Michaela Soyer provides an illuminating, comparative account of two juvenile justice systems, in the cities of Boston and Chicago, and the minority teenagers directly affected in her book
A Dream Denied: Incarceration, Recidivism, and Young Minority Men in America. Soyer (
2016, p. 6) sought to understand how “implicit cultural schemas shape the perception and engagement of individual actors with their social environment”. To answer this research question, Soyer conducted in-depth interviews with 23 African-American, Latino, and Caribbean men in Boston and Chicago over a period of three years with the number of interviews with each participant ranging from three to 25. Visiting various juvenile detention centers, group homes, and offender homes, Soyer spends considerable time with these young men, gathering their stories and seeking to gain a better understanding of their pathways in and out of crime. What emerges from the data is a widespread, indestructible belief in the myth of the “American Dream,” and a hopeful view of incarceration as a major turning point. …
