I Want Him Locked Up

Challenges for Parents of Troubled African American Male Youth

For this discussion, I define troubled youth as those youth who engage in predelinquent behavior that may lead to persistent involvement in delinquency, crime, and violence (Phillips et al. 1971; Thornberry et al. 1994; Matsueda and Anderson 1998). Predelinquent behavior is defined as fighting, petty theft, truancy, and disobeying household rules such as curfews. The overrepresentation of young African American males in the criminal justice system is a significant source of fear for parents seeking to raise well-adjusted young African American males in urban communities (Canada 1995; Anderson 1999; Alexander 2010; Johnson 2010). The data on the fates of African American boys in the criminal justice system indicate that parents are right to be worried. One out of every three African American males born after 2001 will be incarcerated at some point in their lifetime (Alexander 2010). Although African American male youth represent 15 percent of the total youth population, they represent more than 50 percent of the juvenile offender population (Campaign for Youth Justice 2007). The act of incarcerating youth may in fact also increase crime and aggressive behavior. Studies on juvenile recidivism suggest that the odds of returning to juvenile incarceration increase with each prior incarceration episode (Tollett and Benda 1999). Additionally, juvenile detention may also pull youth deeper into the juvenile and criminal justice system. Researchers have found that grouping at-risk youth together for treatment or services may make it more likely that they will become engaged in delinquent behavior that leads to a revolving door of adjudication, where youth become trapped in the juvenile justice system (Gatti, Tremblay, and Vitaro 2009; Dishion, McCord, and Poulin 1999; Hawkins et al. 1998). As a result, juvenile detention may serve as a pipeline to adult confinement.

Recent data also suggest that black students, especially boys, are more likely to face much harsher discipline in public schools than other students (US Department of Education 2010). One in five black boys has received an out of school suspension. Black students are three and half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. Zero tolerance policies in schools disproportionately affect African American male students. These policies may increase the likelihood of contact and exposure to the juvenile justice system for black male students (Children’s Defense Fund 2007).

African American parents must also face the daily struggle of how to prevent their sons from engaging in violence, and more importantly, not becoming victims to it. Both police records and self-reported surveys have shown disproportionate involvement in serious violence among black male youth as both perpetrators and victims (Hawkins et al. 1998; Sampson, Morenoff, and Raudenbush 2005). For the past two decades, interpersonal violence has been the leading cause of injury, mortality, and incarceration among African American male adolescents and young adults (Paschall and Hubbard 1998; Rich 2009; Anderson 1999). The onset and continuity of delinquency and violence is much more likely for black male youth living in poverty. Once involved in a life style that includes serious forms of violence, theft, and substance abuse, young black men from disadvantaged neighborhoods often find it difficult to escape (Young 2004). They are more likely to be deeply embedded in and dependent on delinquent peers as social capital (Anderson 1999; Young 2004; Mincy 2006; Wilson 1996; Harding 2010; Wilkinson 2003). Unfortunately, for poor families living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, it is often difficult to generate social capital for the social benefit of their children.

Social Capital

Social capital provides a useful analytical framework for examining parenting strategies and successful youth development in high-risk neighborhoods. Social capital has been conceptualized in many ways (Coleman 1988; Bourdieu 1985; Portes 2000; Putnam 1995, 2000; Furstenberg 2005). Coleman (1988), who is principally responsible for introducing the concept of social capital, conceptualizes social capital as individuals embedded in a system of normative obligations created by social consensus. Individuals draw on this type of social support system for help and support. Coleman’s theoretical conceptualization of social capital primarily focused on how obligations and reciprocity figured prominently in academic success among youth. Coleman’s work framed how social networks, social connectedness, trustworthiness, mutual obligation, reciprocity, and the flow of information channels were critical in the ways families fostered academic success for their children. Although sociologists have framed social capital in various ways (Bourdieu 1985; Furstenberg 2005; Putnam 1995, 2000; Portes 2000), for my discussion and analysis, I will be using Coleman’s theoretical framework of social capital.

Generating Social Capital: Resource-Seeking Strategies

Seeking out resources for children in poor communities is no easy task. Parental resource-seeking strategies encompass allocating a significant portion of time and energy to seeking out resources and opportunities for their children. Parents often work diligently to acquire an array of social capital resources within their families, as well as the local and extralocal community, to provide stability and safety for youth (Anderson 1990; Jarrett 1995, 1997a, 1997b, 1999; Burton and Jarrett 2000; Furstenberg 1993, 2005; Furstenberg et al. 2000; Stack 1975). Resources within and outside of the community are frequently accessed via social relationships such as kinship ties, labor market connections, and relationships with neighbors and community institutions. Parents who are socially integrated into the local and extralocal community often have a greater command of social capital and have been defined by some researchers as “adept managers of social capital” (Furstenberg et al. 2000). Qualitative accounts of poor African American parents illuminate a variety of strategies that parents employ to combat the deleterious effects of living in an inner-city neighborhood (Clark 1983). Jarrett’s (1997a 1997b 1999) qualitative work on African American parenting strategies in high-risk neighborhoods examines how African American families in impoverished neighborhoods promote social mobility among adolescents and discourage delinquency through the use of multiple parenting strategies. Some of these strategies include parents permanently separating from their children by sending them to live with relatives in another region of the United States to increase life chances and opportunities. Jarrett (1997a, 1997b) defines this strategy as “exile.” Other strategies may include parents developing social networks of responsible adults both within and outside of the family to collectively engage in socialization practices and child rearing (Jarrett 1997a, 1997b). At the fundamental core of these relationships are key principles of social capital: interpersonal trust, mutual obligation, reciprocity, and the flow of information channels.

Successful Deployment of Social Capital

Within social networks of low-income parents, particularly single mothers, trust, support, and reciprocity are important forms of social control that are critical to the survival of families and children in high-risk neighborhoods (Dominguez and Watkins 2003). Research has found that young mothers benefit most when living with extended family and fictive kin as opposed to living alone (Kahn and Berkowitz 1995; Chase-Lansdale, Brooks-Gunn, and Zamsky 1994). The social investment by parents in developing close friendships with other adults may also increase child-rearing resources (Jarrett 1998a, 1998b, 1999). Stack (1975) notes that close friendship ties replicate many of the rights and obligations associated with family ties. Friendship-based ties and networks can be useful for low-income parents to acquire social support. Although all of these features may protect healthy development among children living in high-risk neighborhoods, the families discussed in this article lack access to social capital in ways that make them much more vulnerable than the average low-income black family.

The research on social capital and successful adolescent development in high-risk communities has often presented parents who are “adept managers” of social capital as “exceptional” rather than typical. These parents have spent a great deal of time learning how to ferret out resources while experientially accumulating knowledge on how to “work the system” for resources (Furstenberg et al. 2000). The extreme sacrifices they make for their children despite living in dire circumstances within inner-city ghettoes are often characterized as “heroic” (Anderson 1999; Jarrett and Jefferson 2003). However, we know little about the challenges and struggles for parents who are unable to generate social capital for the social benefit of their children, particularly at-risk inner-city young black males.

