Karina Lopez came to the world in trouble and chaos. The third child of Emma Lopez, a Mexican-American teenage mother with a drug problem, Karina was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and moved to Laredo, Texas, when she was a month old. Her father was already out of the picture, and all Karina knows about him is his name. Her mother was soon pregnant by Cesar Marengo, a drug dealer fresh from prison, and headed to San Antonio, where she gave birth to Karina's little sister, Angela. Whenever Cesar assaulted Emma, she would return to Minnesota with all four kids; then he'd come to take her back to Texas. By the time Karina was twelve, she had attended thirteen schools. The FBI was a regular visitor to their house; Cesar was serving a ten-year federal sentence when I met Karina. "I'm glad Angela has a relationship with her father," Karina told me, "even if it's seeing him in jail. It's more than I ever had." By the time Karina was twelve, she had attended thirteen schools. The FBI was a regular visitor to their house; Cesar was serving a ten-year federal sentence when I met Karina. "I'm glad Angela has a relationship with her father," Karina told me, "even if it's seeing him in jail. It's more than I ever had."

When Cesar was incarcerated, the family's primary source of income vanished. Before his arrest, however, he had helped Emma quit drugs; she found a job as a waitress, and Karina had to take care of Angela. She resented it. At thirteen, she began to rebel. "Most people that join gangs, it's because they have nobody who loves them, and that wasn't the problem," she said. "I had Mom, who loved me a lot. But we'd moved so much, and I never felt like I belonged anywhere, and a gang seemed like a solution."

Years of poverty and disruption have made no dent in Emma's stalwart character, and she carries herself with challenging self-assurance. For many years, she ran a cleaning service by day and waited tables by night, saving to buy a house. She mistrusts you until she decides to trust you, dislikes you until she decides to like you, and has no middle ground. When Emma discovered that Karina was in a gang, she learned where its members met. At the appointed time, she broke into an abandoned house next door. "I look across, and these girls, with guns, are sitting in a circle," she said to me. "So I cross the street, bang on the front door, and say, 'Karina, you are coming home with me right now.' The whole gang is there; they could kill me. But I don't care. I wasn't having my baby in no gang."

"I didn't leave because of my mom, though that was a pretty weird scene," Karina said. "Gangs are pointless to me, period, but it's even more pathetic here in Minnesota. These people were riding the bus; they didn't even have money for drugs." Karina started hanging out with dealers, and the drugs were plentiful; soon she was using regularly, "high for two years straight, every day." She gradually moved from using to helping out dealers here and there without ever having a fixed position in their power structure.

On November 22, 2002, Karina went with her aunt's boyfriend, Xavier, to pick up a horse saddle stuffed with four pounds of cocaine. Karina's name was not on the package; she was just helping a "friend." As Xavier drove off, she saw that they were being followed. "I'm snorting coke and snorting coke, and I'm fearless when I'm high. So we get on the freeway, and there are at least ten cars behind us, with the lights and everything. He's like, 'We're probably just speeding.' I was going crazy. So we started panicking." They took a highway exit that turned out to be a dead end. "So it was meant to be," Karina said.

When Emma went to look for Karina, her first stop was the home of the "friend" to whom the package was addressed. When the police found Emma there, they connected her to the crime and arrested her. The police didn't believe a fifteen-year-old girl could have been operating independently at this level. Emma recalled, "I said to the cops, 'For ten years now I've had jobs, I've paid my taxes, I've sacrificed everything I knew how to give my kids a good life. You think I'd mess things up for them like this?'" She was angry for being wrongly accused, but she was mainly worried about her daughter. "I'm thinking, 'Okay, I'm in trouble for what I didn't do and I hope I can get off,'" she told me, "'but she's in trouble for what she did do and she's going to jail.'"

The police apprehended the "friend," who put all the blame on Karina. "I told them the truth, a hundred percent, and they didn't believe me," Karina said. "They said, 'You're doing forty-five years if you don't tell us what your mom has to do with it.' I was like, 'I guess I'll be doing forty-five years. My mom didn't have shit to do with it.'" Emma and Karina chose a lawyer from the yellow pages, unaware that they could have been represented by a public defender; meeting the lawyer's bills, Emma fell behind on her mortgage, and the bank foreclosed on the house she had worked a lifetime to buy.

The attorney was able to keep Karina's trial in juvenile court; if she violated the terms of her probation, however, she would be required to serve seven years in the state penitentiary. When she arrived at the Home School, her mother's case was still pending. "I didn't care about being in myself, but my mom, my mom I was so worried about. This is my fault. What is my little sister going to do? I mean, she was looking at a lot of years, and in federal."

Then one rainy day in May, a duty officer at the Home School told Karina to call her mother. "My mom never even told me about the court date, and she's like, 'Well, I went to court today...,'" Karina explained. "My heart dropped. She's like, 'It was dismissed.' I started crying and laughing at the same time. I got on my knees and I thanked God. 'Cause I prayed every day for my mom's case to be dismissed. It was about a thousand times more important than what happened to me. I was locked up and thinking, 'I might not even come home to my mom,' and that was the sentence I couldn't face. Now I can't wait to go home."

Visiting anyone else at the Home School, I felt the heavy hand of authority and the oppressive shadow of sorrow. Karina acted as though she had invited me over for fun, and her laughter bounced off the grim prison architecture. She uses foul language easily, apologizes for it charmingly, and points out the comical side of her own anguish. She was put into the Home School's Odyssey program for substance abuse. "I'm a different person, honestly. I'll always have my love for cocaine and weed, 'cause I just do. I'll miss 'em. But I won't use 'em." The biggest change was her shifting consciousness of those who'd bought the drugs she'd helped to sell. "Shit, I never thought about the people who buy the little nickel. I don't meet the people that are prostituting, neglecting their kids, the people whose lives get destroyed." charmingly, and points out the comical side of her own anguish. She was put into the Home School's Odyssey program for substance abuse. "I'm a different person, honestly. I'll always have my love for cocaine and weed, 'cause I just do. I'll miss 'em. But I won't use 'em." The biggest change was her shifting consciousness of those who'd bought the drugs she'd helped to sell. "Shit, I never thought about the people who buy the little nickel. I don't meet the people that are prostituting, neglecting their kids, the people whose lives get destroyed."

When I first met Karina, she rhapsodized about being in love. "My boyfriend, Luis, he's been writing me every week since I've been locked up. And he went to all my courts." She'd met Luis Alberto Anaya when she was fourteen and he was twenty-one. "I know it's illegal, but mentally, I'm not a little girl." Our next visit was scheduled a few weeks later, but when I arrived at the Home School, the duty officer said she couldn't see me. I assumed she had violated some rule and was on lockdown, but she was actually in shock.

"On October fourth, I went on my home visit," she told me later. "Luis came with my mom to take me back on Sunday. I gave him a kiss on his hand because I couldn't climb into the back where he was, and that night I prayed, 'Take care of him.'" The next morning, when she was taking her high school equivalency (GED) tests at an official testing site, she learned that Luis had been shot on his way to work. Karina kept her face in her hands as she told me about it. "It was his first day of promotion that morning, to an office job. Surenos got him, the gang. My boyfriend was a gang member when he was fifteen; he was done with that."

Karina's counselors were scared that she was going to relapse, but the tragedy had a galvanizing effect on her. "I'm not going to mess up my life in his name," she said. "That's disrespectful for him." A few weeks later, Karina made arrangements to finish her GED tests, which she passed; the day she left the Home School, she had two job interviews and was offered two jobs. She remained close to Luis's family, and her probation officer, impressed by her hard work and clean urinalyses, let Karina go to Mexico with them a few months later. The police picked up the gang members who had allegedly shot Luis, and Karina attended every day of their trial, but the evidence was insufficient to convict them.

Karina moved on to a better-paying job at a bank. She was determined to buy her mother a house; to make her life a tribute to Luis; to make good. "I just want to be happy, even if I'm by myself. I want to have all the material things I need, but I want to be a respected person. I don't want to be just Karina who fucked up her life." Over the following two years, the girl who had never stayed in a school for more than a year stuck with her job at the bank and earned a promotion. She took some foolish risks-driving without a license, for example-but she kept off drugs and alcohol and never missed an appointment with her probation officer. A year after her release from the Home School, she developed a relationship with a man who could accept that she had Luis's name tattooed across her back. than a year stuck with her job at the bank and earned a promotion. She took some foolish risks-driving without a license, for example-but she kept off drugs and alcohol and never missed an appointment with her probation officer. A year after her release from the Home School, she developed a relationship with a man who could accept that she had Luis's name tattooed across her back.

We kept in sporadic touch, and five years after her release, she wrote to me in an e-mail, "My daughter just turned two, and I turned 22. This year was a roller-coaster. I separated from her father, then got back together. My stepfather, Angela's dad, was released after ten years, and went back to jail seven months later, so he's now looking at 25 years in prison at age 63. The government should put more money into rehabilitating criminals so that they have a chance to turn their lives around. Most of us want to, if we can just figure out how."

