The Need to “Think Out of the Box”

Randall G. Shelden

Note: the following is a portion of the final chapter of my book, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice in American Society (Waveland Press).

It has become evident that many if not most traditional approaches to the prevention and treatment of delinquency have not fared to well.  It is time to, to quote a famous phrase, “think out of the box.”  Although I do not claim to have all the answers, after more than 30 years of studying and teaching about the subject of crime and delinquency I am convinced that some very fundamental changes need to be made in the way we live and think before we see any significant decrease in these problems.  We (and by “we” I mean adults) are always talking about the “problem of delinquency” or the “problem of youth” with such value laden statements like “what’s wrong with kids these days.”  The implication is that youths in trouble need to change their attitudes, their behaviors, their life styles, their methods of thinking, etc.  It seems that it is always they who have to change. 

What is invariably included in this line of thinking is the use of labels to describe these youth (and adult offenders too).  The labels keep changing, along with changing times.  As Jerome Miller has noted, we began with “possessed” youths in the 17th century, moved to the “rabble” or “dangerous classes” in the 18th and late 19th centuries, the “moral imbeciles” and the “constitutional psychopathic inferiors” of the early 20th centuries.  We continued in the 20^th century with the “psychopath” of the 1940s to the “sociopath” of the 1950s and finally to more recent labels like “compulsive delinquent,” the “learning disabled,” the “unsocialized aggressive” and even the “socialized aggressive” and finally the “bored” delinquent.  “With the growth of professionalism,” continues Miller, “the number of labels has multiplied exponentially.”[1] 

Miller continues by suggesting that the problem with these labels is that it seems to be a way “whereby we bolster the maintenance of the existing order against threats which might arise from its own internal contradictions.”  And it reassures “that the fault lies in the warped offender and takes everyone else off the hook.  Moreover, it enables the professional diagnostician to enter the scene or withdraw at will, wearing success like a halo and placing failure around the neck of the client like a noose.”[2]  More importantly, we continue to believe that harsh punishment works, especially the kind of punishment that includes some form of incarceration, so that the offender is placed out of sight and, not coincidentally, out of mind.

But there is a problem here.  As noted in chapter 1, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries we have continued to succumb to the “edifice complex.”  We love to build these “edifices,” no matter what they are called (a new courthouse, a new prison, a new correctional center, a new police station, etc.).  Perhaps it is because politicians like to have some kind of permanent structure to leave behind as a legacy so they can tell the people who voted for them to look at this or that building as “proof” they have done something about crime. Or perhaps it is because they are so profitable and are part of the huge “crime control industry.”

I believe otherwise.  I believe that we need to quit looking solely at the “troubled youth” or “criminals” as the source of the problem.  It is time that those of us among the more privileged sectors of society consider that we are just as much part of the problem; perhaps more so.

Reclaiming Youth at Risk: An Alternative Way of Framing the Problem

An illustration of this way of thinking comes from a fascinating work that uses a perspective borrowed from Native American culture.  In a book called Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future the authors outline a promising approach which starts with challenging our way of viewing the problem.[3]   Using a much different language, the authors explore the ways youth who are “at risk” can be “reclaimed.”  By “reclaiming” they mean “to recover and redeem, to restore value to something that has been devalued.”  For this to come true these youths need “reclaiming environments,” which have the following features: (1) the experience of belonging in a supportive community, instead of some depersonalized bureaucracy; (2) meeting a person's needs for “mastery” instead of suffering through inflexible adult systems; (3) involving young people in determining their own future, while at the same time recognizing the need to control harmful behavior; (4) expecting young people to be givers, rather than merely recipients dependent upon adults.[4]  

The authors observe that these youth grow up in environments that produce much discouragement. The seeds of this discouragement are sown in what they call the “four worlds of childhood,” which are family, friends, school, and productive work.  Because their parents are stressed, the schools are impersonal and their communities are disorganized, the basic needs of children are not being met.  So these children have become estranged from these worlds.  These youths are confronted by what they call “ecological hazards,” which are: (1) destructive relationships (causing feelings of rejection, the inability to trust, and of being unloved, (2) climates of futility (resulting in feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure); (3) learned irresponsibility (“as seen in the youth whose sense of powerlessness may be masked by indifference or defiant, rebelliousness”) and, (4) loss of purpose (“as portrayed by a generation of self-centered youth, desperately searching for meaning in a world of confusing values”).[5]

One of the sections of this part of the book (“Climates of Futility”) deals with expectations people have about the possibilities of working with difficult youth. Here they begin to challenge the negative attitudes and pessimism so many have toward difficult youth.  The authors note that some of the early pioneers who worked with difficult youth “strongly challenged the indifference and pessimism of their times.  They were incurable optimists who could always find cause for hope in the face of the most difficult problems.” They cite as examples a Swiss educator who “created a castle school for outcast street urchins to demonstrate his revolutionary thesis that ‘precious hidden faculties’ could be found beneath an appearance of ignorance.”[6] Today, however, pessimism is common in our approaches to “difficult youth.”

The authors note the prevalence of negative “school climates” that prevail today.  Four key concepts are noted.  The first is that of negative expectations.  Such expectations “breed futility in both students and staff.  I am reminded of such expectations that are illustrated in the experiences of the high school math teacher in East LA (portrayed by James Edward Olmos in the film “Stand and Deliver”).