Unsuccessful Deployment of Social Capital

Many parents living in poor communities have limited time to seek out resources in dangerous communities where resources for children are not readily or easily accessible (Cook et al. 2002; Furstenberg 1993; Sampson, Morenoff, and Earls 1999; Furstenberg 2005). These parents struggle daily to survive, often working multiple low-wage jobs to support their families. We can assume that not all parents living in resource-deprived neighborhoods are “heroic” nor are they “adept managers of social capital.” There are many parents who represent a broad constituency of parents who are equally as concerned about the social welfare and successful development of their children; however, the pressing responsibility to provide the basic needs of children (food, shelter, and clothing) allows little time to develop “adept managerial skills of social capital” or to develop an understanding of how to work the system in communities where resources are scarce (Furstenberg et al. 2000; Burton and Jarrett 2000). Lareau (2011) found in her comparative study of poor, working-class, and middle-class families that poor households experience severe economic shortages, where the lack of resources hangs over the household and vastly complicates the enactment of daily life. Furthermore, Lareau (2011) found that poor families have fewer resources within their communities to socially organize, monitor, and supervise the activities of their children.

The parents in this study may represent the general population of parents residing in high-risk urban communities. They have made valiant efforts to acquire resources, but unfortunately their efforts have resulted in failure more often than not. The accumulation of their failed efforts has gradually eroded their trust in family members, friends, neighbors, and youth-serving institutions. That erosion in trust has resulted in an erosion of much of their social capital (Putnam 1995, 2000). Developing social supportive relationships characterized by trust, reciprocity, and mutual obligation requires a significant amount of effort, which many parents do not have the time to invest. Furthermore, living in poor communities characterized by social distrust exacerbates the reluctance of parents to entrust their children with individuals (both within and outside the family) and neighborhood institutions (Edin and Kefalas 2005).

Consequently, many parents have no resources at all. Fictive kin, extended family members and neighbors who come to the rescue to assist with child rearing, may be a “romanticized” notion. For many parents, social trust in family, friends, and fictive kin has eroded, if it ever existed at all. Despite its documented benefits, social support has also been associated with family conflict, maternal depression, and parenting stress among single African American mothers (Murry et al. 2001). Although kinship ties can provide critical social support in child rearing, low-income parents in this study expressed suspicion and trepidation about creating and relying on friendship ties for social support, fearing inconsistent support, manipulation, or disruption of household patterns. Consequently, kinship networks as a form of social support in the collective socialization of children is not universal in lower-income black families. As important as extended familial networks and fictive kin are to successful adolescent development, they may also undermine a single parent’s ability to move their children out of poverty and away from violence. Therefore, extended family resources that serve as social capital for some low-income black families can turn out to be less beneficial for some parents. The acquisition of family-based social capital can be fleeting for some and outright harmful for others.

Social Capital and the Demands of Parenting

Poor parents, particularly single black mothers, face other considerable challenges and difficulties that can impede successful parenting. The demands of maintaining family without social support can compromise parenting because of the limited amount of time available to monitor children’s activities, supervise homework, and develop relationships with the children’s teachers and the parents of the children’s friends (Murry et al. 2001). Financial resources also appear to be a critical contextual factor affecting single mothers’ quality of life (Ensminger 1995). Inner-city parents must often work multiple full-time, low-wage jobs to support their families. The need to work multiple jobs leaves little time for child supervision (Kaplan 2010). Researchers found that economic circumstances affect parents’ experience of economic pressure or strain, which reduces their psychological well-being (Jackson et al. 2000). Psychological distress in turn disrupts effective parenting behaviors and thereby can diminish positive youth outcomes.

Parents with multiple children, particularly single parents, may not have the time, resources, or effort needed to parent a troubled child effectively when they have multiple children to look after. Parenting a troubled child often reduces the level of parental supervision for other children within the family. Single parents may find that parenting a troubled child drains the time and resources parents need to share among other children. This can undermine family functioning in multiple ways. I found that attending to the daily problems of a troubled youth, such as frequent meetings with school teachers and administrators to discuss behavioral problems, in addition to constantly addressing predelinquent behavior such as smoking, disobeying household rules, running away, and fighting may disrupt family functioning. Through chronic exposure to the predelinquent behavior of a troubled child, siblings, particularly younger siblings, may socially learn and model disruptive behavior (Hoffman, Kiecolt, and Edwards 2005). Without adequate social support, parents may take extreme measures to remove a troubled child from their household in order to “save” their other children, maintain family functioning, and reduce parental stress (i.e., maternal depression). In summary, parenting troubled youth is an emotionally, financially, physically, and even a spiritually exhausting and debilitating process for parents.

The parents discussed in this paper, both single mothers and two-parent families, replace the void in child-rearing support from family- and community-based social capital with the juvenile justice system. Dominguez and Watkins (2003) found that low-income mothers with few sources of social support often parlayed social service relationships into social ties that provided not only tangible items such as money, clothing, and food but also child-rearing assistance. The prevalence of social service providers in the lives of low-income mothers replaced the void in emotional and child-rearing support missing from familial and friendship-based social networks. Research suggests that relationships with social service providers are perceived as more reliable and consistent in providing resources and less stressful and burdensome in terms of the reciprocity than family members and friends (Dominguez and Watkins 2003). For the parents in this study, the juvenile justice system served as a social parent in the absence of family members, friends, and local youth serving institutions. Without adequate socially supportive relationships, extreme measures were taken by parents to leverage social control over the troubling behavior of their adolescent boys. These parents turned to the juvenile justice system for reliable, supportive, and reciprocal relationships that did not come with the burden of interpersonal tensions that may arise among family members. In the absence of other forms of social capital, the juvenile justice system was perceived as a social service provider that could provide parents with emotional support and child-rearing assistance.

This is a complex and nuanced relationship because historically African Americans have expressed a profound lack of faith and distrust in the criminal justice system (Anderson 1999; Alexander 2010). The personal experience of African American parents has favored a culture of distrust toward institutions of formal social control. In their expectations, schools, social service agencies, city hall, and the police are less likely to act on their behalf (Elder et al. 1995; Lareau 2011). However, there are also historical accounts which suggest that poor African American parents’ reliance on institutions of formal control such as the juvenile court to discipline their children is not a new phenomenon. Claude Brown’s (1965) classic African American autobiography, Manchild in the Promised Land, a searing narrative on the life of a delinquent African American adolescent male growing up in the same Central Harlem neighborhood where I conducted my study, provides a historical account of this parenting strategy. Prior to turning to the juvenile court for assistance, Brown’s parents tried a myriad of parenting strategies to address his delinquent behavior such as strict curfews, calling the police, and sending him to live with his grandparents in rural North Carolina. None of these strategies were effective in curbing his delinquent behavior. With few options left, Brown’s mother requested that the juvenile court place him in reform school. For Brown’s parents, the juvenile justice system served as a form of social capital.

One day when I hadn’t been to school in a long time, Mama said, “So you ain’t been going to school, huh? Okay have your fun young man, cause pretty soon you gonna be someplace where they’ll make you go to school. When me and mama went into the Wiltwyck School office (juvenile detention facility) on 125^th Street, we had to wait in a little room for a while then a white lady with a sad-looking face came in. The white lady with the sad face took mama into another room. They stayed for a long time. Then the white lady came back into the room where I was. She had her coat on. She told me Mama had said good-bye and then she took me by the hand. I didn’t believe Mama would do that but she did. She left and didn’t even say good-bye.

