So would vitamin D supplements. 70% of the population suffers from vitamin D deficiency and the rate is higher among African-Americans due to skin pigmentation, and possibly other factors. Vitamin D plays an essential role in the manufacture of serotonin within the body, and serotonin has an essential role in mood and executive function.
I once got in touch with a counsellor to find out whether I had ADHD (because shrinks are in low supply here), and while she wasn't a certified ADHD specialst, she generally worked with troubled youth. While she didn't diagnose me with ADHD, she recommended me a mindfulness book to use instead.
Anyone interested in meditation but unsure of where to start should try the app / website Headspace.
I used to meditate once in a while, but I found it difficult to wrangle my thoughts without a guide and I kept falling off the horse. This app has helped me tremendously.
This reminds me of Season 4 of The Wire where Colvin runs a special classroom for the "corner kids" and sees promising results.
One of the big differences is that in The Wire they mentioned that high school kids weren't going to be impacted as much as the middle school kids they ended up doing the program with. This program seems to focus on high school, which is interesting (and exciting).
Not sure why this one got downvoted, its a good point. Enforcing stupid laws and the endless 'war on drugs/technology/whatever hot button issue happens to be popular' results in the astounding crime rates seen in modern America, and to a lesser extent the UK and Australia.
The real problem is poverty and more generally extreme inequality.
I don't understand how people can make statements with this when it is so at odds with the facts.
The homicide rate in Baltimore in 1911 was 5.8 per 100,000. Last year it was 37. Was Baltimore less unequal during the gilded age, long before the progressive income tax and federal welfare? No way. Obviously poverty is also way lower today.
The differences are even more stark when you compare modern Baltimore with a place like Edwardian England. Again, England in the early 1900's was massively unequal, had massive poverty problems. But it had homicide rates a tiny fraction that of modern Baltimore.
Why do the U.S. inner cities have so many more homicides than any slum in China or India?
Read the book Ghettoside or Don't Shoot. Crime happens when people can get away with it. Crime happens when cultural and legal sanctions against crime don't get enforced.
> I don't understand how people can make statements with this when it is so at odds with the facts.
I do understand. People have one explanation they like that fits with their politics, and anything else is to be made to support this or discredited. Think of this as a religious approach to policy.
"Crime happens when cultural and legal sanctions against crime don't get enforced."
The ways poverty and extreme inequality affect culture and law outcomes are fairly profound though. Cops are loathe to arrest wealthier people on drug offenses considering the legal costs that can ensue. Put enough people in poverty together and desperate behaviour of one kind or another can become normal.
Amusements and status are necessary. Some people are lucky enough to inherit them. Then they will use any pseudo-science or rationalization to try to legitimize the inequality.
Where did the paper/article talk about stealing? It's mostly about arrests and "juvenile detention" [1]. That is, a measure of how frequently the US state imprisons people, which it does more than anyone else. And it targets an ethnic minority which it can no longer enslave.
(BTW, what's the excuse for the US sending killers across the world to steal control over people's resources? "Amusement and status" as well? Such answers lack any systematic analysis. Not to mention consistency; you could apply it to any ethnic group. Unless of course there's racist motivations...)
As Ta-Nehisi Coates has pointed out succinctly and repeatedly, there's nothing wrong with black people that the complete destruction of white supremacy would not fix.
I think possibly because without a protagonist-antagonist binary, you only have yourself. African blacks lack the legacy issues and come into a "clean" slate, i.e. that binary dynamic doesn't exist for them. It's certainly not a simple issue.
I'm not an expert in this area, by any means. And I certainly can't speak for these people. But, I imagine on average that the people who choose/are able to immigrate here have an above average work ethic, skill set, or access to resources. There are probably many people who never have the chance to start a life here. Its not a direct comparison.
For me this sounds like a broader application of insight from neuro science and especially from research into ADHD. While the latter is definitely a pathological condition, with major negative effects for the patients, there seems to be a continuum from extreme ADHD on one side (or even Finneas Gage) to fully enlightened buddhist monks who have trained their attention and focus for decades.
It may be well worth the effort to train attention, concentration and self-control in a more targeted manner, like through "Becoming a Man", but also martial arts, meditation, or certain other activities.
To a first approximation, "middle and high school boys from some of the poorest neighborhoods on Chicago’s south and west sides" do not have fathers anymore.
