There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (or There are No Children Here For short), is written by Alex Kotlowitz. Kotlowitz grew up around New York City. He attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut. After graduating from Wesleyan, he worked on a cattle farm and then finally after one year started working at a Journalism firm in Lansing, Michigan. After he became a popular writer for the Wall Street journal and New York Times. He also has works from The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, etc. He has won many awards for his works and once he moved to Chicago, he started Research for his bestselling book, There are No Children Here. I believe that since Kotlowitz writes/ has written for so many national magazines and three other books he is well qualified.
There are No Children Here, is a book about two brothers who live in Henry Horner Homes. The two brothers names are Lafeyette Rivers and Pharoah Rivers. They both live in the inner city of Chicago and try to survive. The timeline of the book consists from the Summer of 1987 to September 1989. The author met the boys while writing an article in the Chicago Magazine. The article was about poverty and he met them through a social services agency. Kotlowitz described a picture he was taking of Lafeyette, on how the picture "seemed like there was a lifetime's worth of horrors bottled up inside him". After Kotlowitz wrote his article, he left and came back again to write another article on the boys for the Wall Street Journal. That whole summer he stayed with them and became good friends with River boys and their mother. To this day they are still friends and every weekend they usually hang out with each other.
After a year of being fr...
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...ake away the broken windows effect. I am also positive no police officers patrol the area because of danger to them. If they start to patrol that neighborhood it greater volume they could potentially stop the gangs and crime.
I personally support his argument. He wanted to show us how the inner-city life was difficult. I grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee, in the northern part of Milwaukee County. I know how hard it is for people in the inner-city, from just talking with some of my classmates that got bused in from the city. They told me of stories that I could imagine. Also my uncle is a police officer on the south side of Milwaukee and he tells me stories too. I think Kotlowitz has a great argument and tells the story perfectly on how hard life is in the inner-city of Chicago. I personally would love to read this book again once I have time during the summer.
Rauchway created more of a story with factual information making it more engaging to the reader. I felt the arguments that Rauchway provided were fairly accurate creating a balance of both sides of the story. With being engaged in the novel, it helped me understand a time in history that I never understood before. I was able to understand more of Roosevelt’s direction of his presidency as he helped America become hopeful of the future. After the assassination many citizens were devastated, but it came to their realization that it was a wakeup call for the political system. Rauchway makes it clear in the novel of how Roosevelt faced one of America’s toughest times, but through that time helped American grow stronger as a nation. What I like about Rauchway writings is that he organizes the storyline and it is detailed in every chapter explaining the smallest parts of the story. For example, he mentions the time of the hour, the emotions of the characters, Czolgosz life history, etc. He does not miss any facts, which is very helpful to know background information when just learning about a
The book itself is an on-going dialogue between Kozol and the neighborhoods residents, interjected every so often with thoughts from Kozol. He covers a spectrum of topics from AIDS, drug addiction, prostitution, crime, poorly run and funded schools, white flight from schools to over-crowded hospitals and the amazing faith in religion and God that many of these people have.
It was times throughout the book the reader would be unsure if the children would even make it. For example, “Lori was lurching around the living room, her eyebrows and bangs all singed off…she had blisters the length of her thighs”(178).Both Lori and Jeannette caught fire trying to do what a parent is supposed to do for their child. Jeannette caught fire at the age of three trying to make hotdogs because her mother did not cook for her leaving Jeannette to spend weeks hospitalized. She was burnt so bad she had to get a skin graft, the doctors even said she was lucky to be alive. The children never had a stable home. They were very nomadic and a child should be brought up to have one stable home. No child should remember their childhood constantly moving. This even led to Maureen not knowing where she come from because all she can remember is her moving. The children had to explain to her why she looked so different is because where she was born. They told Maureen “she was blond because she’d been born in a state where so much gold have been mined, and she had blue eyes the color of the
In the neighborhood I live is in the Koreatown / Wilshire Center and haven’t experience a lot of crime which is also part of the low crime rate in the neighborhood. Also the police presence here in my neighborhood is very light and the relations with the police is normal. The only time the police will be serious if the crime is too dangerous and concern for the neighborhood is first. It is also different from his description from the gang violence and presence in the area I live in is very light not like other neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The difference is also the race in the area is different and comprised of mostly Asian and White which we are at a friendly relation with little to no disturbance of crime and gang violence. This also included poverty in the neighborhood I live in is very light and there is not a lot of poor people in the area. It also different the community which is very friendly and everyone is not that all cautious or worry. If there were a crime we will be notified ahead to be prepared of the concern of safety. From the description how Victor Rios described the neighborhood is almost similar to a few neighborhood of Los Angeles such as the East Los Angeles and the Compton area of Los Angeles. I had visited these area when I was riding the public transportation through these area to reach to the destination. I noticed that the area
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
The West side of Chicago, Harlem, Watts, Roxbury, and Detroit. What do all of these areas have in common? These areas, along with many others have become mine fields for the explosive issues of race, values, and community responsibility, led by the plight of the urban underclass. Issues such as violent crime, social separation, welfare dependence, drug wars, and unemployment all play a major role in the plight of American inner-city life. Alex Kotlowitz's book: There Are No Children Here, confronts America's devastated urban life; a most painful issue in America. Kotlowitz traces the lives of two black boys; 10 year old LaFayette, and 7 year old Pharoah, as they struggle to beat the odds growing up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Their family includes a welfare dependent mother, an alcholic-drug using father, an older sister, an older brother, and younger triplets. Kotlowoitz describes the horrors of an ill-maintained housing project completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are an everyday thing. Kotlowitz does a fine job at portraying ghetto life; those who are outside the American dream. He succeeds at putting a face on th people trapped inside the housing projects with virtually no hope of escape. One can truly feel a sense of great loss for the family, and a great deal of hope for the two young boys. You can truly feel yourself hoping that things will work out for them, and you can really feel like you know these young men on a personal basis. Kotlowotz spent a great deal of time with the boys so he could portray the world from the eyes of a child growing up in the ghetto, and he does an amazing job.
