibility. If we want young men of color to grow up
with a strong sense of responsibility to themselves, to their families, and to
their community, communities must assume the responsibility for protect-
ing them from harm with the same level of enthusiasm as we would for
anyone else. We must level the playing field so that young men and boys of
color have every opportunity to be healthy and successful.
A PROBLEM WITH SOLUTIONS
Although a number of the ideas discussed in this volume are not new,
few books have told the whole story. This collection attempts to do so by
presenting evidence from across disciplines on the unique challenges facing
boys and young men of color — and to show what can done about these
challenges. Taken collectively, these contributions constitute an indictment
of the status quo in communities across the nation. The disparities and the
increasing marginalization of young men and boys of color are not only
morally unacceptable; they are untenable. The trends documented here
underscore the ways in which the situation is getting worse and how this

fact aects us all.
But here’s the good news: the poor health and well-being outcomes that
face young men of color are not like rare cancers, where the cause and the
course of the disease are unknown. The contributors show us throughout
this book that we know how to keep a child in school; we know how
to help a young man become a productive community member. Raising
the prospects for the life outcomes of boys and young men of color will
F O R E W O R D / x i i i
bring a significant return on investment. Take those overcrowded prisons
in California. Ten percent of the California state budget — or ten billion
dollars of taxpayer money — is spent on prisons every year. Yet according
to the National Center for Education Statistics, if we raise high school
graduation rates by just  percent, Californians will save a staggering
$.trillion that would otherwise be spent on costs associated with crime
and violence, including building and maintaining prisons.
The time has come to make real change to those policies and prac-
tices that contribute to the poor health of young males of color. We must
look critically at both the health issues aecting them and at the societal
influences that shape their health. It is our hope that the ideas discussed
throughout this book will help move the nation toward the long-awaited
tipping point, where outrage translates into renewed political will and
action. Change is not only possible; it is necessary. The challenge before
us is no easy undertaking. But we cannot allow ourselves to walk into the
trap of lowered expectations that is too often set for young men of color.
Tragedy doesn’t lie in failing to reach your goals; it lies in having no goals
to reach. It isn’t a tragedy to have unfulfilled dreams — but it is a tragedy
not to dream.
Robert Phillips
Director, Health and Human Services,
The California Endowment

April 2010
NOTES
. According to a And Justice for Some report and the Urban Institute’s research
on incarceration, barely  percent of Los Angeles County’s youth population is
Latino or African American, yet members of these populations make up more than
 percent of those sentenced to adult prison. National Council on Crime and
Delinquency, And Justice for Some: Dierential Treatment of Youth of Color in
the Justice System (Oakland, Calif.: National Council on Crime and Delinquency,
). The Urban Institute research refers to several (eleven reports) on incarcera-
tion, hence the generic reference.

x v
This volume grew out of a shared sense of urgency to shed light on the
conditions and futures of young men and boys of color in America. It was
a brief eighteen months from the day the call for chapters first went out to
the day this remarkable collection rolled o the press. Anyone who has ever
embarked on such a publishing endeavor knows this is lightning speed. It
could not have been accomplished without help from the many people who
devoted time, knowledge, skill, money, heart, and vision to this project.
We owe a debt of gratitude to our wonderful content editors, Ellen
Reeves and Bennett Singer. They went beyond the individual manuscripts
to understand what the project was about and to help the contributors write
for a broad audience. Likewise, thanks goes to the detailed and nimble
work of David Peattie, Amy Smith Bell, Chris Hall, and their collaborators
at BookMatters Inc. in Berkeley, California, who took the manuscript the
last mile with good advice and a final round of style- and copyedits that
transformed the collection into a book.
Our friends and colleagues at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute
also deserve a great deal of credit. María Ledesma provided insightful
feedback on the first drafts; Lisa Quay took on the painstaking job of

making (and worrying about) all those lists of things to do. Together they
managed the numerous communications among the authors, editors, and
copyeditors, and kept the trains running with grace, charm, and great
personal warmth. Thanks are owed to Janet Velazquez and Elaine Mui,
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
x v i / A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
who ably managed the many details of conference convening, publication
agreements, and other administrative details.
Thanks to Justin Cole, Robert Perez, and our friends at Fenton
Communications, who brought to our attention the Oakland artist
Favianna Rodriguez, whose bold work graces the cover of this book. And
not least on our list: we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Robert Phillips
at The California Endowment, who provided the initial inspiration for
this project and made sure we had the resources needed to complete our
work successfully. We are grateful to Laura Cerruti at the University of
California Press, who recognized the broad appeal of our project even
before a single chapter was written, and who encouraged us to communi-
cate the work in an on-demand print and free digital format for maximum
public benefit.
Finally, to our visionary authors, their collaborators, and students:
thank you. We are honored to work with an ever-growing network of dedi-
cated scholars who combine dispassionate analysis with a conscientious
commitment to research that informs social and community change.
Christopher Edley Jr.
Jorge Ruiz de Velasco
Berkeley, California
October 2010
P A R T I
A D E M O G R A P HIC OV E R V IE W
Race and Gender Disparities