How parents in this study could rely on the juvenile justice system to serve as a disciplinarian, safe haven, and surrogate parent may appear as highly problematic for most scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and parents. This paper qualitatively elucidates how some parents utilize the criminal justice system as a form of social capital to assist with parenting and the socialization of children. More importantly, it examines how social capital affects parenting, specifically among poor inner-city parents. An unduly large amount of research has been directed at the consequences of social capital for education. However, this article examines the consequences of social capital on criminal justice involvement.

This article poses the questions, What are the challenges African American parents face raising predelinquent adolescent males in high-risk neighborhoods with few resources of social capital? How does the inability of parents to generate social capital both within and outside of the family affect parenting troubled black male youth? How do inner-city African American parents make use of the available stock of social capital? What are the outcomes that might be theoretically related to the possession of social capital for parents of troubled youth?

Sample and Method

The data I use in this article are part of a larger longitudinal and ethnographic study on the social context of adolescent violence in New York City neighborhoods sponsored by the Vera Institute of Justice. An ethnographic approach was chosen because unlike other qualitative methods, ethnographic methods seek to provide an accurate, detailed description of a phenomenon from the viewpoint of the person being interviewed and not from the way the ethnographer understands the phenomenon (Babbie 2011). As part of this study, I initially began participant observations at a junior high school, Garvey Junior High (pseudonym) located in Central Harlem. In 1997, the year that this study began, a startling 75 percent of all the children born in Central Harlem were born into poverty. This statistic was almost 20 percentage points higher than the citywide average for children born into poverty, which was approximately 55 percent. Approximately 40 percent of households in Central Harlem had incomes less than $10,000 per year. In 1997, the overall city average for households living on incomes less than $10,000 was 20 percent. Although the citywide adult unemployment rate was roughly 8 percent, the adult unemployment rate in Central Harlem was double the citywide rate, where 16 percent of the adult population in Central Harlem was unemployed (Census 2000). According to the 2000 Census Report on Central Harlem, 86 percent of the population eighteen years old and younger were African American. Approximately, twenty-two thousand persons in Central Harlem were African American and under the age of eighteen. Seventy percent of the youth population was unemployed. All of these poverty indicators serve as a backdrop for high crime rates in the Central Harlem community.

In 1997, in Central Harlem, there were 1,453 felony arrests for serious violent crimes. Central Harlem accounted for 3 percent or three out of every hundred arrests for serious violent crimes in New York City. For a community with roughly 107,000 residents in a city of 8 million residents, Central Harlem comprises 1.3 percent of the city’s total population, yet the community accounted for 3 percent of the total arrests for serious violent crimes.

Garvey had a notorious reputation as the most violent school in Central Harlem. For three years, I tracked and documented the social context of adolescent violence among fifteen African American male middle school students. I conducted daily observations in classrooms, hallways, the schoolyard, cafeteria, street corners, arcades, pool halls, recreation centers, churches, crack houses, speakeasies, and public housing complexes. For two years, I coached a local youth basketball team in Central Harlem and won a league championship, which raised my visibility in the community. On several occasions, I shadowed an African American police officer assigned to the school, accompanying him on his beat as he policed the school grounds, the perimeter of the school, and local neighborhood. I formed very close relationships with the youth in my sample as well as their parents. I spent many hours in their homes and was regarded and referred to by some parents/youth as fictive kin (Stack 1975). At the time of the study, Central Harlem and other poor African American communities in New York City were experiencing the emergence of the Bloods and Crips, traditionally known as West Coast–based youth gangs that thrived in cities such as Los Angeles. Several of the boys in my sample were members of Blood and Crips sets. Gang violence in the school and neighborhood was a daily occurrence. Several of the boys in my sample were involved in gang-related shootings, stabbings, and assaults. The emergence of violent youth gangs in Central Harlem provided the opportunity to observe how parents, the school, the local community, and police responded to the large numbers of African American boys who were joining the gangs. I received an additional year of funding from the Department of Justice to study youth gang violence in Central Harlem.

The sample was selected in the seventh grade and tracked through their ninth-grade year in high school. The sample was stratified with boys from a wide distribution of academic standings. Students were selected from the school’s honor roll as well as students who were participants in the school’s Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention (AIDP) program, which was designed for students on the verge of dropping out of school. The sample was composed of fifteen boys and the average age of the sample at the beginning of the study was 12.9 years. The age of the boys ranged from twelve to fifteen years. One hundred percent of the participants qualified for free lunch, a significant indicator of poverty. Eleven of the fifteen youth (73 percent) were from single-female-headed households and four youth were from two-parent households (27 percent). A subsample of seven youth (47 percent) had exhibited chronic predelinquent behavior (fighting, petty theft, truancy, disobeying household rules, i.e., “curfew,” smoking, and drinking) in school, the local community, and their households. These seven students had been suspended at least once for fighting or for being disruptive in school. They were also participants in the school’s AIDP program (AIDP), a program designed for students who were chronically truant or late for school. Three (42 percent) of the seven youth in this group were taken to juvenile court by their parents.

Families were visited each week for a few hours where I routinely participated and observed the normal routines of family life such as going to church, grocery shopping, watching television, going to the movies, and accompanying some parents to juvenile court. Over the course of the study, I had the opportunity to accompany parents to juvenile court on numerous occasions. Accompanying parents to juvenile court provided the opportunity to engage in intimate and often emotional discussions with parents regarding their decision to confine their children. As we sat in the juvenile court lobby prior to their hearings, discussions with parents elicited conversations regarding their reasons for seeking incarceration. In numerous instances, I observed and at times even participated in discussions between the parent(s), the public defender, and other juvenile court staff. I often served as the liaison between the juvenile court staff (i.e., public defenders, administrators, and bailiffs) and the families. The public defenders were typically young, white, and recent law school graduates. They seemed much more comfortable discussing the cases with me rather than the parents of youth in my study. I am quite sure that my age and position as a researcher and doctoral student significantly contributed to their perceptions. My observations of how dismissive they were of the parents spoke directly to the level of classism and racism between public defenders and their clients.

Much of the data used for the analysis was collected from participant observations/interviews with parents as they prepared for upcoming court dates and observations recorded on the day of their juvenile court hearing. This methodology gives a voice to the subjects of the investigation, parents of troubled young African American males, and provides a broader and deeper understanding of juvenile confinement as a parenting strategy.

Each year of the study, I conducted annual audio-recorded life history interviews with the fifteen youth in the sample and their parents. Every year, a total of thirty interviews were conducted (fifteen youth interviews, fifteen parent interviews). Youth and parents were interviewed separately. All of the youth in single-parent households (eleven single-parent households) resided with their mothers. In these cases, interviews were conducted with the mothers. In instances where youth lived in two-parent households (4 two-parent households), parents were interviewed together. The age of the parents ranged from the early thirties to early forties. Most parents were employed at low-wage jobs such as child care providers, janitors, post office clerks, and fast-food workers. Although the majority of parents had graduated from high school, none had completed college. Almost half of the families in the study lived in public housing. A total of forty-five parent interviews (fifteen parent interviews per year × three years) were conducted and transcribed. On average, interviews ranged between one and two hours. All the interviews were conducted at the home of the parents. Parents were compensated $25.00 for each interview. The findings presented here rely primarily on participant observations and interviews conducted with parents of the subsample of seven youth who exhibited chronic predelinquent behavior, with a specific focus within that group of three families who initiated contact with juvenile court for assistance with parenting their children.

