This created in them an emptiness of spirit, feelings of shame, hostility, and anomie that, over time, wore their empathy away. A common profile involved fragile young men who’d been exposed to violence and other serious traumas at a young age, who felt their lives and abilities weren’t valued. In Newhallville, there was nothing inevitable about who broke violent. Shoot somebody, it’s nothing.” There was a kind of evanescent power in the notoriety of being a person who rounded a corner and watched everyone scatter before him.Įven in the country’s most dangerous neighborhoods, most people aren’t involved in “the violence.” But as with shark attacks in beach communities, it doesn’t take many episodes to spread terror.

That’s why we get in the streets.”Īnother young man described a fatalistic progression: “There’s a you-don’t-give-a-f- anymore. A Newhallville man who went to prison for murder as a teenager said that growing up in an isolated neighborhood devoid of paths to fulfilling opportunity meant: “We have no sovereignty. They could also gain prestige as intimidators. Their conviction that their predicaments were of no concern to the rest of the city had led some to acquire guns. They said they felt unprotected, afraid, and socially impotent. Downslope, young men I met in Newhallville had no such sense of possibility.

The neapolitan quartet