Table Of ContentLost Childhoods
Poverty, Trauma, and Violent Crime in
the Post-Welfare Era
michaela soyer
University of California Press
Lost Childhoods
Lost Childhoods
Poverty, Trauma, and Violent Crime in
the Post-Welfare Era
michaela soyer
University of California Press
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university
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information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2018 Michaela Soyer
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-520-29670-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-520-29671-8 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-520-96908-7 (e-edition)
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
introduction 1
1. punishment and the welfare state 11
2. the making of life-course-persistent offenders 22
3. the end of childhood: parental drug addiction
and violence 37
4. the weakness of strong ties: extreme poverty
and the fracture of close kinship ties 52
5. masculinity and violence: physical and
emotional abuse at home and in the juvenile
justice system 67
6. losing children 83
conclusion and policy implications 97
Appendix I 105
Appendix II 112
Notes 125
References 131
Index 143
For my parents, Ingeborg and Wolfgang Soyer
Acknowledgments
Most of all I am indebted to the young men I interviewed at SCI Pine
Grove. They shared intimate and painful memories with me and vividly
described their failures and feelings of shame and desperation. As they
recalled their lives, they showed a remarkable level of self-reflection and
clarity about their past. I hope that this book does justice to the complexity
and dignity of their lives. I am equally grateful to the friends and caregivers
who agreed to be interviewed. They graciously allowed me into their homes
and helped me to expand my perspective on the young men’s lives.
Lost Childhoods is my second book, but for the first time I had to work
through data completely independently—without the thoughtful guidance
of a dissertation committee. I continue to feel uncertain about the final
product, but the many friends and colleagues who supported me through-
out this research and writing process helped me to see this project through
to its conclusion.
The research for this book was accomplished during my tenure as a post-
doctoral scholar at the Justice Center for Research at Penn State University.
I want to thank Gary Zajac and Doris McKenzie, who offered me a tempo-
rary intellectual home after I graduated from the University of Chicago.
I am immensely grateful for the material and intellectual support the
Justice Center for Research provided.
When I started my postdoctoral position, taking on a new project seemed
daunting, but thanks to a grant from the ASA / NSF Fund for the
Advancement of the Discipline, it became possible for me to conceptualize
and conduct new research just after I had finished my dissertation. Of the
many people who helped me during the data collection phase, I specifically
would like to thank Shannon Singer, who diligently transcribed the inter-
views I conducted. My thanks also go to Steven Matthews. The meeting
vii
viii / Acknowledgments
I had with him, before I began my interviews at SCI Pine Grove, inspired
me to make use of maps and address history during the interview process.
Over the course of this research, I often relied on the invaluable advice of
my friend and fellow postdoctoral scholar Susan McNeely. Melinda Bell
and Pamela McCratic have been the best adoptive aunts our daughters
could wish for and I feel very lucky to have met them during this important
time in my life.
As most researchers can attest to, it is very challenging to start a new
research project when beginning a tenure track position. Lynn Chancer not
only offered me my dream job, but also convinced the administration to let
me defer my start date at Hunter College for another year. I am grateful for
her advocacy and continuous support. At Hunter College I am lucky to be
surrounded by fantastic colleagues, whose advice has been invaluable
throughout my first years there. I want to thank my current department
chair, Erica Chito-Childs, for understanding how difficult it is to balance
motherhood, teaching, and research.
Of all friends and colleagues, Danielle Raudenbush has had the greatest
impact on the intellectual development of this manuscript. She patiently read
several versions of it and ensured that I remained committed to connecting
my empirical observations with careful theoretical analysis. Without my par-
ents’ presence, it would have been impossible to find the time necessary for
finishing this book. They selflessly have taken care of our daughters during
summer months and given me the space to do my work. My husband, Ed
Silver, took over parenting duties while I conducted interviews. I am thankful
for his patience and persistence through the emotional ups and downs of my
writing process. I also want to thank my daughters, Cordelia and Rebekka, for
reminding me what is really important in life.
My final thanks goes to Andrea Leverentz and Jerry Flores, whose
extensive feedback improved the manuscript immeasurably.
Introduction
Only when a man can already perform an act of standing straight
does he know what it is like to have a right posture and only then
can he summon the idea required for proper execution.
—john dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, [1922] 1988
Isaac’s grandmother remembers that her daughter was “handcuffed to the
bed” when she picked up her newborn grandson from the hospital. When
Isaac was born in March 1994 his mother was incarcerated. Two years later the
State of Pennsylvania passed a law allowing the transfer of juveniles as young
as fifteen to the adult criminal justice system. “Act 33” ensures that teenagers
who committed violent crimes (for example, robbery, aggravated indecent
assault, or murder) can automatically be sentenced as if they were adults.
Isaac was “a good kid,” his grandmother recalls, quieter than the other
four grandchildren she raised in a mid-sized town in eastern Pennsylvania.
Now in her sixties she may never see her grandson again outside of prison
walls. Isaac is serving a sentence of twenty to forty years for two counts of
manslaughter. Since 2012 he is one of approximately three hundred inmates
in a unit specifically designed for youths who are “doing adult time” for
crimes they committed when they were younger than eighteen.
Isaac and the twenty-nine other youths I interviewed for this book had
grown up long before they arrived at SCI Pine Grove, the remote prison in
central Pennsylvania where I met them. Many saw their mothers or fathers
succumbing to drugs or alcohol. They witnessed police raiding their homes
and watched their fathers, uncles, and older brothers being whisked away to
prison. As young children they faced eviction, gun violence, and hunger.
They were born during the early to mid-1990s, a decade that saw an unprec-
edented expansion of the criminal justice system coupled with the disap-
pearance of a robust welfare state.
Criminological theories offer many possible explanations for criminal
behavior. Most, at least implicitly, acknowledge the role of rising inequality
and concentrated disadvantage. Anomie theory argues that criminal behav-
ior arises because conventional pathways to economic success are blocked
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