In addition to innate predisposition, three risk factors wield overwhelming significance in the making of a criminal. The first is the single-parent family. More than half of all American children will spend some time as a member of a single-parent family. While 18 percent of American families fall below the poverty level, 43 percent of single-mother households do. Kids from single-parent homes are more likely to drop out of school, less likely to go to college, and more likely to abuse substances. They will work at lower-status jobs for lower pay. They tend to marry earlier and divorce earlier and are more likely to be single parents themselves. They are also much more likely to become criminals.

Jamaal Carson's mother, Breechelle, had his older brother when she was fourteen and Jamaal a year later, by a different father. Jamaal grew up on the South Side of Chicago, an area of tremendous gang violence. The family moved to Minnesota when he was ten; when I met him, he was fifteen and on his third incarceration. Despite the word THUG THUG tattooed on his upper arm, he had the clumsy manner of a child who had done something silly and got caught. Breechelle was a good-looking woman with an opinion about everything. When she came to see the kids' theater project, she spontaneously made a speech to the staff and other parents about how the kids' having "done made mistakes" didn't compromise their being "the most talented you could find," and deserving of "everything we can give 'em." This splendid announcement notwithstanding, Jamaal complained that she had not shown up for any of his court dates. tattooed on his upper arm, he had the clumsy manner of a child who had done something silly and got caught. Breechelle was a good-looking woman with an opinion about everything. When she came to see the kids' theater project, she spontaneously made a speech to the staff and other parents about how the kids' having "done made mistakes" didn't compromise their being "the most talented you could find," and deserving of "everything we can give 'em." This splendid announcement notwithstanding, Jamaal complained that she had not shown up for any of his court dates.

Jamaal acknowledged that his mother had been more supportive when he first had run-ins with the law. "I'm very thankful of my mom for keeping it real with me, and I understand where she's coming from. 'Cause she only thirty-two now, and she's just a child, just like me." Despite having four children, all by different men, Breechelle did seem childlike, bewildered by her responsibilities. "I kinda feel good that Jamaal's gonna spend his life in jail," she admitted. "Means someone else gonna give him food and put a roof over his head. No way he ever gonna take care of himself, I can see." She was less impressed by Jamaal's accomplishments as a small-time drug dealer than he was. "It such hard work," Jamaal said with a tinge of pride. "You gotta worry about people taking your life; about a junkie robbing you, shooting you. People messing with you, you gotta let 'em know, 'You can't fuck with me.' It's seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day." I asked whether he had contemplated other career options. "I don't know," he said. "I'll probably write. Probably do some counseling, deal with people like me. Something that ain't hard, you know?" for keeping it real with me, and I understand where she's coming from. 'Cause she only thirty-two now, and she's just a child, just like me." Despite having four children, all by different men, Breechelle did seem childlike, bewildered by her responsibilities. "I kinda feel good that Jamaal's gonna spend his life in jail," she admitted. "Means someone else gonna give him food and put a roof over his head. No way he ever gonna take care of himself, I can see." She was less impressed by Jamaal's accomplishments as a small-time drug dealer than he was. "It such hard work," Jamaal said with a tinge of pride. "You gotta worry about people taking your life; about a junkie robbing you, shooting you. People messing with you, you gotta let 'em know, 'You can't fuck with me.' It's seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day." I asked whether he had contemplated other career options. "I don't know," he said. "I'll probably write. Probably do some counseling, deal with people like me. Something that ain't hard, you know?"

The second risk factor, often coincident with the first, is abuse or neglect, which affects more than three million American children each year. John Bowlby, the original theorist of attachment, described how abused and neglected children see the world as "comfortless and unpredictable, and they respond either by shrinking from it or doing battle with it"-through depression and self-pity, or through aggression and delinquency. These children commit nearly twice as many crimes as others.

Huaj Kyuhyun's mother pushed him into the Mekong River in a tire with other escaping relatives to save his life at the time of conflict in Laos. He was granted asylum in the United States at six. By the time he was twelve he had become active in the Asian gangs of rural Wisconsin; the following year, after keeping an eighteen-year-old girl in his community out all night, thereby dishonoring her, he was "married" to her in an illegal ceremony. Both a lover and a mother to him, she was the first person he'd ever felt close to, but he treated her badly and abandoned her with their two kids to go out partying with his friends. After repeated beatings, she left him, and his life became a downward spiral of heavy drug use; to make money he helped run a ring of underage prostitutes, paying girls with drugs to have sex with johns. This was the crime for which he'd been incarcerated.

When I interviewed him, he was fifteen, and he circled obsessively, relentlessly, around his remorse for the way he had treated his wife and his longing to have contact with his children. "It's like a needle poking deeper and deeper into my heart," he said. But he had no model in his past to look to for guidance, and he seemed utterly lost. His mother had recently materialized out of the jungle, and they had spoken twice on the phone. "I don't know what to say to her," he said. His mother cried during their conversation, suggesting that he had probably forgotten her. "I didn't forget about you," he said. "It's just that I don't know what it feels like to have parents." on the phone. "I don't know what to say to her," he said. His mother cried during their conversation, suggesting that he had probably forgotten her. "I didn't forget about you," he said. "It's just that I don't know what it feels like to have parents."

The third giant risk factor, which often accompanies the first two, is exposure to violence. One study found that children in its sample who suffered physical maltreatment, witnessed interparental violence, and encountered violence within their community were more than twice as likely to become violent delinquents as those from peaceable homes; of course, abused children also may carry their parents' genetic predisposition toward aggression. Taking them away from their families, however, seldom helps, because the child welfare system is also associated with high rates of crime. Jess M. McDonald of the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois has flatly stated, "The Child Welfare System is a feeder system for the juvenile justice system."

Ryan Nordstrom, a white thirteen-year-old at the Home School, told me with counterfeit bravado that he had always been on the wrong side of the law. "They've put me on meds, which is why I look sweet and innocent all the time," he said. I asked about his early transgressions. "When I was nine," he said solemnly, "I smoked! It's totally illegal when you're nine." At ten, Ryan threatened a kid at school with a knife and was expelled. He was incarcerated for sexual abuse of his little sister "on a daily basis, starting when I was eleven, but I didn't get charged until my mom called the police when I was thirteen." His sister was six when he started out. "I wanted what I wanted, and I didn't think she'd be able to say no," he explained.

Despite psychotherapy, Ryan did not seem to recognize that smoking, even underage, was in an entirely different category from his treatment of his sister, who had been hospitalized with vaginal abrasions. His parents liked S&M pornography and had played it regularly in rooms through which their children passed; they would have sex while Ryan was in the bed with them when he was eight years old. He may have had inherent qualities that caused him to translate such unsettling experiences into crimes, but those qualities were doubtless exacerbated by the transgressions in his upbringing.

Troubled kids tend to be self-destructive. David P. Farrington, professor of psychological criminology at Cambridge, notes that boys convicted as minors drank more beer, got drunk more often, and took more illicit drugs; they had started smoking earlier and were more likely to gamble. They were likely to have had sex young, and with a wider variety of partners, but less likely to use contraceptives. Many of these behaviors are associated with poor impulse control, but they are also frequently expressions of low self-esteem-even self-hatred. these behaviors are associated with poor impulse control, but they are also frequently expressions of low self-esteem-even self-hatred.

The social critic Judith Harris has proposed that the family environment is less determinative of criminality than the larger social milieu. Unlike adults, juveniles most often commit crimes in groups; less than 5 percent of early offenders act alone, and groupness groupness often determines their criminal patterns, part of the youthful urges to fit in and impress. The likelihood of delinquency also relates to the availability of drugs and guns, the degree of poverty, the lack of attachment to one's neighborhood, and population density. Rates of female crime are higher than ever, though they still account for only about a quarter of juvenile arrests. Young women are more consistently driven to crime by traumatic experience than males are. According to one study, 75 percent of girls identified as juvenile delinquents by US courts have been sexually abused. About two-thirds of chronic juvenile offenders are gang members. In 2009, in the United States, there were 731,000 gang members, almost half of them juveniles, belonging to more than 28,000 gangs. often determines their criminal patterns, part of the youthful urges to fit in and impress. The likelihood of delinquency also relates to the availability of drugs and guns, the degree of poverty, the lack of attachment to one's neighborhood, and population density. Rates of female crime are higher than ever, though they still account for only about a quarter of juvenile arrests. Young women are more consistently driven to crime by traumatic experience than males are. According to one study, 75 percent of girls identified as juvenile delinquents by US courts have been sexually abused. About two-thirds of chronic juvenile offenders are gang members. In 2009, in the United States, there were 731,000 gang members, almost half of them juveniles, belonging to more than 28,000 gangs.

Tall, handsome, tough, with close-cropped hair, Krishna Mirador had a way of wearing prison clothes that made them look like fashion. His English was heavily accented and sometimes hard to understand, and he would frequently ask me, "How you say in English?" as he groped for vocabulary. Born in south Los Angeles, he told me, he had been abandoned at birth by a Latina mother whose name he never learned; he was raised by his father, Raul, who was only eighteen when Krishna was born, and who was a member of Surenos 13; the gang was the only family Krishna had ever known. When Krishna was eleven, his father was deported to Guatemala, but Krishna stayed in LA, hanging out with first one set of gangbangers, then another. One of his cousins was shot and died in his arms. "That made me snap out of it, 'cause that coulda been me," he said. Raul told him to get out of LA; he knew a woman in Minneapolis who owed him a favor, and when I met Krishna, he had been living in her house for four years. He'd never found out why she was in his father's debt, and he didn't want to ask.