All field notes and interviews were coded, summarized, and analyzed with the aid of two qualitative data analysis software and databases (Ask Sam and NVivo). To conduct the analysis, I read through each of the forty-five transcripts from the interviews and extracted all of the segments related to the research questions. The author and a graduate research assistant (unfamiliar with the data collection) independently coded a subset of transcripts to note major themes, concepts, and patterns (Miles and Huberman 1994; Berg 2009). Coding decisions were compared and reflected a high level of consistency with those of the author. The two coders found strikingly similar initial data patterns. This procedure allowed the coders to conduct reliability checks to ensure consistency with regard to the interview data collection. Some of the initial broad coding categories were as follows: (1) interpersonal trust, (2) social capital within the family (immediate, extended, and fictive kinship ties), (3) social capital outside the family (neighbors, friends, community-based institutions), (4) parenting strategies (curfews, punishment, timeout), and (5) parental monitoring/supervision. When the coding procedure was completed, the author constructed a table that included in the left column the main organizing categories and subcodes and in the right column a summary of what youth reported in the interviews (Miles and Huberman 1994; Berg 2009). Using a grounded theory methodological approach, I allowed the data to generate the hypotheses (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Specifically, whether low-income parents with few resources of informal social control and social support rely on formal sources of social control to assist with parenting troubled youth? Once the data pattern was identified, I revisited the transcripts to challenge and refine the major findings (Abrams 2012). The data presented examines the narratives of a select few parents of the sample group.

The analysis focuses primarily on three families and their children. Sly Sr. (age forty-four) and Lydia Howard (age forty) were the parents of Sly Jr. (age thirteen). They were one of the few two-parent families in the study. Both parents worked low-wage jobs. Sly Sr. worked two full-time jobs as a custodian. Lydia operated a child care business in their home. The Howard family lived in public housing. Maria Lopez (age thirty-eight) was a single parent of Afro-Latino descent. At the time of the study, she was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, which lead to the loss of her job as a nursing aide. She was receiving public assistance and disability insurance. She also resided in public housing with her three children Manny (age thirteen), Theresa (age seventeen), and Rafael (age sixteen). Harriett Jones (age thirty-four) was a single mother with two children: Hasan (age fourteen) and Malik (age eight). Harriett worked at a local fast-food restaurant seven days a week, leaving her little time to supervise her children. She resided in a tenement apartment.

Parental Engagement

Parents were asked about the amount of time they spent monitoring the activities of their children and whether they were civically engaged in community activities that could potentially provide more access to social capital. This is an important measure of social capital. Parents of troubled youth revealed that they spent little time monitoring and supervising the activities of their children (Putnam 1995, 2000). Parents often worked multiple jobs, leaving little time to monitor the activities of their children or engage in community activities related to their child’s development.

My son, Sly and I, we don’t do much together to be quite honest. We don’t get out that much. I really don’t have the time to do too much with him. I can’t remember the last time we’ve been out. I’ll be tired. I’ll be too tired to go out. It is a lot work to take care of all these kids I got to watch over and I don’t have much help so I don’t have much time to watch him. I don’t have much time to go to the school either and my husband works two jobs so he can’t do much with him either.

Single mothers in the study such as Maria Lopez, mother of Manny (age thirteen) had little involvement in monitoring her son’s activities.

We really don’t do anything together. I have an air conditioner in my room so sometimes he will come in my room and watch TV with me but that’s about it. I don’t have time to do nothing else with him. I have to take care of my business. When I am free and don’t have nothing to do he’s outside doing something with his friends. So we really don’t have much interaction at all. . . . I don’t have no time to go up to Manny’s school for meetings, I got other business to take care of.

Like Lydia Howard, Harriett Jones, single mother of Hasan (age fourteen) spent much of her time working. She worked multiple shifts as a manager at a fast-food restaurant to support her two children, leaving little time to supervise and monitor their activities.

Lately, I’ve been working almost seven days a week. So I have been worried about Hasan a lot. I told my boss about my concerns regarding my son being unsupervised and my boss told me to take some time off but I worry about whether my job will still be there when I come back so I don’t want to take a temporary leave.

These interview excerpts illustrate two issues. First, parents of troubled youth often spent little time monitoring and supervising the activities of their children and were not engaged in activities related to youth development. The maximum amount of time most parents spent with their children did not exceed thirty minutes per day. Within those thirty minutes, parents spent much of their time with children watching television. Spending time checking homework or taking children on cultural and social outings rarely occurred. Parents were also not involved in school activities such as attending parent–teacher night or parent–teacher association meetings. Parents’ social integration in the community is a predictor of social capital. In many instances, parents were aware of school meetings but acknowledged being “too tired to go.” Physical exhaustion from working multiple jobs provided little time to engage in other activities with children.

Second, parents worked multiple jobs or long shifts in order to support their families, leaving them short on time and energy (Kaplan 2010). Some parents like Harriett Jones worked seven days a week, and feared taking time off to attend to the needs of her children because she could potentially lose her job. Sly Howard Sr. worked two full-time jobs as a janitor and his wife Lydia earned income “babysitting” the children of single mothers in her building. In addition, Lydia Howard was responsible for taking care of her four youngest children (ages 17, 15, 13, and 12) and two grandchildren (both were infants). These responsibilities left both parents with minimal time and energy to monitor the activities of their children. Consequently, delinquent behavior often went unchecked. Maria Lopez was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, which made her fearful to leave her home. As a result, she could not develop healthy social relationships with her children, other adults in her family, or local community. The burden of employment, caring for multiple children, and negotiating health issues left little time for parents to develop socially supportive relationships with other adults within and outside of the family.

Generating Social Capital: A Lack of Social Trust?

As parents spent much of their time working, leaving little time and energy for other endeavors, they were unable to develop social relationships that would lead to the generation of social capital. The lack of social trust among parents with family members and neighbors to assist with child-rearing often left these parents at a significant disadvantage. It was quite common that parents could not rely on or trust family members, fictive kin, or neighbors to monitor the activities of their children. Some parents in this study did not have resources like the heroic black grandmother and uncle, which many poor single parents have traditionally relied upon for child-rearing support (Burton and Merriwether-DeVries 1992; Richardson 2009). Furthermore, social distrust was common among parents and residents in the local community (Edin & Kefalas 2005). Maria Lopez, mother of Manny (age thirteen), describes her lack of social trust in family members and friends to assist her with child rearing:

I can’t trust nobody in my family or in this neighborhood to help me with my kids. My brother don’t help me with my kids, all he think about is his own kids and his wife. Ain’t nobody else there for my kids but me. I’m the only one here. My boyfriend (Lenny) ain’t here for my kids. My boyfriend is out there doing what he got to do for himself. He’s out there supporting himself. He ain’t worrying about my kids, he’s not their father. What’s he going to do with my kids? He’s got two daughters his self. I can’t rely on nobody really. I don’t trust people. I mean you can’t trust people these days. Most people will screw you if they get the chance.