3
O N E
L E T ’ S H E A R IT F O R THE B OY S
Building a Stronger America
by Investing in Young Men and Boys of Color
Angela Glover Blackwell and Manuel Pastor
ABSTRACT
Even before the Great Recession left a vast swath of Americans without
jobs and career prospects, young men of color were struggling. Over the
past two decades the social system in which they live has become less for-
giving of youthful mistakes. Public schools have become “zero-tolerance”
zones equipped with metal detectors, Tasers, surveillance cameras, and even
armed security and the criminal justice system has become more punitive,
jailing more people than any other country in the world while doing less and
less to rehabilitate prisoners and discourage recidivism. Meanwhile, a more
demanding economy has continued to sort the highly skilled workers (who
earn big paychecks) from the low-skilled workers (who earn increasingly
smaller ones). Although many Americans have been aected by these trends,
the country’s young men of color have felt the pressures most sharply, result-
ing in a diminished opportunity to lead productive lives.
We argue that the country needs to refocus its eorts on the success of
young men and boys of color, not simply for altruistic reasons but for a very
pragmatic one: given the rapidly changing demography, the nation’s future
depends on the ability of these young people to meaningfully contribute to
refashioning the economy and society. Interventions have proven eective in
a number of areas
— education, juvenile justice, and employment, to name a
few
— and taken together, these interventions can help us harness the talents

of young boys and men, build stronger families and neighborhoods, and
strengthen the economy. Getting there will require new policies, but it will
also require new politics
— particularly the courage to declare that America
cannot aord to ignore the crisis of young men of color and the understand-
4 / A D E M O G R A P H I C O V E R V I E W
ing that addressing this crisis is essential to building a broad-based transfor-
mational coalition around equity and opportunity.
INTRODUCTION
The Great Recession has provoked America’s middle class to seek answers
to questions it has never before asked: What will happen to college gradu-
ates who can’t land their first job? Who will hire older workers who have
been out of the labor force for long periods of time? What eect will pro-
longed bouts of joblessness have on job skills, on people’s spirits, on the tax
revenues that keep neighborhoods afloat? There is nothing new about these
questions except perhaps who is asking them. Long before the housing
bubble burst in  — or before the number of workers who are either job-
less, involuntarily working part-time, or marginally attached or discour-
aged from seeking employment had climbed to more than twenty-eight
million — low-income, low-skilled, and predominantly minority workers
(or nonworkers, in many cases) had discovered that a loosely regulated free
market had largely abandoned them and that a high school diploma and
hard work no longer guaranteed the realization of the American dream.
1

In mainstream media and popular discourse it is commonplace to dis-
miss these hard-hit low-income families in our inner cities as the “urban
underclass” whose troubles are intractable, isolated, a thing apart from
the rest of the country. But it’s never been that simple. In reality, America’s
poorest neighbors — particularly African Americans and Latinos — are

the canaries in the coal mine, signaling the danger ahead. Imagine, for
example, how much better o the nation would have been if we had rec-
ognized the gathering storm in the first wave of foreclosures that began to
strike African American and Latino homeowners in . What if we had
responded with a sense of urgency about the destruction of their wealth?
How much better prepared would our young people be for the pressures of
technological changes and globalization if we had understood years earlier
that the educational crisis confronting inner-city public schools would one
day spread to the suburbs? How much more robust and productive would
our nation’s metropolitan regions be if policymakers had understood that
the poverty in our central cities would eventually spill over into our older
suburbs?
These links serve as reminders that the grave recession that began in
December  did not create our economic distress; it merely deepened
I N V E S T I N G I N Y O U N G M E N A N D B OY S O F C O L O R / 5
it. Although the road to recovery will be long, we should be mindful that
America’s future does not lie in returning to its past. Where we were before
the crisis was not the best we could do as a nation. We need a dierent
approach. If we can refocus the economy to incorporate the talents of those
who have historically been left behind — if we can lift from the bottom,
so to speak — we will build a stronger and more sustainable America, one
where everyone is producing, contributing, and navigating a path to eco-
nomic growth and prosperity. And key to that future will be the readiness
of young people of color.
WHY YOUNG PEOPLE OF COLOR — AND WHY YOUNG MEN?
By  this demographic group — young people of color — will no longer
represent a “special-interest” group; rather, they will by this time be a
majority of children in the United States.
2
Consequently, a public-policy