In the study, they neglect to factor in the financial needs of their subjects. The study of Broken Window was based on the results received from higher income neighborhoods; in those neighborhoods financial circumstances are not crucial to families. Financial factors vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and even from family to family within the same neighborhoods. Ignoring this financial need in the areas where the studies were done lead to fundamental misunderstandings in the theory. The study generalizes the outcome of one broken window. Having a broken window on any property does not automatically lead to more broken windows, like suggested by the results of the cars placed in California and the Bronx. The level of desperation of families due to their financial circumstances leads to increasing crime rates. When the economy is unstable, a lot of people become unemployed; people that still have the obligation of sustaining their families. This may lead them to turn to illegal activities for a fast extra source of income. In these situations, crimes involving robberies and drugs increase in
In conclusion, I believe that this book was very informative and compelling because it engulfed the reader in the blatant and mindless actions of Police Battalion 101, and it showed a believable depiction of the atrocities of genocide throughout the Holocaust. The book revealed truths such as these policemen were given many opportunities to get out of killing Jews. However, many did not take the opportunity to walk away and instead committed themselves to becoming specialized experts in the "resettlement" of Jews. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Holocaust and the reasons why many of these men became killers.
The solution to this problem would definitely a big relief for New Mexico community because they would have one less thing to worry about especially when people go out alone and it would absolutely make the city shine more on a safe side, than before. It is very shocking to know that there are still some people out there in the world who are tolerating all the violent crime, and still taking no action against them, it is only the state of New Mexico, senators and governors who are willing to do something to decrease the crime rate. We all need to put this agony to an end as soon as possible, if we keep tolerating all these violent crimes to ourselves, this would be one of the biggest crimes we are committing to ourselves. If you want to stop all the toleration by criminals in the state or nationally, you should go vote for tougher three strikes law on www.sos.state.nm.us where you can register for 2016 voting session. Along with voting you can also donate for the New Mexico victims at http://donatelifenm.org/ , and keep continuing the good deeds for your
Thomas A. Dutton’s use of logic is seen through out this entire article by presenting various examples that gives supporting evidence as to why Cincinnati is a violent city in the course of the Over-The- Rhine district. One example that supports this claim and relates to persuasiveness is that on April 7, a young man named Timothy Thomas was shot and killed by a white Cincinnati police officer. This was the start of all the controversy in the urban city. Since this has happened “recent census data shows that Cincinnati is the ninth most segregated city in the United States” (2). Dutton uses several statistics through out many years dating back as far as the 1940’s and shows that things persist to happen to get bad in this area. While many things are happening downtown with new buildings and stadiums, the fact that there is still this segregation between the black, the poor, and the upper class downtown, hurts the entire community. All of this evidence that is presented is very persuasive. They are convincing which shows that many people will also agree with what he has to say about this city. When a city like Cincinnati is being run down, a lot of crime happens and things need to be done about it.
Hot spot policing is based on the idea that some criminal activities occur in particular areas of a city. According to researchers crime is not spread around the city instead is concentrated in small places where half of the criminal activities occur (Braga chapter 12). Also, many studies has demonstrated that hot spots do show significant positive results suggesting that when police officers put their attention on small high crime geographic areas they can reduce criminal activities ( Braga, papachristo & hureau I press). According to researchers 50% of calls that 911 center received are usually concentrated in less than 5% of places in a city (Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger, 1989; Weisburd, Bushway, Lum, &Yang, 2004). That is the action of crime is often at the street and not neighborhood level. Thus police can target sizable proportion of citywide crime by focusing in on small number of high crime places (see Weisburd & Telep, 2010). In a meta-analysis of experimental studies, authors found significant benefits of the hot spots approach in treatment compared to control areas. They concluded that fairly strong evidence shows hot spots policing is an effective crime prevention strategy (Braga (007) .Importantly, there was little evidence to suggest that spatial displacement was a major concern in hot spots interventions. Crime did not simply shift from hot spots to nearby areas (see also Weisburd et al., 2006).
In the book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham -1963, two brothers named Byron and Kenny belong to the Watsons family. Byron, the older brother, is a troublemaker and tends to pick on his younger siblings. Kenny, the narrator. There boys are growing up in Flint, Michigan. Kenny and Byron have many similarities and differences.
In There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, the way of life in Chicago's Henry Horner projects has a profound effect on all the residents who live there. The children become desensitized by the constant violence that they are forced to witness every day. Children are forced to walk home from school through the urban war zone of these housing projects. It is not unusual for the children to run home from school to avoid becoming casualties of the ongoing battle between rival gangs. The violence has affected Lafeyette and Pharaoh as much as anyone in the projects.
In the book, The Children’s Blizzard, David Laskin wrote the stories of immigrant families from Europe who, after coming to the United States with high hopes, experienced a heartbreaking blizzard in January 1888. The immigrants had staked their future on the land and instead of rewarding them for their commitment, the land brought them heartbreak. The blizzard led to different outcomes for different families, but the outcome largely included loss.
...is was an excellent book that discussed a lot of information. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. Within the book in each chapter it talks about every aspect of the street code with great information on each topic. The information that each chapter discusses are the, Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, the decent daddy, the mating game, and the black inner city grandmother. Each one of these chapters has major points and good information within them and I would personally want anyone to read this book because it helps you understand and give you a better view into someone else’s world.