The weekend after I met Krishna at the Home School, a rather beautiful Irish American woman in her mid-forties introduced herself as Carol and said, "My son Krishna wants to be in your research project." Then Krishna came into the room. "Hey, Mom, just give him your signature," he said in unaccented English. I stood there, astonished. Carol, who looked just like him, said how worried she was about Krishna, and I said that it seemed as if he'd had a rough time after the hard childhood in Los Angeles. She looked at me as though I were slightly unhinged. "Krishna was born and raised in Duluth," she said. Krishna subsequently insisted that his father had told him he was born in South Gate, California, a Latino ghetto outside LA, but when I met Raul a few years later, he just laughed. slightly unhinged. "Krishna was born and raised in Duluth," she said. Krishna subsequently insisted that his father had told him he was born in South Gate, California, a Latino ghetto outside LA, but when I met Raul a few years later, he just laughed.

Krishna remains the most convincing and unabashed liar I have ever met, and his lies are usually angry ones, such as this furious evisceration of his mother. When I called him on it the next day, he said, "I guess if she says she's my mother, probably she is." Krishna's parents related to each other with such abiding antipathy that it was impossible to construe the truth from either. Each expected me to hate the other, but in spite of myself, I liked them all. "It's so complicated, Andrew," Carol said, the first time we talked. "I'm just so afraid you won't be able to write it, because it's just too hard."

Carol Malloy and Raul Mirador met in the late 1980s through Ananda Marga, which is sometimes called a cult, sometimes a spiritual movement, and sometimes a discipline. The group preaches unity and love but has also been accused of weapons smuggling. One of Ananda Marga's doctrines is "revolutionary marriage"-originally a protest against the Indian caste system-in which people from completely different walks of life marry each other, thus breaking down bourgeois notions of class and nationality. Raul had visa problems, and Carol's marriage was failing. Raul agreed to pay for her divorce if she would marry him. "You were given points in the guru's eyes if you sought out the most difficult thing," Carol recalled. "I don't look ahead very well; in fact, I'm usually a move or two behind. So poor Krishna was born into that."

They lived in Duluth with Carol's two children from her first marriage. Carol owned a bakery where she and Raul worked together; she eventually handed the business over to Ananda Marga. Raul moved them all to Guatemala when Krishna was five. After nine months, Carol's two older children couldn't stand it and returned to the United States to live with their father, while Carol, in her own words, "chose ideology over love" and has never really reconnected with those children. It took her "five years of muddle" to learn the language and the culture in Guatemala, during which time, she said, "Raul became impossibly macho and bossy; he was probably always bossy, but in Duluth it was my house and my business, and it was less noticeable." She told him she was going to divorce him unless he returned to the United States with her; she was certain she could get custody of the children. Raul claims that she said, in earshot of the children, that she was ready to leave even without them, and that to spare them abandonment he agreed to try a return to Minnesota.

Krishna was ten; his sister, Ashoka, was eight; his brother, Basho, born in Guatemala, was four. Carol and Raul took jobs teaching Latino children in the Minneapolis public school system, and they entered couples counseling. "The kids were really happy," she recalled. "When Krishna was nine, I would sit on the floor by his bed and just read and read, and then we would talk and talk. We read Don Quixote de la Mancha. Don Quixote de la Mancha. We read poetry; we read stories; history. We were so close. He doesn't remember it." We read poetry; we read stories; history. We were so close. He doesn't remember it."

Nine months after their return, Carol came home one day to an empty house. Raul had taken all three children back to Guatemala. "I thought Raul was going to struggle with me," Carol said sadly, "and if we couldn't do it, we would divorce here, work through the history, and become friends. But he was a real coward." Though Carol was furious at Raul, she was also angry at Krishna, who was old enough to have made a choice. Krishna could never forgive his mother for having been willing to leave him behind in Guatemala; she could never forgive him for leaving her behind in the United States. For the first two years I knew him, Krishna maintained that he didn't remember his childhood. When I repeated this to Raul, all he could say was, "The children are very angry at Carol."

Carol served kidnapping charges on Raul through the American embassy. She went to Guatemala and tried to negotiate a settlement. "The visits were always in a locked room, at Raul's lawyer's office," she said. "There were two guards with machine guns, and I thought they were going to kill me. And the kids were so brainwashed." Carol eventually got custody in both countries. Raul went to jail, through Interpol, for kidnapping. "We presented the papers to Raul's parents. When we went in, the beds were still warm. The Mirador family had reabducted my kids." She left Guatemala in despair; two weeks later, Raul's parents paid someone off, and he was released.

Carol's separation from Raul seemed necessary to her, but she paid for it with her second set of children. "I was free, but I had lost everything," she said. "Raul wanted to punish me for wanting to be out of Ananda Marga, for wanting to go to grad school, for believing in myself." Many years later, Krishna wrote to me, "I know my father loves me even though he seldom says it, and I know my mom doesn't even though she says it all the time. I haven't seen my Dad have a girlfriend since my Mom. He says it's because he doesn't have time, but I know it's because she broke his heart."

While Carol had her kids' pictures appearing on milk cartons as missing children, his grandparents hid Krishna with cousins in LA for almost a year, and he joined Surenos. His first assignment, he told me, was to steal a car; then they gave him an Uzi with a full clip of ammunition and ordered him to take the car and "go get some rivals." He said, "I came back with no bullets left. When I felt that adrenaline pumping in my heart, I was like, 'Yeah, this is my shit. This is was to steal a car; then they gave him an Uzi with a full clip of ammunition and ordered him to take the car and "go get some rivals." He said, "I came back with no bullets left. When I felt that adrenaline pumping in my heart, I was like, 'Yeah, this is my shit. This is my my drug.'" drug.'"

After nine months, Raul called Krishna back to Guatemala. A year later, when Krishna was thirteen, he came to see Carol in Minneapolis. "I don't know how it happened," she said, "except that it was Christmas, and sometimes you can get a wish through. I invited him like nothing was wrong." Krishna had a good two-week visit, and Carol persuaded someone from Ananda Marga to negotiate for Ashoka and Krishna to come for Easter. When they arrived in Minnesota, she told them they weren't going back. "She didn't do it because she loved us," Krishna said. "She did it because she hates my father and it was revenge." Krishna was furious with his mother, but he liked America and didn't want to return to Guatemala; Ashoka was miserable and desperate to get home. Raul was beside himself, but couldn't enter the United States, because of a warrant for his arrest, so he asked a friend to retrieve Ashoka.

The day of the great escape, Ashoka was stuck at home with Carol's boyfriend. She called her father and explained in a whisper that she had no way to leave. He ordered Krishna to lure Carol's boyfriend out of the house, and as soon as they were gone, Ashoka bolted. "I helped my sister get out of the States illegally," Krishna said. "Which is kinda weird, 'cause most people are trying to get into into the States illegally." Carol was devastated but took Krishna's staying as a compliment. To Krishna, it was payback. "She wanted a son so damn bad-I'm gonna show her how hard it is," he explained to me. "I had to make her life hell for a little bit." Carol, who had been a vegetarian, explained that she had started eating chicken with Krishna. She paused and held out her hands in desperation. "I'll do anything for a connection. But he doesn't, can't, share. Krishna will never really engage. His head is full of garbage; it's full of indoctrination; it's full of Guatemala." the States illegally." Carol was devastated but took Krishna's staying as a compliment. To Krishna, it was payback. "She wanted a son so damn bad-I'm gonna show her how hard it is," he explained to me. "I had to make her life hell for a little bit." Carol, who had been a vegetarian, explained that she had started eating chicken with Krishna. She paused and held out her hands in desperation. "I'll do anything for a connection. But he doesn't, can't, share. Krishna will never really engage. His head is full of garbage; it's full of indoctrination; it's full of Guatemala."

This warped mother-son relationship, marked by rage and frustration on each side, changed dramatically one evening when Krishna went to buy some marijuana. He was fifteen. "We were kicking it right on Bloomington and Lake Street when a red Lincoln pulls up, and a dude starts blasting at us," he recalled. The police questioned everyone who was there, but detained Krishna in relation to the murder of a thirty-nine-year-old black man the preceding month. "I thought they were trying to scare me at first," he continued. "Black gangs fight black gangs and Chicano gangs fight Chicano gangs. We like killing each other, I guess. So no way was this me."