Here Maria Lopez expresses her distrust of her next-door neighbor Brenda Reyes. Brenda Reyes served as a social parent for her son Manny, yet Maria Lopez was not supportive of this relationship. In fact, she discouraged her son from having a relationship with Brenda Reyes. Maria Lopez describes her distrust of the only adult actively involved in her son’s life:

I mean I know that lady (Brenda Reyes) pretty good but sometimes you can’t trust people. I won’t let Manny go with her. Sometimes there is kidnapping you know. I just don’t feel right about her because I don’t know if that lady is putting something into Manny’s head. I don’t know if she is talking about me to him. . . . I don’t trust her.

Other parents in the study, like Harriett Jones, had few sources of child-rearing social support. Some parents simply could not rely on other family members for support for various reasons. Harriett’s mother (Hasan’s grandmother) was an elderly woman who was not physically capable of watching two young boys and Harriett’s older brother Cutty was often irresponsible with child-rearing duties. Here, traditional forms of child-rearing support which single black mothers engaged to assist with child rearing, such as grandmothers and uncles, were unavailable.

One of my brothers, Cutty, he was pretty close to Hasan but my son doesn’t see Cutty anymore. Besides my brother Cutty there is no one else I can trust to watch my son. Once Cutty told me he didn’t want the responsibility of watching Hasan. I basically had no one else to rely on. Hasan was acting up and saying he didn’t want to be at home anymore and he didn’t feel that he needed to abide by my curfew. So I just got so tired of it. I was like all right you can stay with Cutty for a while. So I sent him to live with Cutty. But my brother didn’t live up to his part. Cutty would tell Hasan okay you stay here. But then Cutty would leave the house and go off somewhere. I would call Cutty’s house sometimes at 1 or 2 in the morning and no one would be there. So now I have to leave my two sons at home alone and just hope they don’t get into trouble.

Family members were perceived by some parents as unreliable and irresponsible caregivers. Consequently, parents would often prefer to leave their children at home alone rather than place them in the care of a neglectful adult. Sly and Lydia Howard were virtually bankrupt of family-based social capital, leaving few individuals they could trust to assist with child rearing. Here, Sly Sr. discusses the lack of social support from other adults within and outside of the family to assist with raising his children.

This is all the family we’ve got right here, just me and my wife. So we have to rely on each other because it’s really no one else in our family or around here (neighborhood) that we can trust with watching Sly, Jr. We’re the only two people that Sly, Jr will listen to. We’re the only two people I guess that can reach Sly. Outside of us, there is nobody we can rely on.

The Erosion of Social Capital: Burning Bridges of Social Support

Highly dependent or troubled adolescents and young adults often exceeded their family members and friends’ capacity to offer assistance. Troubled adolescents often affected the ability of individuals both within and outside the family to offer child care support. Here Harriett Jones explains why she could not leave her son in her mother’s or brother’s care.

Hasan won’t listen to his grandmother and she is too old to be dealing with all his nonsense. My brother Cutty had a gun hidden in the house and Hasan found it and was firing the gun out of the window. Someone called the cops but by the time the cops came Hasan was gone. Now my brother can’t find the gun and he believes Hasan took it. Cutty got in some trouble with the police behind that. Now Cutty doesn’t want Hasan around him anymore. After that, I don’t want to send Hasan to somebody else because he would give them just as hard a time as he gives me. It’s kind of embarrassing when you have bad kids because people look at you like you’re not a good parent and no one else wants to take on your problems. Even if they were willing to, I could not feel comfortable knowing that my kids might do something to embarrass me.

Other parents in the study, like Sly Sr. and Lydia Howard, feared exhausting the good will of other families in the community to offer assistance with child rearing. By age 13, their son Sly Jr. had developed a reputation in the local community as a troubled adolescent who was violently aggressive towards adults and children. At the beginning of the study, community residents were actively involved in monitoring/supervising his activities in the local community. However, his increasingly disruptive behavior in the community resulted in his neighbors’ refusal to supervise or admonish him for negative behavior. The Howards soon lost much of their community-based social capital and resources of informal social control.

See some parents around here can ask other neighbors to watch their children while they are playing out in the streets but I could never do that because it wouldn’t work. At one point, the neighbors use to help us watch Sly but that stopped once Sly got a little reputation for being a gangster. So I don’t even think about asking the neighbors to help out anymore. Because with Sly, I know that I can’t reprimand him or control his behavior but so much, so it really wouldn’t help matters if I asked my neighbors to be involved; it would only make matters worse. It’s already bad enough that he won’t listen to me and I’m his parent. So imagine what he would do with them? I won’t put my neighbors through that. I just tell them if he does anything, leave him alone, come and call me. I tell them, “If it gets to the point that you can’t do anything, just call the police on him and have him locked up!” Sly got himself a little reputation around this neighborhood. It makes me feel kind of embarrassed sometimes.

Lydia Howard acknowledged that the local community residents who were once involved in monitoring her son’s activities had become reluctant to provide adult supervision for her son. Sampson and Raudenbush (1999) in their work on social disorganization and urban neighborhood disorder also found a lack of collective efficacy and reluctance among community residents to engage in the social control of the public spaces where youth frequent.

Some grown up people in the projects tried to talk to Sly but Sly won’t listen. He got a hard head. All the grownups around here are talking about him now, I don’t know if Norma Jean (neighbor) . . . if she’s telling me the truth or not, for God only knows, some neighbors now are talking about how they want somebody to catch him and beat his ass or kill him or something like that. You can tell Sly to stop, but Sly won’t listen. So they (neighbors) just stopped talking to him, in a way I don’t blame them.

When Nothing Works: Frustration with Failed Parenting Strategies

Several parents in the study made heroic attempts to correct their child’s problem behavior before turning to the juvenile court for help. Parents attempted to acquire and deploy community-based social capital by enrolling their children in organized youth activities. Sly’s parents tried to involve him in several organized youth activities, yet nothing seemed to work. Parents often have competing interests with getting their children to engage in community-based organized activities, and the lure of peer-based social capital that youth can acquire in the street. The lure of negative peer-based social capital (i.e., gangs or loosely organized delinquent peer groups) and the autonomy that accompanies it, in some instances is more seductive than participating in organized youth activities (Lareau 2011).

First we enrolled Sly in Harlem Boys Prep (an elite private school for black males) because he was a really good singer and dancer. I used to have to pay his tuition every six months. Every year I’d break it down into a payment plan, it was hard on our pockets but we managed to do it. That school was great, it was a good school. But he was only in that school for a hot minute. He got kicked out for taking a knife to school and threatening to kill another little boy. So we had to put him in the neighborhood public school, which wasn’t too good. So I tried to put Sly in the Harlem Boys Club to give him something constructive to do. But then they had to put Sly out of the club because of his temper and he just wouldn’t listen. Stuart (Director of the Boys Club and Boys Club basketball coach) kicked him out. Stuart just told him don’t come back. After that I wouldn’t even put him in any more activities around here. See you have to understand. With Sly, he’ll be into something for the first week. For about a week he will be interested. But once he gets with a group of his hoodlum friends, he’ll decide that he would rather be out on the street. Running around with a crew of guys, it’s more exciting on the streets for him. That way he gets to create and control his own excitement.

