Table Of Content

Diane Marano Juvenile Offenders and Guns Voices Behind Gun Violence Juvenile Offenders and Guns Juvenile Offenders and Guns Voices Behind Gun Violence Diane Marano juvenile offenders and guns Copyright © Diane Marano, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-52013-5 All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St.Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-56454-5 ISBN 978-1-137-52014-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137520142 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marano, Diane. Juvenile offenders and guns : voices behind gun violence / Diane Marano. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Juvenile delinquents—United States. 2. Firearms and crime— United States. 3. Youth and violence—United States. 4. Firearms ownership—United States. I. Title. HV9104.M2647 2015 364.360973—dc23 2015009988 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: September 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii 1 Introduction: Making Meaning from Guns 1 2 Consuming Violence, Constructing Masculinity 19 3 Consuming Guns: Pathways to Gun Acquisition 55 4 Producing Violence: “You Gotta Have a ‘Don’t Care’ Attitude” 87 5 Consumed by Violence: Negative Outcomes, Uncertain Outlooks 127 6 Conclusion: “A Gun Is a Key to Anything You Wanna Do” 149 Appendix A: Interview Protocol 165 Appendix B: Demographic and Data Snapshot of Participants 169 Appendix C: Background Information on Individual Participants 171 Notes 185 Bibliography 195 Index 203 Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to the young men who participated in this study for generously sharing their views with me, and to the staff of the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission for making the project possible. At the JJC, I would particularly like to thank Dr. Michael Aloisi for shepherding the project through the institutional channels and facilitating my contact with the superintendents of the programs I visited. I am grateful to Assistant Superintendent Cleophus Hendrix at the New Jersey Training School for all his work in helping identify potential participants, organizing the recruiting sessions, and introducing me to the residents in such a way that they would be receptive to my study. Likewise, the superintendents and assistant superintendents at the five other JJC facilities I visited graciously welcomed me and paved the way for my interviews, and I am thankful for their hospitality, without which my fieldwork could not have been as productive. This book would not have been possible without the advice and sup- port of the faculty at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Camden. Daniel Thomas Cook and Lauren Silver of the Childhood Studies Depart- ment, and Michelle Meloy and Jane Siegel of the Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice Department generously gave their time and expertise and were always prepared to encourage and guide me at every step. Lynne Vallone, Childhood Studies Department Chair, and my classmates in the Childhood Studies Program created a stimulating environment in which to study children and childhoods. Many thanks to my sister, Kathy Lusher, and my brother, Bob Lusher, for always cheering me on and cheering me up, and to my husband, Tom Marano, for sustaining and nourishing me for more than 25years. CHAPTER 1 Introduction Making Meaning from Guns W hy does a boy get a gun? To begin to answer this question, we must listen to those young men as they tell us about their worlds, their families, and how they see themselves. This book explores this question and others through interviews with 25 incarcerated juvenile offenders. The young men were selected to participate based on their juvenile offenses alone, yet all the participants in this study are young men of color. This circumstance itself suggests how childhoods may differ according to race and place. In the United States, parts of many cities are viewed as “other worlds” where poor persons of color live apart from more privileged sectors of soci- ety. The combination of race, place, and absence of privilege1 exacerbates the “otherness” of the boys and young men who live in these inner-city neighborhoods. When they are armed with guns, the young men come to represent an alien and fearsome group. The fact that they are in danger, as well as dangerous, often serves only to incline many to give both them and their surroundings a wide berth. Much has been written about juvenile gun offenders, but few research- ers have talked with them to learn about how they view themselves and their worlds. This study examines how young black and Latino men make, narrate, and conceive of their identities and life trajectories after they have been incarcerated for gun-related offences. Through the use of qualitative research interviews with these young men, and drawing upon symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and insights from criminal justice studies,