But the police soon filed charges against Krishna. When Carol learned that her son would be tried in the adult system, she organized friends to write letters, protest, and pack the courtroom. She explained that Krishna had previously been kidnapped and was traumatized. For the first time in Hennepin County, a murder case stayed in the juvenile system. Krishna faced an uphill battle. "My lawyer'd be like, 'Well, they offered us fifteen years.' learned that her son would be tried in the adult system, she organized friends to write letters, protest, and pack the courtroom. She explained that Krishna had previously been kidnapped and was traumatized. For the first time in Hennepin County, a murder case stayed in the juvenile system. Krishna faced an uphill battle. "My lawyer'd be like, 'Well, they offered us fifteen years.' Us? Us? Motherfucker, you gonna do seven and a half, I'm gonna do seven and a half? I was like, 'I'm not gonna plead guilty to something I didn't do.'" Krishna was steely in his resolve, and the case was finally dismissed. By then he'd been in jail for seven and a half months. Motherfucker, you gonna do seven and a half, I'm gonna do seven and a half? I was like, 'I'm not gonna plead guilty to something I didn't do.'" Krishna was steely in his resolve, and the case was finally dismissed. By then he'd been in jail for seven and a half months.

"When they let him go, everyone thought, 'He'll really turn his life around,'" Carol said. "But he got right back into it." For once, Krishna agreed with his mother's version of events. "Being locked up made me think, 'Fuck everybody,'" he said to me. Things did not go well at home. Anyone who came to the house with a blue kerchief-a Surenos symbol-Carol kicked out. Krishna said, "I think a mother should be until the end. Even if I was doing life in prison, she'd still try to be there for me. I was testing her." She replied, "Krishna says he wanted to stay in Minnesota to make my life miserable, and that's why he kept himself in the gang. It's to see if I really love him. I don't think he planned it at all. The gang and the cult are the exact same: very hierarchical; rules; this small group of people dedicated to this pointless rigid structure and ready to die for it. He's re-creating the childhood he hated."

Two months after the charges against Krishna were dropped, he served a one-month sentence for having a gun. A few months later, he was picked up for parole violations, and at sixteen he was sent to a year at the County Home School, where I met him. Krishna told me that his girlfriend was pregnant-which she was not-and added, "I don't want Carol to even see the kid; I don't need her talking about 'Your first years were really something else.'" Krishna's ability to be angry at his mother for something she hadn't said to a baby who didn't exist was an impressive feat of projection. A little later, Krishna said, "I was just thinking how if my kid grew up to be like me, it would be my fault. That almost made me cry; I wanted to cry. My eyes kind of swelled up, but no tears." Anger had apparently crowded out all his other emotions.

"I could handle it if he were one of these kids all dressed in black, with blue hair and piercings," Carol said. "Even tattoos, if they're not gang-related, are fine. Even if he were gay, fine. I can never be fine with violence, and I wonder if that's why he chose it. They've got his back. Why do they have to have his back? Does anyone have your back? My medical insurance has my back. One thing he's proud of in the gang is that he tells other people what to do. He's always on that cell phone barking out orders in Spanish. I said to him, 'Look, I tell people all the time what to do, because I teach first grade. Would you consider it as an alternative?'" But Carol also admitted that she is in part responsible for who Krishna is. "You know me as who I am now, and I know you like me," she said sadly. "But believe me-I wasn't the same person then, and you wouldn't have liked me so much." She also thought that the complexities of being part white were too much for her son. "He's too scared to be himself. It's hard for mixed-race kids to stand up and say, 'I am neither here nor there; I am myself.'" In a letter Krishna wrote me, he said, "It would make sense to tell you who I am, even though sometimes barking out orders in Spanish. I said to him, 'Look, I tell people all the time what to do, because I teach first grade. Would you consider it as an alternative?'" But Carol also admitted that she is in part responsible for who Krishna is. "You know me as who I am now, and I know you like me," she said sadly. "But believe me-I wasn't the same person then, and you wouldn't have liked me so much." She also thought that the complexities of being part white were too much for her son. "He's too scared to be himself. It's hard for mixed-race kids to stand up and say, 'I am neither here nor there; I am myself.'" In a letter Krishna wrote me, he said, "It would make sense to tell you who I am, even though sometimes I I don't even know. Always classified as a 'spic' for my language, culture, looks, and demeanor, but always teased, ostracized and not fully accepted by my Latino brothers for being a 'half-breed.'" don't even know. Always classified as a 'spic' for my language, culture, looks, and demeanor, but always teased, ostracized and not fully accepted by my Latino brothers for being a 'half-breed.'"

Krishna loved giving tutorials about gang life. "The Hispanic gangs in California have been going since the 1900s," he told me one evening. "I'm not putting down black gangs, but there's more loyalty and honor with us. Gangs didn't really start as criminal organizations; they degenerated into that. But, look at the people in Enron, stealing old people's retirement funds. I, myself, or any of my homeboys, that's a rule, that you can't fuckin' jack old people. That's despicable." When I met Raul three years later, I saw that Krishna was echoing the tone of his father's earnest moral instruction. Most of the kids whom I interviewed for this chapter spoke correct English when they first met me and then relaxed into patois. Krishna spoke broken gang language, full of obscenities, until he relaxed, at which point he spoke perfectly grammatical English. Was his gang mode a defense to camouflage the sensitive person he really was? Or was he an incredibly hard guy who could manipulate people with his apparent softness? Krishna himself has no idea of the answers to these questions.

In the final month of his sentence, Krishna went out every day to a job and could leave the premises in the evenings with a responsible adult. I had applied for permission to take him to dinner. When we had sat up nights in the Home School, he would talk about how he wanted to go to college. Now as he tucked into a sirloin, his fixation was the gang. "Those are my people," he said. "I ain't gonna be sacrificing my loyalties just for living under Carol's roof." I mentioned that I had been interviewing Karina Lopez, and he laughed. "You heard her boyfriend died? My boys did that." He actually thumped his chest. "I saw her the day it happened, in the med unit, crying her ass off. I laughed." Karina later confirmed the episode: "He didn't have anything to do with the murder, but he sure enjoyed it."

I told him that it was hard to reconcile all this with the boy full of dreams with whom I'd played Scrabble a few weeks earlier. "They're all part of one person, though," he said. "My counselor just made me do an assignment on what a psychopath is. After reading twenty characteristics, I stopped, because it was scary. I love my hatred-it's so strong and sort of pure and real. And I kind of hate love, like I feel it's always false and disappointing, everyone saying they love me when they just want to control me. I love hatred and I hate love. So is that enough for me to be a psychopath? I don't think I'm evil. I hope not." dreams with whom I'd played Scrabble a few weeks earlier. "They're all part of one person, though," he said. "My counselor just made me do an assignment on what a psychopath is. After reading twenty characteristics, I stopped, because it was scary. I love my hatred-it's so strong and sort of pure and real. And I kind of hate love, like I feel it's always false and disappointing, everyone saying they love me when they just want to control me. I love hatred and I hate love. So is that enough for me to be a psychopath? I don't think I'm evil. I hope not."

Three days later, Krishna went to his job and didn't come back. To run away when you have two weeks of transitional living remaining is ludicrous; instead of walking out with a clean record, he was on the lam. After three months, he was picked up in south Minneapolis and returned to the Home School. When I saw him there, I expressed mild surprise that he had stayed in a town where every policeman knew his face. "I went to the Greyhound station twice to buy a ticket to LA, but I was having too much fun here," he said. He complained that Carol had reservations about having him move back home. "Did my mom let me down?" he asked. "I don't think she let me up to begin with." Carol was sad. "He somehow missed the lesson on delayed gratification," she said to me. "I wish you could take over being his mother."

Krishna began what I was to recognize as a predictable cycle. As long as he was locked up, he was capable of optimism and hope, qualities that dissipated when he left his confinement. Now, he wanted to stay in gang life but not commit crimes, and he planned to do this by writing plays to be performed by gang members. He would beat their knives into scripts, their guns into production values. After describing to me the plot of one of his stories, he became abruptly ruminative. "I'm a banger. That's just the easy way out for me. That way I know where I stand. Whereas, when I'm trying to be positive, I don't really know where I stand-and I don't really know how committed I am to being positive."

I had heard a great deal about his father and wanted to see if Raul was the gentle sage of Krishna's raptures or the manipulative creep I'd heard about from Carol. Three years after I met Krishna, he was free and planning a trip to Guatemala. I proposed to his father that I visit at the same time. Raul wrote back, "You are welcome any time. You do not have to spend your money and time in a hotel. It will be our pleasure to have you with us so we can meet and talk freely."

Raul was warm and courtly and instantly likable, a small man with thick, black, wavy hair; he looked almost Asian and was dwarfed by his towering son. They met me at the airport; I threw my bags in the trunk of their elderly station wagon, and we headed to Krishna's grandparents' house, where I was given a room ordinarily reserved for visiting grandchildren, which had on the dresser, incongruously grouped, a light-up Santa Claus, a gigantic Mr. Potato Head, and a portrait of the pope. house, where I was given a room ordinarily reserved for visiting grandchildren, which had on the dresser, incongruously grouped, a light-up Santa Claus, a gigantic Mr. Potato Head, and a portrait of the pope.

Raul told me that he and Carol had loved each other. "Before we married, I said, 'I don't accept a marriage that leads to divorce, especially if there are children.' But she left anyway, and she wanted to have them with her, which she hadn't earned and couldn't do properly." We stayed up talking late that night, and Raul returned over and over to the language of morality. "I don't think this thing we see is the real Krishna," he said. "The real Krishna is that sweet boy who went up to visit America five years ago. The good side will come out on top, but whether it does so before he gets locked up for life or killed in a shootout I don't know." Later he said, "I can understand being willing to die, or to spend your life in prison, but not for a gang. Krishna needs a cause." Raul looked at me with sudden frankness. "Can you help him find one?" he asked.