In some instances, even extreme forms of punishment did little to correct problem behavior.

Now with most kids you know, you can reach them through scaring them with beatings, punishment, physical punishment you know with a belt or something. But with Sly, I mostly have to talk and hope that he listens. He has a strong will, whatever he makes his mind to do, he’s going to do it. I made one mistake with Sly that I will never forget. To keep Sly from running out the house, I tied him up with rope. I thought that would of scared him but he never forgave me for that—for belittling a person like that, like a slave. I realized that now but I didn’t have any choice at the time because every time I turned around there was something different going on. I was like damn, this boy can’t possibly be this bad, but he was. . . . I’m going to talk to Sly a few more times and if that doesn’t work, then I’m going to the state to seek some advice. I need some professional intervention from the court, some counseling, something, because of the fact that I can’t control him at this point. I can’t get physical with him because it would get out of control.

Another parent in the study Carl Long, step-father of Ali (age 14), discussed his frustration with his failed parenting strategies. After several unsuccessful parenting strategies, Carl Long attempted to enforce a curfew for Ali and his brother Andre (age 17). Ultimately, this strategy failed. Like many parents, Carl Long had run out of options and was searching for more policy-oriented solutions from the state.

I would have a curfew that they should be in the house by 11 at night. Ali comes in sometimes at 2 o’clock in the morning. Andre just turned 17 and he comes in anytime he feels like it. There are times at 10 o’clock at night that his mother goes in the streets searching for Ali. It’s ridiculous. I can put up a curfew but they disobey it anyway. Maybe I’m not doing too well as a father figure. I don’t have any influence. There needs to better solutions from the state to help me, help him.

Maria Lopez discusses her frustration with her unsuccessful parenting strategies:

He’s (Manny) not willing to listen and go by my rules. If I put him on punishment and I tell him that he can’t go out of the house. When I turn my back he is out the door, like he don’t even hear me. Nothing works with him.

The Juvenile Court as Social Capital

Research suggest that parents with limited resources of informal social control often develop formalized relationships with social service providers (Dominguez and Watkins 2003). In this study, parents with few resources of social capital for child-rearing support turned to formal resources of social control, primarily the juvenile justice system. Parents used the juvenile court to fill the emotional and social support void left by the absence of family and community social capital. Lydia Howard’s relationship with the juvenile court was her only reliable and trustworthy social tie. The court personnel provided her with a form of emotional support and concern that she could not get from family, friends, neighbors, or local youth serving institutions.

The social worker and the lawyer told me they were going to give me a bed there (juvenile court) one time. Everybody knew me so well in the courthouse. They treated me real good. I’ve been going to the courthouse so much, all of them knew me. All the probation officers, they joke and say they gonna give me a job there. Everybody knew me in that courtroom. Because that’s basically the only activity Sly and I ever did together was go to court. When I would walk in, they would all say, “Hi Ms. Howard.”

Relationships with juvenile court social workers were also perceived by many parents as their only form of social capital.

If I need help or advice with my kids the only person I can rely on is the juvenile court social worker. I can rely on her more than my family and friends. I talk to her about everything like the kids not going to school and not listening to me. I talk to her about everything really. She is the only person who really listens to me about things I’m going through with the kids.

At Wits’ End: Prison as a Panacea

In this study, I found that parents with limited family and community-based resources for child rearing would rely on the juvenile court to provide discipline, social control, punishment, and a safe haven for troubled youth. Despite the long history of distrust and lack of faith among African Americans in the police and the criminal justice system (Alexander 2010; Anderson 1999), some parents in this study turned to the juvenile court for parenting assistance (Brown 1965).

Here Sly’s Mother, Lydia Howard provides a similar narrative. This excerpt was taken from an interview with Lydia Howard a week before she was scheduled to appear in court with her son.

When I take him to court I gonna tell the judge I don’t want him at my home anymore. He needs to grow up some. Maybe he’ll grow up some and maybe if he stays up there (juvenile detention), he’ll learn some discipline and maybe he’ll learn to be a better person. That’s what I’m gonna pray happens. If I leave him on the streets any longer he will probably end up dead.

Harriett Jones echoes similar sentiments:

I decided to pull Hasan out of school because he was running away too much, not going to school and not listening. He just kept running away. I’m praying and I’m hoping that he gets settled and stays in Safe Harbor (group home) for a little bit. Being at Safe Harbor he will go to school and get his grades up and hopefully by him being in there maybe when he comes out I can have him enrolled in some kind of programs to help him stay occupied.

Parents also perceived juvenile confinement as a strategy that would save their children from being violently injured or killed on the streets. For these parents, juvenile confinement was a life-saving strategy. Parents saw confinement as a much safer alternative to allowing their sons to remain enmeshed in the culture of the street.

Hasan keeps getting into arguments with people around here. I don’t want to come home from work one day and they tell me to go visit him at the hospital or he’s been killed hanging out on the corner. If I leave him out here the only thing I see for Hasan is being on the corner with the rest of the guys because most of these boys are going into a gang. Most of them on the corner are gangbangers.—Harriett Jones

If I leave Sly on the streets any longer he will probably end up dead.—Lydia Howard

I want the judge to lock him up; he needs to get off these streets.—Maria Lopez

Parents also utilized juvenile confinement as a deterrent to future delinquency. Many parents hoped that incarceration would “scare their children straight” (Finckenauer 1982; Finckenauer and Gavin 1999). However, parents did not realize that juvenile institutions in some ways were much worse than the streets with regard to socialization into criminal behavior. Parents perceived juvenile detention as a pro-socialization strategy.

I hope Manny being locked up will shake him up a little. I want the judge to put something in his mind that is really going to scare him and make him think of going to school and being good. I hope he’ll put him in a boot camp or a group home, the way I feel he needs to be punished a little.—Maria Lopez

I’m praying that being in a group home will help him look at things a little differently so he can see that when you are bad and don’t listen, this is where you are going to end up.—Harriett Jones

I took Sly down to the police station and they took us to some kind of place where we sat down and then they held Sly overnight. So I figured they would keep Sly for a month or two and tell him that this is his new home and Sly would figure, “Well I would rather be at home than be here” and then he would change his act.—Sly Sr.

Some parents also used juvenile confinement as a resource to take a temporary break from parenting a troubled child. The psychological toll of parenting a troubled child with few resources reached a breaking point for some mothers, resulting in maternal stress.

I got the courts to put him in Safe Harbor. He was just stressing me out. I need a break from him.—Harriet Jones

Parents in the study also chose to remove troubled children from their home because they disrupted family functioning and the supervision of other children in the household. A troubled child often drained the resources, time, and effort parents needed to devote to parenting multiple children in the household. Lydia Howard discusses how Sly’s behavior affected her ability to effectively take care of her other children.