The second concept is that of punitiveness.  They cite Horace Mann, one of the leading 19th century educators who said that teachers need to respond to their most difficult students like a doctor would find a challenge in solving a difficult case.  “To become angry and punish such a child is as illogical as if a surgeon were to attack the limb he is treating.”[7]

The third key concept is that of boredom.  Jane Addams often described disadvantaged youth in Chicago as those who lack adventure in their lives.[8]  Today many kids of plain bored and need some sense of adventure (which they often get through gangs and other deviant activities).

The fourth concept, and an important one, is irresponsibility.  They quote Horace Mann who once said that education is an “apprenticeship in responsibility” but nowadays too many youths are demanding to be used in some demanding task.[9]

Part of the problem stems from what the authors call “professional pessimism.”  They contrast two views. The first is from a 1913 publication by Floyd Starr with the Starr Commonwealth for Boys who stated that:  “We believe there is no such thing as a bad boy, that badness is not a normal condition but the result of misdirected energy.  We believe that every boy will be good if given an opportunity in an environment of love and activity.”  But a recent text on exceptional children states: “They are abusive, destructive, unpredictable, irresponsible, bossy, quarrelsome, irritable, jealous, defiant - anything but pleasant to be with.  Naturally adults choose not to spend time with this kind of child unless they have to.”[10]  The authors further note that:  “An examination of the history of childhood in Western society shows that negative attitudes toward difficult youth are deeply imbedded in the cultural milieu.  Pioneers such as Jane Addams and Floyd Starr were not so much products of that culture as antagonists to it.  Even today, the predominant patterns of thinking are pessimistic rather than optimistic.  This way of thinking fixates on deviance to the exclusion of normality, illness to the exclusion of health.”[11]

The authors of this book continue making the case for a change in our own attitudes and values toward youth.  Our negative thoughts are often associated with negative feelings and actions.  If one thinks in negative terms these may in turn produces negative actions and feelings. Our thoughts guide our feelings which in turn provide motivations and directions to our behavior.  If we think hate, we tend to feel hate and in turn act in hateful ways.  We become what we think and feel.

Negative labels that we assign to a child can be easily generalized to the child as a person.  What we need to do is to reject the behavior, while accepting the child.  Those youth workers who are most successful are those “who can reframe cognitions to foster the positive feelings and actions essential to the helping process.”  Paraphrasing a German poet, the authors suggest that we must look beyond the negative behavior to find a “germ of virtue” within the child.  A liability can become an asset if we, for instance, redefine “stubbornness” as “persistence.”  But today collective attitudes toward difficult youth are demeaning.  For instance, the former head of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention said not too long ago that the mission of his office and the nation is to make these “predators” (his words) accountable, thereby creating a blanket condemnation of all difficult youth.  In stark contrast, August Aichorn (a pioneer in working with youth) said in 1925 that delinquents were merely “wayward youth” needing guidance and direction.[12] 

The authors lament what they call the “tyranny of obedience” stating that:  “The saga of discipline in Western civilization is a litany of futile attempts to compel the young person to obedient behavior.  The consistent strategy has been to control all deviations by punishing or excluding those who violate the rules.  For centuries schools have used elaborate codes of regulations to attempt to instill compliant behavior.  However, students have been highly resourceful in circumventing these rigid rules.”  These codes send the message that: “This you can do; this you cannot do; and if you do what you shouldn't, this is the price you pay.”[13]

    When faced with Native Americans, European conquerors “were dumb-founded that obedience was not part of the Indian culture” and they often concluded that these Indians must have some sort of defect.  “The ethnocentric European was imprisoned in a cultural history where the fundamental `bond of society' had always been obedience: vassals obeyed lords, priests obeyed superiors, subjects obeyed kings, slaves obeyed masters, women obeyed men, and children obeyed everybody.”  In the Native American culture “one man is as much a master as another, and since all men are made of the same clay, there should be no distinction or superiority among them.”[14]

The authors firmly believe that teaching obedience is wrong, for it does not teach responsibility.  Following Rousseau, the authors believe that “children should be trained to be self sufficient as early as possible.  But this should be `well-regulated freedom' designed to give the child abundant opportunity to learn from experience and natural consequences.”  Noting that “obedience training is closely intertwined with the notion that `children should follow rules” the authors state that: “If rules are imposed by external sanctions, children will follow them as long as policed.  When out of the range of surveillance, anything goes.”[15]   This reminds me of freeway drivers.  Many will go as fast as they can, unless a police car is on the freeway, whereupon they will slow down.  But when the police car gets off the freeway, the cars speed up again!

Space does not permit a complete review of this excellent book and readers are encouraged to consult it on their own.  The point these authors are making, and one I am trying to reinforce, is merely that before we consider solutions to the problem of delinquency we must engage in a different kinds of thinking. The following comment by a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles, who heads up a program called “A Better LA” which deals with gangs and related issues, illustrates this kind of thinking: “To change the culture we have to change our culture." Law enforcement has to realize these kids have potential.   Maybe if we can change the way we talk to them we can help them realize dreams they don't even know they have.”[16]

Notes