In the morning, we went to an Ananda Marga school in an impoverished district called La Limonada. The children, three to six years old, were taught in two rooms, one above the other in a concrete bunker with a tin roof. Raul and Krishna were greeted with songs and a little dance, Krishna awkwardly receiving these salutations. The teacher asked if Krishna would give the kids English lessons, and he replied that his tattoos and gangster look would get him into trouble in the neighborhood-an excuse that clearly upset his father. Then Krishna said he had to bounce, so Raul and I drove to a small apartment on the outskirts of town and met a dozen Ananda Marga devotees from various countries. We meditated on faded prayer mats and talked about good and evil over a shared bowl of lentils.

That night, with bravado, Krishna took me to a gang-dominated part of the city, where he introduced me to the local Surenos. Everyone had guns and gang tattoos, and at one point we heard gunfire outside the room where we were gathered-and yet it felt weirdly like meeting someone's fraternity brothers on a college campus. I understood for the first time how Surenos could feel both utterly dangerous and uniquely safe. The gang was itself a horizontal identity, and crime served a function in Krishna's life not unlike the role that Deafness or dwarfism played in other lives I'd examined, not unlike the role that being gay played in my own life. I kept remembering the letter in which Krishna had said he couldn't tell me who he was because he didn't know. His mother had attributed the confusion to being biracial, but it also reflected the question of whether he was his mother's son or his father's, American or Guatemalan, good or evil-a catalog of dialectics too long to enumerate. In that ugly room in an ugly neighborhood he knew exactly who he was, which allowed him to relax as I had never seen him relax before. his father's, American or Guatemalan, good or evil-a catalog of dialectics too long to enumerate. In that ugly room in an ugly neighborhood he knew exactly who he was, which allowed him to relax as I had never seen him relax before.

I had been surprised to be drawn to the world of the Deaf, but it was much stranger to be seduced by this world. Yet from the inside, gangbanging was hospitable. I did not like hanging out with the Surenos any more than I'd liked my morning with the Ananda Margis and their lentils, but I did not like it any less, either. I knew that many of the people in that room had committed murder. They were kind to me, however, as a kindness to Krishna, a consideration for which he was clearly starved. That cordiality felt authentic and embracing. I had assumed that hanging out with the gang in the slums of Guatemala City would show me the toughest part of Krishna, but instead, it showed me the most vulnerable. Criminality is an identity, and like any other form of organized brutality-football, war, arbitrage-it can beget great intimacy. The social imperative is to suppress criminal behavior, but that should not preclude noticing the identity. I deplore violence, but I recognize the military intimacy it allows men who have no other occasion to bond. Indeed, I recognize that the conquests by which the map of the world is drawn derive from the loyalty and aggression of young men.

My last day in Guatemala, Raul had arranged for Krishna's grandfather to drive me to the airport. "Hey," said Krishna. "You want me to come with you?" A little gallantly, he picked up my suitcase to take to the car. During the drive, he told me about Guatemalan poetry, and I mentioned Elizabeth Bishop's poems from Brazil, which capture the displacement between the two Americas. I quoted some favorite lines, and he borrowed a pen to write them down. I had expected simply to be dropped off, but at the airport Krishna grabbed my suitcase out of my hand again, accompanied me inside, and picked a good line for me-good, he explained, because he could really be into the girl at the counter. He waited until I had checked in and escorted me to the security zone. I walked into the secured area, then turned around, and he was waving at me. "Thanks," he called out. "For what?" I asked. "For coming. For everything," he said. "I'll miss you, man." He coughed, looked embarrassed, and hurried away. That image of him, almost forlorn, printed itself on my heart; for a gleaming moment, I saw the sweet Krishna whom both Raul and Carol had described.

Krishna moved back to Minneapolis to live with his mother again, and the next I heard, he had been shot and was in critical condition; he'd lost a kidney and part of his gallbladder, and he had lacerations on his liver, a collapsed lung, and "catastrophic" bleeding. When he left the hospital, Carol asked him to find someplace else to live. "If they come to finish off the job," she said drily, "I don't want it happening in my house." After that, he was mostly on the run, but when I couldn't reach him on his ever-changing cell numbers, I was able to keep up because he returned to his mother's house to do his laundry and ironing. Five months later, Carol took him back. Then Krishna challenged some gang members, and they shot up the house. Ashoka, who had been on a long visit, returned to Guatemala the next day; in a letter she left for Krishna, she wrote, "I used to think you just needed focus, but now I feel like it's a slow form of suicide and I don't want to be part of it." Carol said, "So I'm losing both my children again." the hospital, Carol asked him to find someplace else to live. "If they come to finish off the job," she said drily, "I don't want it happening in my house." After that, he was mostly on the run, but when I couldn't reach him on his ever-changing cell numbers, I was able to keep up because he returned to his mother's house to do his laundry and ironing. Five months later, Carol took him back. Then Krishna challenged some gang members, and they shot up the house. Ashoka, who had been on a long visit, returned to Guatemala the next day; in a letter she left for Krishna, she wrote, "I used to think you just needed focus, but now I feel like it's a slow form of suicide and I don't want to be part of it." Carol said, "So I'm losing both my children again."

A month later, Krishna got sixteen months for assault. This time, he went to the big house. When I visited, he apologized for the fictions he'd told me. The gang had disappointed him by then; one of the Surenos in the incident had turned state's witness. "I mean, don't join the gang if you can't understand; we have rules, we have bylaws, there is stuff you have to do and stuff you can't do." I proposed that if following rules were so attractive, he might as well follow the ones set by the US government, and he laughed. Krishna called Carol every week. "He calls me because he's allowed to," she said. "I have been so stupid to keep thinking that those speeches about doing better meant anything. I asked, 'What about that optimism you expressed in the play you were writing?' and he said, 'Those were just words.' Where's the reality? I'd give anything to be able to find it. Even if it's ugly, really, really ugly, I could accept it, if I could only see it, even for a few minutes. That's my dream." She looked at me sadly. "Andrew, I know you better than I know my son."

The next time Krishna was released from prison, he took his ACTs and sent the scores to several colleges, including UCLA, which was his first choice. But before his applications could be processed, he accompanied four fellow gang members on a drive that culminated in the shooting death of a member of the Vatos Locos gang. He was charged with aiding an offender for the benefit of a gang, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to eight years in Minnesota's Stillwater maximum-security prison.

Krishna could have found community elsewhere if he hadn't been too petrified to try. He was certainly smart enough to go to UCLA; he hid behind bluster to avoid risks that scared him, and the guns he toted were only transitional objects, a flashier edition of Linus's security blanket. His freshman year shimmers on a dreamed horizon; to his "what is" there is a vast "what might have been," and he is haunted by it. Finding a horizontal identity can be life's greatest liberation, but it can also be crushing, and in this case, the figurative prison consigned Krishna to a literal one. can also be crushing, and in this case, the figurative prison consigned Krishna to a literal one.

Stillwater has a vast grayness. Krishna looked spruce whenever he entered the visiting room, but his idealist streak had dimmed. "I don't hate Carol anymore," he said to me one afternoon there. "I used to think she was the one who had made me powerless, but now I think she loved me in whatever way she knows how. I just felt so so powerless growing up, not getting to choose where to live, and I finally realized, I joined the gang so I could feel really powerful. And what's the upshot? I'm totally powerless again, right back where I started-only this time, I did it to myself." powerless growing up, not getting to choose where to live, and I finally realized, I joined the gang so I could feel really powerful. And what's the upshot? I'm totally powerless again, right back where I started-only this time, I did it to myself."

Carol said to me, a few weeks later, "He wanted to work with the oppressed, to be with his people, with the disenfranchised Latinos. But what has he done? He gets them to kill each other. He lands them in prison. The people he says are his people-they'd be better off without him." I asked her if she thought she would be better off without him, and she said, "I've been without him the whole time. I don't really miss who he is at all. But who he was-I'm pretty sure I'm right about who he was, and I miss that person so much. And the person I thought that person would turn into, I miss him, too, with all my heart."

No other group of people has given me more confused information than these juvenile criminals. They didn't trust or like adult, white, male authority figures, and their knee-jerk dissembling was part of what had landed them in prison in the first place. More fundamentally, though, they didn't grasp their own reality. They didn't know for sure what had happened; their narratives were all conditional.

Jail concentrates human emotions because it confiscates so many normal human actions and robs the inmate of so many ordinary decisions: what to eat, when to eat it, when to shower, and on and on. When you are not on the street, fending for yourself, running from crime to crime, taking drugs that banish the world, you are compelled into reflection. In this pensive state, prisoners dwell on love and hate, on reunion and vengeance. They contemplate how to get back at whoever put them in the box; virtually all the prisoners I met blamed someone else for their incarceration if not for their crime. They also long for the people who offer them succor: a husband or wife, a boyfriend or girlfriend, the prisoner's children, parents whose relatively untempered love becomes a cherished souvenir of innocence.