I told the judge I want him sent far away from home. I really did. I’m just tired of dealing with him. I have other kids to take care of.—Lydia Howard

Following a court hearing where Sly’s mother pleaded to the juvenile court judge to confine her son, Sly fought his mother in the court waiting room because he was angered by her decision to have him confined. Lydia Howard left the courthouse crying. Parents often reached a point of exhaustion, frustration, and hopelessness.

I told the judge I had enough; I just want him sent away.—Lydia Howard

When I interviewed Lydia Howard several months after this incident, she was confident that she had made the right decision. In the short term, the decision to incarcerate their children appeared to be a life-saving strategy.

The way Sly was going in a way I’m glad he’s locked up because he wasn’t doing too good, so I’d said to myself everything turned out for the best. If he would have stayed on the streets he would probably be dead by now. The way I see it I made the right decision. . . . I probably saved his life.—Lydia Howard

Follow-Up

The data presented here was collected over a twelve-month period following the termination of the study. I received an additional year of support from the Department of Justice to conduct research on the emergence of violence youth gangs in New York City. The IRB did not include parental interviews. Therefore, the data presented were gathered from participant observations and interviews with youth from the first study who had become gang members. Sly, Hasan, and Manny were participants in this study. All three young men would join violent youth gangs while they were under the supervision of the juvenile court. These outcomes support the literature on juvenile detention as a space where children become more violent and aggressive through exposure to negative peer groups (Gatti, Tremblay, and Vitaro 2009). Sly and Hasan joined the Bloods. Manny joined the Crips. By the age of sixteen, all three boys had dropped out of school. Sly was also expecting a child. After his release from detention, Sly was involved in numerous gang-related assaults and robberies. He was adjudicated as an adult and sentenced to adult prison. For Sly, juvenile confinement served as a pipeline to adult confinement (Hawkins et al. 1998). Hasan had run away from the group home and was living on the streets, sleeping on rooftops, and at the homes of friends. The last time I had encountered Hasan was on a Harlem street corner. His appeared disheveled. He told me that he was AWOL from the Harlem House group home and that he had not seen his mother in months. A week prior to our encounter, a group of youth from Harlem House were involved in an assault on a New York City subway where the victim was slashed with a razor across the face. This kind of assault was frequent in New York City at that time. According to police reports, slashings were related to initiation into the Bloods. New members were required to slash the face of an innocent bystander with a razor. When I asked Hasan did he know anything about the assault he laughed and said that he was with the group of boys from Harlem House when the slashing occurred. Manny began selling drugs in his projects and spent most of his time hanging out with his gang. He was hospitalized for a violent injury after he was almost beaten to death by a rival gang, the Bloods. Ironically, the assault occurred in front of his mother.

Conclusions

In this article, I have expanded the theoretical and empirical discussion on the intersection of social capital, parenting in high-risk neighborhoods, and how parents manage risk for their children (Furstenberg and Hughes 1995; Furstenberg et al. 2000; Furstenberg 2005; Jarrett 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b; Burton and Jarrett 2000). I examined one adaptive parenting strategy for managing risk: the use of juvenile confinement. This aspect of parenting at-risk black male youth in high-risk neighborhoods has not been examined among African American parents. The parents interviewed in this study faced particularly difficult problems with caring for adolescent males who exhibited pre-delinquent behavior. Some parents began the study with a fairly decent stock of social capital but that stock gradually eroded as some youths’ behavior exceeded the capacity of family, friends, and neighbors’ ability to intercede. Furthermore, parents worked long hours and had to care for multiple children within the household, which limited their supervision of youth activities.

An important question raised that must be addressed is, how and why did the other four families with predelinquent youth not turn to the juvenile court for help? Those families were better situated to address predelinquent behavior than the families presented in this paper, primarily because they had a wealth of social capital within their social networks to draw from. For example, one family was able to “exile” their son to stay with relatives who lived in a safer and resource-rich neighborhood (i.e., better schools) in another section of the city. Another single mother sent her son to live with her brother in an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas. Jarrett (1999) found that exile has often been used as a successful parenting strategy for poor African American parents. Two single mothers used a cadre of social fathers composed of uncles, grandfathers, older cousins, godfathers, and basketball coaches to prevent delinquent behavior. Richardson (2009) and Richardson & Van Brakle (2011) ) found that low-income African American single mothers utilize nonbiological fathers or social fathers to engage in the healthy development of African American boys.

The parents presented in this article made their best efforts to utilize the social capital available to them, but once those resources were exhausted they had no other option but to turn to the juvenile court for support. Similarly, some single mothers worked long hours and feared taking time off from their jobs to attend to the needs of their children because they faced the possibility of being terminated. Few low-wage jobs have family leave policies. Although the literature suggests that many poor African American parents rely on the heroic grandmother and uncle to assist with child rearing, some single mothers could not rely on other family members, friends, neighbors, or fictive kin for assistance. In some instances, family members exhibited irresponsible behavior with child rearing. To further complicate matters, youth behavior often exceeded the capacity of family members, friends, neighbors, and local youth serving institutions to be effective caregivers. Unable to generate other forms of social capital, parents turned to the juvenile court for support. Single mothers like Maria Lopez had no social capital within or outside the family to assist with child rearing. Consequently, the juvenile court filled the social and emotional support void left in the absence of family- and community-based social capital.

Research suggests that social capital and the ability of parents to access and deploy family members, fictive kin, neighbors, and local youth serving institutions for social support and child rearing is crucial in the successful development of high-risk youth (Furstenberg and Hughes 1995). This paper illuminated the complexities of parenting troubled black male youth when parents have a limited stock of social capital and are not embedded within social networks characterized by interpersonal trust, mutual obligation, and reciprocity. Understanding how parents respond to contexts in which they are embedded is central to understanding how social disadvantage is perpetuated among at-risk youth. The data suggest that the possession of social capital within family systems is not tantamount to its accessibility, at least not for all its members to the same extent (Furstenberg 2005).

There is a presumption in the literature that poor parents have access to family members, friends, neighbors, and neighborhood institutions to secure social capital for their children (Furstenberg et al. 2000; Stack 1975). What determines parents’ level of success is contingent on their skill level in accessing and deploying social capital. However, the findings presented here suggest that not all parents have access to high-quality social capital resources and support for child rearing. There are some parents who just do not have access to social capital in ways that other parents may. Accessing and activating social capital for their children is not nearly as simplistic as it may be for other parents. In this study, it was revealed that many parents in poor communities do not have social capital and social support resources to assist with rearing troubled youth. Troubled youth often exceeded the capacity of family, friends, neighbors, and local youth serving institutions to provide support. Consequently, these social capital resources often eroded over time, which I describe as “burning bridges of social support.” A common theme among parents in this study was the absence of social capital both within and outside the family to provide adequate supervision for their sons. In some instances, parents distrusted family members, neighbors, friends, and local youth serving institutions to monitor and supervise the activities of their children. In the absence of resources of informal social control, parents had few options but to turn to resources of formal control such as the police and the juvenile court. Although historically African Americans have had little faith in the police and criminal justice system, out of sheer desperation for parental support, many solicited help from these institutions (Anderson 1999).

