Jamie J. Fader: Falling Back: Incarceration and Transitions to Adulthood Among Urban Youth

Adolescent Res Rev (2016) 1:357–364 DOI 10.1007/s40894-015-0018-4 BOOK REVIEW Jamie J. Fader: Falling Back: Incarceration and Transitions to Adulthood Among Urban Youth Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2013, 256 pp, ISBN: 978-0-8135-6073-1 Dana Ford1 Received: 20 October 2015 / Accepted: 27 October 2015 / Published online: 3 November 2015  Springer International Publishing 2015 Secluded in a dense forest, a five hour drive west of Philadelphia, rests a place where you will find young delinquent males between the ages of 13 and 18 carefully marching in single-file lines with their hands behind their backs, doing highly structured activities while cadence-like ‘‘thank yous’’ and ‘‘you’re welcomes’’ roll off their tongues. These boys, who have been involved in drugs, violence, and other criminal delinquency, are in the process of a behavioral reform in order to help them reflect, make better decisions, and lead a better life for themselves and for others. Jamie Fader, graduate of the University of Philadelphia, inner city godmother, and now assistant professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany SUNY, writes in her book, Falling Back, about the transition to adulthood for these young inner city males of color who have already been imprisoned by the age of 18. The book is based on her ethnographic research with black and Latino males who help to answer the question of how these vulnerable youth transition back into their urban Philadelphia neighborhoods as adult men after being incarcerated at the Mountain Ridge reform school in Pennsylvania (Mountain Ridge is the name she uses to protect the identities of staff and clients). The reform school uses a ‘‘criminal thinking errors’’ approach that is supposed to help the young males identify patterns of thinking that lead them into delinquency and to replace these patterns with prosocial and corrective thoughts, and behavioral change will follow along with it. The young men were informed at the academy about where their delinquent behavior stemmed from, and that they would & Dana Ford ; 1 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA not be released until they learned to identify and correct their errors. Fader spent over three years exploring their transitions back home after they were released from reform school, doing intensive participant observation and interviews with fifteen of the young black and Latino men, documenting their experiences and struggles of ‘‘falling back’’ and becoming productive members of society. Fader is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, educated white girl, which makes her the complete opposite from those who were participating in her study, and many people ask how it was possible to establish rapport with these young men. For one, Fader had many previous years of being an evaluator for juvenile justice programs and had a good understanding of the system, along with access to the programs. She also did preliminary field research examining the various stages of reentry into the community, which helped her establish relationships with reintegration workers that were later useful. Fader says that establishing a relationship with these young men was quite simple, as they were eager to tell their stories about reform school because it helped alleviate boredom and monotony, as well as giving them freedom to say whatever they wanted about the school behind closed doors. She also says that being a straightforward person and sharing things about herself helped her to gain their trust and respect. She openly talked about the differences between them, and made them comfortable to talk about race and different perceptions. Fader quickly became close with these men and soon began to accompany them almost everywhere they went; to work, to school, to the stores, and met many of their family members and friends along the way. What Fader found throughout the process is that, despite the high costs, energy, and time put into it, the program failed to deter the young men from returning back to the 123 358 same lifestyle. The youth in her study had been removed from the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in Philadelphia and moved to incarceration in a secluded bucolic setting. While these kids were under strict discipline and scrutiny for their criminal lifestyles, their peers were spending time doing the same old thing, hanging out bored on street corners until there was excitement from negative interaction with the police or other residents. They returned to the city to find the same problems they faced before they left: violence, drugs, conflict with the law, and lack of employment. And although many of the conditions remained the same, much more had changed by the time they had returned, including relationships between family members and siblings and the milestones that these loved ones had reached while the men were away. In essence, the skills they learn in the reform school are not able to translate into the environment they return to at home. They are consumed with the immediate concerns of self-protection and dealing with delinquent friends and family members who are ill or addicted to drugs, which is what started them on drug dealing and other forms of criminal activity in the first place. Throughout her book, Fader details why it so hard for these young men to avoid this lifestyle and what changes should be made to address this problem. Each chapter tells the different stories told by fifteen young men of color belonging to the most vulnerable population in the nation. Fader goes into detail about their experiences, helping us to better understand the reasoning and motives for the choices they make and life they live. The first chapter, ‘‘No Love for the Brothers’’, is an introduction of the young men who tell their stories throughout the book and it also gives the reader an understanding of the life of these boys before they were incarcerated and as they returned to the their city. Philadelphia is known as the city of brotherly love, but these young men describe it as a place where there is limited public service, rising property taxes, high murder rate, organized drug markets, racial segregation, and little employment. Mountain Ride Academy uses the criminal personality theory to assume that young people commit crime because they continually make errors in their thinking, and also that crime is freely and rationally chosen by those who engage in it. There is a cultural perspective that views urban street culture as crime: acting ‘‘street’’, walking with ‘‘swagger’’, using slang, sagging pants, and rapping are interpreted by white, rural counselors as behaviors of criminal thinking patterns. Philadelphia is one of the most racially segregated municipalities in the nation, with only 43% of the residents being African American. Most people in the black population live in ‘‘hidden Philadelphia’’ (Fader 2013, p. 19) where the white people have no reason to go and most people forget (...truncated)