"Children of the State" looks at three different juvenile justice rehabilitation-type situations in three different states. Hobbs had no idea what the outcome would be when he started following various juvenile offenders and he had no idea that Covid-19 would very much change the circumstances for incarcerated youth. For those looking for happy endings or easy solutions, this is not that book. Hobbs does a good job of telling the stories of the three environments that he observed. This is a good book to start conversations about the juvenile justice system.

The subject matter of this book intrigued me. It was essentially 3 books in one, though, and so it may have a hard time catering to any particular reading audience. It was part story of the young adults involved in the system (my favorite aspect), partly the behind the scenes struggle of the educators and staff, and partly a history of the juvenile system. I think it needed to have more depth in ONE of those areas as opposed to all three, especially since several locations were visited. I found the COVID aspects to be engaging because I had never thought about the impact it would have on this community.

Jeff Hobbs uses the stories of several children and adults involved with the juvenile justice system to illustrate the challenges the system faces, and the small, but significant, improvements that are being made.

Hobbs says that children everywhere make mistakes and do dumb things. But as police officers and prosecutors make the decisions on who to arrest, who to charge, and whether to send them home with probation or send them to a juvenile facility, their decisions often are influenced by systemic racism, familial/community support and money. In other words, kids in middle class and upper class families are less likely to be arrested in the first place, and have the resources to hire lawyers to demonstrate that the child in question will be supported if put on probation. Poor families can't do that, and so their kids end up in juvenile facilities.

Hobbs features two different facilities - one in Delaware and one in San Francisco - and one intensive non-profit program in New York City. He chooses to focus primarily on two kids, Josiah and Ian, and several staff members at the three facilities. Through these lenses, you are introduced to the juvenile justice system in three different areas of the country. While there are differences in how different states treat juveniles and where they are incarcerated, there are similarities, including the mandate to educate and rehabilitate children so they are less likely to commit crimes in the future. The adults featured in his book struggle with this mandate as they struggle through the COVID-19 outbreak, and general budgetary issues that all governmental agencies deal with. The kids are trying to figure out how to survive the experience of juvenile hall and how they can change their trajectories, even a little, to stay out of the penal system.

Hobbs has written a very compelling book that focuses on the good being done in the area of juvenile justice, but also doesn't shy away from sharing what still isn't working well. Hobbs doesn't try to offer answers or really even commentary on what happens, but simply reports the stories as it was told to him.

If you are interested in the justice system in the U.S., you will find this book fascinating and informative. Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

3.5 stars

This book offers a look at the juvenile justice system in a couple different U.S. states, through the in-depth stories of some of the teens in the system.

I liked it overall, especially the parts that detailed how the education system worked in the different facilities.

However, I felt it was a little long and repetitive at times, and there was a lot of profanity - and not all of it was as quotes, which I always find unprofessional. God's and Jesus' names were used as exclamations occasionally in the quotes from students.

<i>I received a copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley.</i>

Rarely a sociological study is written up as a story, or stories, that are actually fun to read. This book is one of those rare gems. Written as part of a formal study, introduced with notes on where the facts leave off and the intentional blurring begins, it tells the stories of two students and a teacher in three different correctional programs. One boy completes his high school studies in a traditional prison-model reform school, gets into college, but drops out to do an entry-level job. The teacher works in a "progressive" school where ghetto students are introduced to expensive food, but feels bad about not being able to do more for her students. Another boy, thanks to his father's tough love, gets into a day program at a more normal sort of school where boys and girls mingle, but misses his hometown buddies. There is, as promised, hope that all three young people will find some sort of success and happiness in their adult lives.

While it doesn't prove that "no child deserves to be in prison," this book makes a good case that the students we meet in the book don't deserve that. This book is aimed primarily at adults who might support its premise politically or, more practically, by hiring a correctional high school graduate. Family friends, neighbors, ministers, etc., might have more chance to "make a difference" to these students than teachers are allowed to do, but probably the adults most likely to support their transition into responsible citizenship will be employers.

What readers won't like is a piece of partisan rhetoric that crops up several times in the book. While Black teenagers are disproportionately likely to become "children of the state," the narrative makes it clear that family stability and especially income are what determines which teen offenders are released in their parents' custody and which serve time in correctional programs. The Black protagonists have White classmates in reform school. Nevertheless racism, rather than elitism, is consistently identified as these students' primary problem.

What makes this book even more special is that Hobbs chose to focus on introverts. What overrode their instinctive conscience? Experimenting with drugs and alcohol with their friends did. How do they survive in reform school? Teenaged boys who read books tend to be introverts and tend to prefer nonfiction, so this book could actually be a good choice to allow them to discover. It can be useful as a cautionary tale, or even help to break down tension they might feel about meeting former offenders at work or in college.

This book was eye opening about a marginalized section of the country--juveniles in jail/reform schools. While I learned a lot, I preferred the author's earlier work, The Short and Tragic Life if Robert Peace.