ABSTRACT

Nine of the seventeen lifers were raised on society’s margins. They are non-white sons of immigrants or poor African-American families, some of which were dysfunctional. Two were born in the Philippines and came to the United States when they were 9 and 11 years old. Two finished high school, but the others dropped out by the age of 16. They all were in close contact with other marginal people who were involved in regular “deviant” activity-drug use, “gangbanging,” and stealing. Violence was all around them. They started close to the edge and it didn’t take much for them to tumble over it.