ABSTRACT
Jamaica has a culture of torturing inner city boys, which is not uncommon in countries with high social violence. The problem for Jamaica is that over 50% of its murders are committed by repeat offenders; research done over 20 years show that the vast majority of these boys were tortured by their caregivers. For decades scholars found it easy to blame the absence of fathers for the problem of violent crimes in Jamaica. While father-absence remains a core factor in explaining violent behavior in boys, life histories of over 200 repeat killers and PEER material on 47 (triangulated by hundreds of other interviews) show that father-absence often triggers something more destructive—frustrated, and sometimes violent mothers, who torture boys in ways very few scholars untrained in the area of violence can imagine. The research findings show the damage that is possible when fathers and other support systems fail single mothers to the extent that they crack under the burden of raising boys in violent, underserved, and isolated communities. The data are clear that the result of this dilemma is too often young men who kill without remorse.