The wrongs Krishna had endured were far more real to him than the ones he'd inflicted on others. I met other kids, though, who seemed to have become criminals to give some objective weight to a previous and crippling sense of guilt. One boy I befriended at the Home School, Tyndall Wilkie, had a fight with his mother, a preschool teacher, when he was six and told the school nurse that she had been abusing him, then repeated the story to the school social worker. She hadn't abused him; he just wanted to get her in trouble. Tyndall and his sister were put into permanent foster care; his mother was banned from teaching for five years. His whole life unfolded in the shadow of this error. and crippling sense of guilt. One boy I befriended at the Home School, Tyndall Wilkie, had a fight with his mother, a preschool teacher, when he was six and told the school nurse that she had been abusing him, then repeated the story to the school social worker. She hadn't abused him; he just wanted to get her in trouble. Tyndall and his sister were put into permanent foster care; his mother was banned from teaching for five years. His whole life unfolded in the shadow of this error.

Mitt Ebbetts, a gang kid at another prison, described how, when he was eight, his mother would leave him in charge of his younger sisters, cautioning him never to answer the door. One day, the knocking was so insistent that he couldn't ignore it. It was the police, responding to a neighbor's complaint about the children being left home alone. They were taken from her care and caromed from foster home to foster home. Like Lord Jim, Mitt was haunted by one error; he felt he had ruined his mother's and sisters' lives and so eviscerated his own moral center. His later offenses, drug peddling and assault, fulfilled his need for self-punishment. The legend of crime is that it is spurred by parents who hurt their children. The legacy of crime is that children hurt their parents. Often, the pain attached to that transgression blots out all other remorse.

Love is not only an intuition but also a skill. Therapeutic prison programs such as the Home School's provide structure and momentum for reflection, via group sessions, diaries, and letter-writing. Having a child at the Home School also provides learning opportunities for the child's parents. Prison defines parameters for affection that are easier for some people than the unmapped, everyday world. You come on visiting day. You stay the whole time. You bring in those sneakers or help hold on to the girlfriend by treating her as part of your family. These obvious, concrete actions do not depend on sustaining a mood, which many people of short temper and shifting emotion find difficult. People who cannot achieve constancy from minute to minute can sometimes sustain it once a week. A valid trust-"my parents said they would come on visiting day and they did"-was nearly revelatory for many prisoners. In some cases, this support vanished when the child was released, but in others it functioned as training wheels: by the time the child's sentence was up, the parents were ready to perform their roles with new confidence and skill, unassisted.

Ideally, a juvenile's reintegration into the family can also be a mirroring of his or her pending reintegration into society at large. The first time I attended family visiting day at the Department of Community Corrections of Hennepin County, I was talking to two boys who seemed to be in much the same situation. They were the same age, had similar sentences, and were being released at about the same time. I soon learned, however, that the parents of one had traveled two hours to show up for every court date, every family counseling session, and every visiting hour; the boy's mother had already lined up a construction job for his release. The other boy halfheartedly joined in with his friend's family because his own middle-class, educated family, who lived less than two miles from the facility, never came. These two inmates were being released into different worlds. age, had similar sentences, and were being released at about the same time. I soon learned, however, that the parents of one had traveled two hours to show up for every court date, every family counseling session, and every visiting hour; the boy's mother had already lined up a construction job for his release. The other boy halfheartedly joined in with his friend's family because his own middle-class, educated family, who lived less than two miles from the facility, never came. These two inmates were being released into different worlds.

I visited Castington, a high-security prison near Newcastle in the north of England, and found it more traditional and physically shabbier than the Home School. In Minnesota, staff would always tell the residents that they were under no obligation to talk to me. At Castington, I was invited to observe procedures and was present, for example, when new arrivals were strip-searched. The English inmates had not achieved the self-knowledge, or even the illusion of self-knowledge, that characterized their Home School counterparts. Frank Buckland, in prison for slashing the face of his cousin's boyfriend, seemed daunted by his approaching release date. "I've got the violence pretty well under control in here," Frank said; he had in fact been a model prisoner. "But I want to go out like the other blokes, have a drink, meet some girls. I don't know whether I'll go violent again." He spoke of his future character as though it were a mystery beyond his control. "We'll just have to wait and see," his mother echoed helplessly. The young people at the Home School were taught to begin thinking about, and planning for, what they were going to do on the outside; in contrast, I didn't meet a single Castington inmate who had any idea what he wanted to do with his life after his release.

Reflections on the future from inside a prison are fantasies of sorts, but the coherence and hopefulness of any particular fantasy has considerable bearing on the inmate's ability to turn his or her life around after prison. That Krishna spent his steak dinner with me extolling the virtues of gang life was a bad sign-just as Karina's using her boyfriend's murder as a reason to complete her GED was a promising one. The Home School provides a step-down program in which inmates are slowly returned to the world with supportive services. Terry Bach said, "I've had parents who feel comfortable calling me if something goes wrong after the kid gets out." Karina had remained close to her favorite correctional officer and had turned to her for advice from time to time. The injection of humanity into these relationships is enormously productive.

For most horizontal identities, the issue of collective innocence is central; the heart-tugging argument is that disabled children do not deserve to be castigated. Here, we deal with guilty children and, in some cases, with parents who have grossly erred. Yet many of these families have also been marginalized and brutalized, emotionally and economically isolated, depressed, and frustrated. I kept meeting parents who wanted to help their kids but didn't have the knowledge or means to do so effectively; like the parents of disabled children, they couldn't access the social services to which they were ostensibly entitled. Heaping opprobrium on these parents exacerbates a problem we could instead resolve. We deny the reality of their lives not only at the expense of our humanity but also at our personal peril. deserve to be castigated. Here, we deal with guilty children and, in some cases, with parents who have grossly erred. Yet many of these families have also been marginalized and brutalized, emotionally and economically isolated, depressed, and frustrated. I kept meeting parents who wanted to help their kids but didn't have the knowledge or means to do so effectively; like the parents of disabled children, they couldn't access the social services to which they were ostensibly entitled. Heaping opprobrium on these parents exacerbates a problem we could instead resolve. We deny the reality of their lives not only at the expense of our humanity but also at our personal peril.

Criminality appears to be more subject to resolve than many other conditions. No one can will his way out of Down syndrome, but some people can walk away from a criminal past. They usually require enormous supports to do so. Research on preventing crime has hatched a panoply of effective solutions, but we ignore most, writing off vast sectors of our society. While nearly three-quarters of people working with juvenile delinquents believe effective ways exist to treat the problem, only 3 to 6 percent believe that the juvenile courts are helping. Our lack of sympathy for these pariah children keeps successful treatment out of their reach. Aside from the common prejudice that therapeutic interventions are excessively soft on the criminal, the justification for withholding such treatments is often that they are ineffective and exorbitantly expensive. Neither justification has merit. The cost of jailing a minor ranges from about $20,000 to $65,000 per year. Prisons with more programs experience less violence, which reduces some expenses, but the major financial benefit lies in curtailed recidivism. A crime gives rise to enormous knock-on costs, including loss of property, trial expenses, health-care costs from injury, and psychological liabilities sustained by frightened victims. Joseph Califano, head of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, said, "Treatment and accountability are complementary rather than mutually exclusive objectives."

In a meta-analysis of 163 studies, William R. Shadish, professor of psychology at the University of California, Merced, demonstrated that family interventions are the most productive ones; another meta-analysis concluded, "The use of family and parenting interventions can result in a significant reduction in time spent in institutions such as prison and detention centers by juvenile delinquents." As with autism or Down syndrome, early intervention brings the best results. The 2001 US Surgeon General's report on youth violence confirmed that prenatal home visits to teach parenting skills to expectant mothers can reduce juvenile crime. Such programs are most effective when they are followed up; one researcher likened the approach to the dental model, in which regular maintenance is required to ensure good health-not the vaccination model, in which a single early-childhood action can prevent disease. followed up; one researcher likened the approach to the dental model, in which regular maintenance is required to ensure good health-not the vaccination model, in which a single early-childhood action can prevent disease.

An impatient society wants treatment to be more targeted, so most family programs do not set in until at-risk children are older and address only the families of known offenders. These therapies are mostly known by abbreviations: BPT, FFT, MST, SFT, BSFT, MFGI, FAST, FET, TFC. Most draw on cognitive/behavioral models; parents learn how to be consistent, fair, and emotionally open; children learn how to identify their feelings, manage their anger, and communicate better. Together, kids and parents improve conflict-resolution skills. Some therapies also deal with practical matters such as helping families to get adequate housing, food, and clothing. Some put children into model foster-care environments and then bring the biological family to observe the foster family as a prelude to returning the child to them.

Alan Kazdin and his team at the Yale Parenting Center advocate disciplinary measures that are not associated with violence or fear; altering the home correctional system can steer young people clear of the state one. One study posited that a behavioral-communication approach could reduce recidivism by half. Another showed that kids on probation in a control group were almost ten times more likely to reoffend than similar kids who participated in family therapy. Another reported that institutionalized delinquents who received family therapy in prison had a recidivism rate of 60 percent, compared to a Sisyphean 93 percent rate for those who didn't. At-risk children whose families received no early therapy were 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime before they turned eighteen than those whose families had received such therapy. These statistics have had little effect on how we deal with juvenile crime. Only one of ten juvenile prisons uses family therapies, and only about a quarter of these do so consistently. We rail against the atrocities perpetrated by kids, but we consistently choose the satisfaction of retribution over the efficacy of prevention.