focus on the success of this population is necessary not simply for altruistic
reasons, but for pragmatic ones: from the workload to tax revenues to
gross domestic product, the future of the nation depends on the very people
who are often least prepared by their current conditions to shoulder the
burden. In , for example,  percent of black children and  percent
of Latino children lived in poverty, compared with  percent of white chil-
dren (CDF : ). A  study of one hundred large U.S. metropolitan
areas found that black and Latino children are more than twelve times as
likely as white children to live in “double jeopardy,” meaning that they
are both poor and living in neighborhoods where poverty is the norm and
opportunities for advancement scarce (Acevedo-Garcia et al. : ).
As candidate Barack Obama noted when he was running for president,
poverty breeds a host of problems: “What’s most overwhelming about
urban poverty,” he told us, “is that it’s so dicult to escape — it’s isolating
and it’s everywhere. If you are an African American child unlucky enough
to be born into one of these neighborhoods, you are most likely to start life
hungry or malnourished. You are less likely to start with a father in your
household, and if he is there, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that he never fin-
ished high school and the same chance he doesn’t have a job. Your school
isn’t likely to have the right books or the best teachers. You’re more likely
to encounter gang activities than after-school activities. And if you can’t
find a job because the most successful businessman in your neighborhood
is a drug dealer, you’re more likely to join that gang yourself. Opportunity
is scarce, role models are few, and there is little contact with the normalcy
of life outside those streets.”
3
6 / A D E M O G R A P H I C O V E R V I E W
This is not news. The life outcomes of young people of color have been
worse than whites — and just plain bad — for decades. The Pew Center
reports that  percent of black children born between  and  were

raised in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with only  percent of
white children. Of children born from  to , these rates are 
percent and  percent respectively (Sharkey : ). This pattern suggests
not just the persistence of disparity but a slight worsening of outcomes for
everyone. It also hints at what lies ahead if we continue along the same
track, the twin rails of a shifting economy that values strong technological
skills more than a strong back and the diminished quality of our educa-
tional systems to prepare boys and young men of color for that future.
Although this is a crisis that aects young people of both genders and
of all races, we focus here on young men and boys of color for several key
reasons.
4
Members of this population have poor economic outcomes, yet
the success of America in the near future turns in part on how prepared
boys and young men of color are to meet the challenges of a twenty-first-
century economy. Young men of color under twenty-four currently make
up only . percent of the entire U.S. population, a seemingly small group.
However, they are a growing part of the youth population — that is, the
future generation of workers and taxpayers — currently representing 
percent of male children under age five and  percent of children six to
seventeen years old (see figure .).
But why focus on boys of color and not girls of color? Certainly African
American girls and young Latinas have their own issues and are deserving
of help. But America’s growing preoccupation with crime, especially since
the s, has toughened schoolhouse policies and penal responses to what
might have been labeled “boyish” mischief in the past. Making a mistake —
or straying even slightly from the traditional path to success — is often more
costly for boys than for girls. For instance, a young girl from a low-income
household who gets pregnant will have dicult consequences to deal with,
but she also has access (albeit limited) to a social safety net that can lessen

her struggle and provide her with alternatives. She and her infant may
be eligible to receive aid from the federally funded Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (known as WIC),
temporary cash payments and job counseling from a welfare program, and
in some cases health care and childcare. And she will, in many cases, be
encouraged to stay in school and complete her education.
Boys often face less institutional support and fewer interventions to
help them get back on track. Family and communities matter, of course,
but often young boys of color are living in distressed neighborhoods and
I N V E S T I N G I N Y O U N G M E N A N D B OY S O F C O L O R / 7
in families under economic and social strains. Many boys who drop out
of school seem to vanish, and when they resurface, all too often it’s in
the criminal justice system, branded as predators and sent to adult jails.
Between  and  African Americans accounted for  percent of
the U.S. youth population under the age of eighteen, yet they represented
 percent of all arrests for that age group,  percent of those detained in
juvenile jails, and  percent of all juveniles sent to adult prison (NCCD
: ).
Since , every state except Nebraska has made it easier to prosecute
youths as adults, and many states have instituted tougher laws against
juveniles (Chura ; Rich ). This trend has been fanned by hysteria
partly about the rise of “superpredators” — “street criminals” who were
characterized by a group of influential conservative social science theo-
rists (one of whom, John Dilulio Jr., went on to head President George W.
Bush’s White House Oce of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives) as
the “youngest, biggest and baddest generation” of any society (Bennett,
Dilulio, and Walters : ). The increasing concern about the uncon-
trollable nature of these youths has fueled a rise in the U.S. prison popula-
tion and an increasing criminalization of young men. This has created
0