Parents living in communities marked by poverty and violence also struggle with competing with the allure of the streets and the challenges young black males face as they negotiate the complex maze of survival, safety, and street credibility (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997; Anderson 1999; Wilkinson 2003; Rich 2009; Harding 2010). Without question, parenting children under these adverse conditions is a daunting task. Parents spent a significant amount of time devising ways to prevent their sons from becoming victims of violence. Consequently, for some parents, juvenile confinement was used as a safe haven from the streets. Rather than exposing street-oriented youth to the risk of being victimized in the neighborhood, parents utilized juvenile confinement as a protective buffer. The finding suggests the need for better intervention options available for low-income African American parents raising children in these challenging contexts.

From my observations, I am confident that many of these parents would have preferred a broader array of good opportunities for their children, but unfortunately, in their social reality these options did not exist. Michelle Alexander (2010) notes that individuals are forced to make choices in an environment they did not choose. The question we should be asking, in addition to questions about penal policy, is whether the residents of the low-income communities are entitled to a better set of options, and if so, whose responsibility is it to provide them?

In poor communities where the threat of youth violence and violent victimization ominously looms over the lives of parents and delinquent youth, juvenile incarceration may appear as the only viable alternative to the fatal consequences of leaving youth on the streets. These are not bad parents who lack concern for the social welfare of their children. In fact, they share the same concerns for the safety of their children as other parents who may be more adept managers of social capital. The difference is the parents in this paper have a limited pool of social capital to draw from. They have few choices. For parents living in communities were delinquency prevention resources are scarce, juvenile detention is often perceived as their last saving grace to protect their children from trouble and harm, when attempts to access other forms of social capital have failed.

On a broader theoretical level, this study of inner-city parents, social capital, and parenting strategies for high-risk youth deserves serious attention. In this study, when parents turned to the juvenile court for support, youth outcomes were consistently poor. Exposure to the juvenile confinement increased aggressive behavior and delinquency among youth placed in confinement by the court. These negative outcomes support previous research on the effects of juvenile incarceration on youth behavior (Tollett & Benda 1999; Gatti, Tremblay, and Vitaro 2009; Dishion, McCord, and Poulin 1999; Hawkins et al. 1998). Despite parents’ best intentions, juvenile confinement does more harm than good (Ayers 1998). Exposing predelinquent youth to juvenile confinement as a deterrent is not an effective parenting strategy; it teaches youth how to be better delinquents (Holman and Ziedenberg 2006). Ironically, doing nothing at all may have been a better option for the parents in this study. Parents often assume exposing children to the harsh realities of detention will serve as a deterrent to future delinquency, when in fact this strategy increases the probability of negative outcomes (Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino, and Buehler 2003). Clearly, we must increase parental awareness on the negative effects of juvenile detention. The naivete parents have on the deleterious consequences of this approach may possibly contribute to the overrepresentation of black males in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, additional research must be conducted on how this strategy may increase distrust between parents and their children, particularly children, who may perceive this strategy as abandonment. It is plausible that a sense of distrust and abandonment may also contribute to aggressive and violent behavior.

I propose that low-income parents need more social services available in disadvantaged communities to lessen the burden of caring for predelinquent youth (Johnson 2010). Social services such as behavioral/mental health counseling for youth should be readily available and easily accessible in low-income communities. A study on accessing mental healthcare services for predelinquent youth found that low-income African American parents often first seek out mental/behavioral health services in their local community but the scarcity of such services in the local environment results in parents seeking out services through the juvenile justice system (Richardson and Van Brakle 2011). States spend $5.7 billion a year on imprisoning youth. Youth who are imprisoned have higher rates of recidivism than youth who remain in communities. Rather than incarcerate youth, other policy solutions such as funding more community-based alternatives to detention may reduce the long-term costs of juvenile incarceration and recidivism. For example, there are empirically supported ecologically based therapy programs that are highly effective for vulnerable populations of youth; however, they are not widely available (Toldson 1999; Henggeler and Schoenwald 2011). Some intervention programs based on theoretical approaches like multisystemic therapy and functional family therapy have shown to yield up to $13 dollars in benefits to public safety for every dollar spent (Petteruti, Velázquez, & Walsh 2009).The most effective programs at reducing recidivism rates and promoting positive life outcomes for youth are administered in the community, outside of the criminal or juvenile justice systems. Community-based programs for youth are more cost effective than incarceration.

One successful community-based program as an alternative to detention is community court. Although community court is not a new concept, community court is an evolving model of social justice and community restoration. Community courts primarily address low-level criminal offenses for adults and youth (Lee 2000). These courts provide parents with a diverse array of social service resources for predelinquent and delinquent youth (Lee 2000). Community court can serve as the kind of social capital low-income parents need to assist with parenting troubled youth. The model is designed to facilitate collaboration between traditionally separate entities, including citizens, criminal justice agencies, businesses, local civic organizations, government entities, and social service providers, which results in neighborhood- and family-focused problem solving. In fact, Harlem now has one of the first community courts in New York City, the Harlem Community Justice Center. The Justice Center works intensively with young people at the first signs of delinquent behavior, giving them the help they need to avoid further offending. The Justice Center courtroom handles cases involving young people apprehended for nonviolent drug and property offenses, linking participants to services like drug treatment, counseling, and education. Compliance is rigorously monitored by the judge, who requires participants to come back to court frequently to report on their progress. The judge also has the option of sending young people to the Harlem Youth Court, where cases are presided over by a true jury of peers—other young people from the neighborhood trained to serve as judges, lawyers, and jurors. The youth court, which also hears cases like truancy and schoolyard fights referred directly by police, encourages young people to take responsibility for their actions. Sanctions include community service, anger-management classes, and letters of apology. Other youth programs available at the Justice Center include community service, parent–teen mediation, family counseling, mentoring, leadership development, and career training. Each year, more than 300 young people participate in programs at the Justice Center.

Scholars need to conduct more research on how parents living in disadvantage communities create parenting strategies for high-risk black male youth. Research must focus more attention on how families living in disadvantaged neighborhoods develop strategies when they have limited stock of social capital. While it is admirable that scholars have explored how parents living in resource-deprived neighborhoods are adept managers of social capital, there is great heterogeneity among parents living in distressed neighborhoods. These findings illustrate how limited social capital can result in desperation, frustration, and hopelessness among some parents of troubled youth, which in turn leads to extreme parenting strategies. Future studies need to consider parenting strategies specific to class and culture (Lareau 2000; Kaplan 2010). How do middle-class white, black, and Latino parents deal with troubled youth? What are their challenges? Do these parents tend to use strategies similar to those described among the families in this study? Do they generate social capital in similar or different ways? It is plausible that parents with a greater stock of social capital and financial resources may have access to an array of resources to protect youth from potential violent victimization such as exiling youth to live with relatives in a safer and more affluent area, enrolling youth in military/boarding school, and behavioral therapy.

This article has drawn attention to the well-intentioned but misguided efforts of desperate parents who seek better life chances for their sons. This research highlights the need for policy makers and researchers to direct specific and aggressive attention to this group to prevent the lost potential of these boys and place them back on the path to becoming productive members of society.