Basic family interventions, in approximate terms, can run anywhere from $2,000 to $30,000 per family served. The HighScope Perry Preschool Project showed that for new mothers deemed to be at risk, every $1 spent on treatment saved $7 in later costs-a number that didn't even take into account the positive economic contributions of this nonoffending population. While California's "three strikes" law has a cost per serious crime prevented of $16,000, and parole comes in at just under $14,000, parent training has a cost per serious crime prevented of just $6,351. Extremely good results have been shown for relatively inexpensive graduation incentives that keep kids in school. The Perry Project suggests that failing to intervene with at-risk low-income families with children under five in the United States may cost us as much as $400 billion. But while money spent on deterrence this year may vastly reduce prison expenses a decade down the line, it's hard to apply this equivalence to a line-item budget, especially one that needs to pay off within a political term. of $16,000, and parole comes in at just under $14,000, parent training has a cost per serious crime prevented of just $6,351. Extremely good results have been shown for relatively inexpensive graduation incentives that keep kids in school. The Perry Project suggests that failing to intervene with at-risk low-income families with children under five in the United States may cost us as much as $400 billion. But while money spent on deterrence this year may vastly reduce prison expenses a decade down the line, it's hard to apply this equivalence to a line-item budget, especially one that needs to pay off within a political term.

Moral questions loom large in any discussion of such treatments. What message do we convey if we respond to violent crime with therapy? If we opt for less prison time, more crimes will be committed by people who would otherwise have been locked up. Three strikes was designed to reduce adult crime by 25 percent in California-a goal it may or may not have achieved. No preventive or therapeutic program has ever arrived at such ambitious goals. On the other hand, three strikes is scandalously expensive, and the state is on the verge of bankruptcy. We can't dismantle the justice system or knock out crime with kindness; fire is often needed to fight fire. At the same time, the overwhelming evidence is that punitive justice can be strengthened with therapeutic programs. To discard the prison system in favor of therapeutic interventions would be crazy; but a prison system that is used without therapeutic intervention, as in much of the country today, is at least equally crazy.

A peculiar arrogance accrues to people who cannot recognize the diversity of human impulses, and who feel superior because they do not lapse into behaviors that don't tempt them in the first place. People disgusted by sexual predators say smugly that they don't pursue the sexual favors of children, without acknowledging that they don't find children sexually attractive. Those who do not tend toward chemical dependency express disdain for addicts; people with small appetites patronize the morbidly obese. A hundred years ago, my homosexuality would have landed me in jail, and I am fortunate to live in a place and an era that allow me to be true to myself. If I'd had to deny my longings, it would have been a different experience from that of straight people who have no such longings to deny. Spending time with criminals, I have seen that while many have poor impulse control or are weak or stupid or destructive, many others are driven by a compulsion. Some manifest enormous courage by refraining from theft although the wish to steal burns in them every minute, and their restraint of demons they cannot eradicate is categorically different from the lawfulness of people who find the idea of thievery distasteful.

Families of criminals often struggle both to admit that their child has done something destructive, and to continue to love him anyway. Some give up the love; some blind themselves to the bad behavior. The ideal of doing neither of those things borrows from the idea of loving the sinner while hating the sin, but sinners and sins cannot so easily be separated; if human beings love sinners, we love them with their sin. People who see and acknowledge the darkness in those they love, but whose love is only strengthened by that knowledge, achieve that truest love that is eagle-eyed even when the views are bleak. I met one family whose own tragedy had led them to embrace these contradictions more than any other, one mother whose love seemed both infinitely deep and infinitely knowing of a blighted person. Hers was a love as dark and true, as embracing and self-abnegating, as Cordelia's. has done something destructive, and to continue to love him anyway. Some give up the love; some blind themselves to the bad behavior. The ideal of doing neither of those things borrows from the idea of loving the sinner while hating the sin, but sinners and sins cannot so easily be separated; if human beings love sinners, we love them with their sin. People who see and acknowledge the darkness in those they love, but whose love is only strengthened by that knowledge, achieve that truest love that is eagle-eyed even when the views are bleak. I met one family whose own tragedy had led them to embrace these contradictions more than any other, one mother whose love seemed both infinitely deep and infinitely knowing of a blighted person. Hers was a love as dark and true, as embracing and self-abnegating, as Cordelia's.

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, placed bombs in the cafeteria, set to go off during first lunch period at 11:17 a.m., and planned to shoot anyone who tried to flee. Errors in the construction of the detonators prevented the bombs from exploding, but Klebold and Harris nevertheless held the whole school hostage, killing twelve students and one teacher before turning their guns on themselves. At the time, it was the worst episode of school violence in history. The American Right blamed the collapse of "family values," while the Left mounted assaults on violence in the movies and sought to tighten gun-control laws. Wholesale critiques of the larger culture were offered as explanation for these inexplicable events.

The number of people killed that day is generally listed as thirteen, and the Columbine Memorial commemorates only thirteen deaths, as though Klebold and Harris had not also died that day in that place. Contrary to wide speculation then and since, the boys did not come from broken homes and did not have records of criminal violence. The wishful thought of a world that witnessed this horror was that good parenting could prevent children from developing into Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold, but malevolence does not always grow in a predictable or accountable manner. As the families of autistics or schizophrenics wonder what happened to the apparently healthy people they knew, other families grapple with children who have turned to horrifying acts and wonder what happened to the innocent children they thought they understood.

I set out to interview Tom and Sue Klebold with the expectation that meeting them would help to illuminate their son's actions. The better I came to know the Klebolds, the more deeply mystified I became. Sue Klebold's kindness (before Dylan's death, she worked with people with disabilities) would be the answered prayer of many a neglected or abused child, and Tom's bullish enthusiasm would lift anyone's tired spirits. Among the many families I've met in writing this book, the Klebolds are among those I would be most game to join. Trapped in their own private with disabilities) would be the answered prayer of many a neglected or abused child, and Tom's bullish enthusiasm would lift anyone's tired spirits. Among the many families I've met in writing this book, the Klebolds are among those I would be most game to join. Trapped in their own private Oresteia, Oresteia, they learned astonishing forgiveness and empathy. They are victims of the terrifying, profound unknowability of even the most intimate human relationship. It is easier to love a good person than a bad one, but it may be more difficult to lose a bad person you love than a good one. Sue Klebold once said to me, "I watched they learned astonishing forgiveness and empathy. They are victims of the terrifying, profound unknowability of even the most intimate human relationship. It is easier to love a good person than a bad one, but it may be more difficult to lose a bad person you love than a good one. Sue Klebold once said to me, "I watched Rosemary's Baby Rosemary's Baby the other night and my heart really went out to Rosemary." When Barbara Walters interviewed the father of one of Dylan's classmates after the events, he said of the Klebolds, "They're in a glass cage. And they have no more pieces to this puzzle than anybody else." the other night and my heart really went out to Rosemary." When Barbara Walters interviewed the father of one of Dylan's classmates after the events, he said of the Klebolds, "They're in a glass cage. And they have no more pieces to this puzzle than anybody else."

The last Sue Klebold heard from Dylan, the younger of her two children, was "Bye" as he let the front door slam on his way to school that April 20. In the middle of the day, Tom received a call about the shootings at school and learned that Dylan was a suspect. He called Sue. "I had a sudden vision of what he might be doing," Sue said. "And so while every other mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, I had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else. I thought if this was really happening and he survived, he would go into the criminal justice system and be executed, and I couldn't bear to lose him twice. I gave the hardest prayer I ever made, that he would kill himself, because then at least I would know that he wanted to die and wouldn't be left with all the questions I'd have if he got caught by a police bullet. Maybe I was right, but I've spent so many hours regretting that prayer: I wished for my son to kill himself, and he did."

That night, police told the Klebolds to leave their house-both so the police could turn it inside out, and for their own safety. "I thought about Dylan being dead," Sue said, "and I thought, 'He was young and healthy and maybe he could be an organ donor.' And then I thought, 'Would anyone want the organs of a murderer?' That was my first taste of how the world would see my son." The Klebolds went to stay with Tom's sister for four days, returning home on the day of Dylan's funeral. "We didn't really know what had happened," Sue said. "We just knew Dylan was dead, that he'd killed himself, that he was involved with the shooting."