10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
White
Black
Latino
Asian
Native
American
Other
65+ years
45–64 years
25–44 years
18–24 years
6–17 years
0–5 years
Years of Age
Percentage
4
4
23
14
54

4
19
15
58
4
19
14
60
5
19
12
62
4
10
10
74
7
8
81
Figure 1.1 Age and demographic distribution of men in the United States,  – .
Source: Ruggles et al. , IPUMS American Community Census (ACS) pooled  –
 data.
8 / A D E M O G R A P H I C O V E R V I E W
a pattern in which young people may be harassed for minor infractions
and in which a measure of mercy for more significant crimes — even when
appropriate — has been rare.
In , for example, Dwayne Betts was sixteen, a good student grow-
ing up in a lower-middle-class African American family in metropolitan
Washington, D.C. He had dreams of going to college and had never even
held a gun until the day he and a friend decided to carjack a man at gun-

point. It was a bad decision, to be sure — and within thirty minutes Betts
was arrested. Under the laws of Virginia, he was deemed a “menace to soci-
ety,” tried as an adult, and sentenced to nine years in an adult prison (Betts
).
5
Upon his release, Betts obtained a college degree, wrote a critically
acclaimed book about his experience, and now works to curb mandatory-
sentencing laws. It’s a wonderful story of redemption and reinvention. But
how many Dwayne Bettses have been locked up without creating the ele-
ments for a path out? How many young men are we losing — and losing out
on? Looking beyond the criminal justice system, what do we sacrifice as a
nation when we do not counsel these young men to higher education, when
we do not provide safe and healthy neighborhoods, when we do not help
fathers stay better connected to families?
Our society has become more unforgiving of “mistakes.” For a boy born
into a low-income neighborhood, the likelihood is too high that he’ll go to
a bad school, drop out, and get arrested. Any one of these three events will
probably have him entering adulthood as a low-wage worker, doing time in
the criminal justice system, or joining a gang rather than attending college,
learning a trade through apprenticeships, and making decent money. The
results of bad teenage circumstances and decisions can take years of nearly
unassisted struggle to overcome. Together these events are not just “mis-
takes” for the boys and young men of color — they’re mistakes for America.
When they end up without degrees, in low-wage jobs, or in prison, they are
paying with their lives, but we are paying as a society, partly because the
economy is losing their talents and energies. It’s not just the numbers and
the finances that matter: we have to wonder about an America where our
iconic dream is based on the reinvention of self and yet we make it so hard
to recover from youthful disadvantages and poor choices.
There is a way out, though. Interventions have proven eective in a

number of areas — education, juvenile justice, employment, the physical or
“built” environment, and health — which, as part of a comprehensive strat-
egy, can help us support young men of color, build stronger families and
neighborhoods, and strengthen the economy. Getting there will require
I N V E S T I N G I N Y O U N G M E N A N D B OY S O F C O L O R / 9
new policies to be sure, but it will also require new politics — the courage
to declare that America is hemorrhaging talent and the determination to
right the present course.
UNFORGIVEN: STRANDING YOUNG MEN OF COLOR
IS COSTLY FOR EVERYBODY
Since the early s, U.S. society has gotten tougher on people who make
mistakes. Public schools have adopted “zero-tolerance” policies backed
up with schoolhouses equipped with metal detectors, Tasers, surveillance
cameras, and even armed security. Although the U.S. criminal justice
system jails more people than any other country in the world — including
China, whose population is nearly five times as large as ours (Pew :
) — it does less and less to rehabilitate prisoners and discourage recidivism.
The economy continues to divide the highly skilled workers who earn big
paychecks from the low-skilled workers who earn small (and increasingly
smaller) ones. The American middle class is withering, particularly in
communities of color. Minority males feel the eects of these trends even
more sharply.
Let’s begin with the public schools. In , . percent of all white
students were suspended from the nation’s public schools, but the figure
for African American students was  percent and . percent for Latino
students.
6
In contrast, in ,  percent of black students and just  per-
cent of white students were suspended from school.
7

Why the disparity and
why the dramatic growth? On the one hand, for more than three decades
research has consistently indicated that harsh school disciplinary poli-
cies disproportionately aect children of color. In her contribution to this
volume, educational equity scholar Susan Eaton addresses this trend (see
chapter ), asserting that “acting out” in school may result from trauma
and stress experienced at home. Treating behavioral problems at school
with more sensitivity can help kids stay in school until graduation and set
them up for success after that.
But the United States hasn’t taken this approach. Instead, the “get-tough”
stance means that schools are turning relatively minor rule infractions over
to the judicial system and have introduced policing to the schoolyard cul-
ture even though school violence has not noticeably increased (DeVoe et
al. ). This is the entry point for what some sociologists and advocates
have called the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Some studies have suggested
that children who are suspended or expelled are more likely to become