As Littleton's period of mourning began, a carpenter from Illinois erected fifteen crosses on a hillside near the school. "I was so buoyed by this," Tom said. "I wanted to be a part of the community. And I thought we could all grieve together." Sue remembered, "There were flowers, and Dylan's and Eric's crosses had as many as everyone else's." Then the parents of some of the victims destroyed Dylan's and Eric's crosses. The youth group at a local church planted fifteen trees, only to have some of the victims' parents arrive with a press escort to chop down Dylan's and Eric's trees. At the high school graduation ceremony a week later, there were encomiums for the victims, but the head of the school told friends of Dylan and Eric to make themselves scarce. Before long, reports referring to the incident started using the number thirteen rather than fifteen. "The shorthand was this," Tom said. "Thirteen kids died. Two Nazis killed them, and the parents were responsible. It was a lynch mob." Sue said reflectively, "I think the other parents believed they had experienced loss, and I had not, because their children were of value, and mine was not. My child died, too. He died after making a terrible decision and doing a terrible thing, but he was still my child, and he still died." Then the parents of some of the victims destroyed Dylan's and Eric's crosses. The youth group at a local church planted fifteen trees, only to have some of the victims' parents arrive with a press escort to chop down Dylan's and Eric's trees. At the high school graduation ceremony a week later, there were encomiums for the victims, but the head of the school told friends of Dylan and Eric to make themselves scarce. Before long, reports referring to the incident started using the number thirteen rather than fifteen. "The shorthand was this," Tom said. "Thirteen kids died. Two Nazis killed them, and the parents were responsible. It was a lynch mob." Sue said reflectively, "I think the other parents believed they had experienced loss, and I had not, because their children were of value, and mine was not. My child died, too. He died after making a terrible decision and doing a terrible thing, but he was still my child, and he still died."

The Klebolds' lawyer had advised them not to talk to the press; their silence exacerbated local hostility. "You'd read something, and you couldn't respond to it," Tom said. "You knew that it was false, misleading, inflammatory." Sue said, "It was just like constantly being hit, and being hit again. And you couldn't fight back." In an act of agonizing catharsis, Sue handwrote notes to the parents of each child who had died or been injured. Though she did not feel responsible for what had happened, she wanted to mitigate the devastation. "To me, the only way to heal this community was to try to have a one-to-one relationship with each of the victims," she later explained. "My journey is not complete until I can say to these people, 'If you ever want to speak to me, I am available to you. I will meet in your home, a pastor's office, with a mediator if you want. If it would help you to talk to me, I'm here.'" She has never done it, because a counselor cautioned her that by contacting them, she might retraumatize them. "But I cried for their children just as I did for mine," she said. While the Klebolds faced a great deal of hostility, moments of unusual love also surfaced. "A few weeks after Columbine happened, I got a hug from the checkout clerk at Home Depot," Tom said. "Neighbors brought us food. And when I took my car in to have a bent wheel fixed, the mechanic said to me, 'At least you didn't change your name.' He respected that."

Investigations over the ensuing months revealed an atmosphere of bullying at Columbine. "Unless you were a part of the in crowd and had your athletic resume, you had no status," Tom said. "So Dylan had to be resentful. The only thing that would certainly have prevented Columbine would have been to eliminate the chip on his shoulder, and the chip sprang from that school. He and Eric didn't shoot us, and they didn't shoot up Kmart or a gas station; they shot up the school. The whole social pattern at Columbine was unfair, and Dylan couldn't do anything about it. That would cause enough anger in a sensitive kid to make him retaliate." whole social pattern at Columbine was unfair, and Dylan couldn't do anything about it. That would cause enough anger in a sensitive kid to make him retaliate."

Unbeknownst to the Klebolds, Dylan had experienced significant humiliation at school, though he was six feet four and not easy to push around. He had come home one day with ketchup spots all over his shirt, and when his mother asked what had happened, he said he'd had the worst day of his life and didn't want to talk about it. Months after his death, she learned of an incident in which Dylan and Eric had apparently been shoved and squirted with ketchup by kids calling them fags. "It hurt so much that I'd seen the remnants of that day and hadn't helped him," she said. When Tom went to pick up Dylan's car from the police station a few weeks after the event, one of the officers said to him, "My son came home from that school one day and they'd set his hair on fire right in the hall-his whole scalp was burned. I wanted to take that school apart brick by brick, but he said it would only make it worse."

A year after the massacre, the police turned over Dylan's journals to the Klebolds, who hadn't known of their existence. "Dylan's writing is full of 'I'm smarter than they are,'" Sue said. "He experienced disdain for the people who were mistreating him. He liked to think of himself as perfect, I think, and that grandiosity came through in the shootings. He started being more withdrawn and secretive in the last two years of high school, but that's not so unusual. The stereotype that he and Eric were these miserable little kids who were plotting because they were so isolated is false. He was bright. He was very shy. He had friends, and they liked him. I was as shocked hearing that my son was perceived as an outcast as I was hearing that he'd been involved in a shooting. He cared for other people." Tom demurred, "Or he seemed to."

"I can never decide whether it's worse to think your child was hardwired to be like this and that you couldn't have done anything, or to think he was a good person and something set this off in him," Sue said. "What I've learned from being an outcast since the tragedy has given me insight into what it must have felt like for my son to be marginalized. He created a version of his reality for us: to be pariahs, unpopular, with no means to defend ourselves against those who hate us." Their attorney filtered their piles of mail so they would not see the worst of it. "I could read three hundred letters where people were saying, 'I admire you,' 'I'm praying for you,' and I'd read one hate letter and be destroyed," Sue said. "When people devalue you, it far outweighs all the love."

Tom, like Dylan, had been painfully shy in high school and felt that because of their similarities he knew Dylan instinctively; he can identify with how Dylan may have felt, but not with what he did. Sue sees a terrible confluence of circumstances including depression, a school environment that caused rage, and an influential friend who had severe problems. "Dylan felt a little afraid of Eric, a little protective of him, and a little controlled by him," she said. "He was caught in something I don't understand that made him do this horrible thing. But I don't, can't, believe that that is who he was. Yes, he made a conscious choice and did this horrible thing, but what had happened to his consciousness that he would make such a choice? Something in him got broken. The same pathology that killed and hurt all the others also killed my son." because of their similarities he knew Dylan instinctively; he can identify with how Dylan may have felt, but not with what he did. Sue sees a terrible confluence of circumstances including depression, a school environment that caused rage, and an influential friend who had severe problems. "Dylan felt a little afraid of Eric, a little protective of him, and a little controlled by him," she said. "He was caught in something I don't understand that made him do this horrible thing. But I don't, can't, believe that that is who he was. Yes, he made a conscious choice and did this horrible thing, but what had happened to his consciousness that he would make such a choice? Something in him got broken. The same pathology that killed and hurt all the others also killed my son."

I was surprised that the Klebolds had stayed in the town where they had been party to so much anguish. "If we had moved and changed our names, the press would have figured it out," Sue said. "I would have been 'the mother of that killer' in the eyes of everyone I met. Here at least I had people who liked me as me, and people who had liked Dylan, and that was what I needed-especially people who had liked Dylan." Tom said bluntly, "If we'd left, they would have won. Staying was my defiance of the people who were trying to grind us into the ground." I ventured that it must have been hard to keep loving Dylan through the aftermath, and Sue replied, "No, it never was. That was the easy part. Trying to understand was hard, coping with the loss was hard, reconciling myself to the consequences of his actions was hard, but loving him-no, that was always easy for me."

It seemed to me, as I talked to the Klebolds, that Sue was Germany and Tom was Japan. Sue was intensely introspective and burdened with terrific guilt, while Tom proclaimed that it was horrible and then tried to move on. "What are you going to do?" he said. "He felt that he had a reason. He suffered the ultimate: he's no longer here. I'm sorry for the pain my son caused other people, but we had more than our share of pain in this, too. We lost our son; then we had to live with his memory being attacked." Like Japan, he also externalized the causes, but only to a point. "I imagined Eric telling him, 'If you don't do this, I will come and kill your parents,'" Tom later said. "But Dylan's willingness to participate is inescapable." Sue believes that Dylan would have been able to foil pressure from Eric if that had been the pivotal factor. She has wondered whether he might have endured some precipitating trauma, even if he'd been raped by someone, but has never found any evidence to that effect. In writings that go back to his sophomore year, she said, "He talks like a thoughtful, introspective, depressed kid, mostly about how he has a crush on somebody, and she doesn't know he's alive. Three months before the tragedy he's talking about how he wants to die, and he says, 'I might do an NBK with Eric.'" She learned that he's alive. Three months before the tragedy he's talking about how he wants to die, and he says, 'I might do an NBK with Eric.'" She learned that NBK NBK stood for stood for Natural Born Killers Natural Born Killers. "So as late as January, Dylan hadn't really decided that he was going to do this. He just wanted to die. But why blow up the school? I get in my car on a Monday morning, and I start thinking about Dylan, and I just cry all the way to work. I talk to him, or I sing songs. You have to be in touch with that sorrow."

An event of such enormity completely disrupts one's sense of reality. "I used to think I could understand people, relate, and read them pretty well," Sue said. "After this, I realized I don't have a clue what another human being is thinking. We read our children fairy tales and teach them that there are good guys and bad guys. I would never do that now. I would say that every one of us has the capacity to be good and the capacity to make poor choices. If you love someone, you have to love both the good and the bad in them." Sue worked in a building that also housed a parole office and had felt alienated and frightened getting on the elevator with ex-convicts. After Columbine, she saw them differently. "I felt that they were just like my son. That they were just people who, for some reason, had made an awful choice and were thrown into a terrible, despairing situation. When I hear about terrorists in the news, I think, 'That's somebody's kid.' Columbine made me feel more connected to mankind than anything else possibly could have."