I think these guys like it-they want it to be normal because that’s what they’re used to dealing with.” This hints at the cycle of violence that encompasses the prison and Harlem alike: violent communities make violence seem normal, which leads people to criminal acts for which they’re imprisoned, and then they perpetuate violence in prison so that prison feels more like home, which means that they return home even more violent than they were-and the cycle repeats. In his notes, Steve reflects, “Violence in is always happening or just about ready to happen.
Far from being a place where violent criminals are rehabilitated to become better citizens, Steve’s experience of prison suggests that it actually makes men more fearful and violent than they once were. Just before lunch one day he sees one prisoner stab another one in the eye and keep beating him, even after the man is on the ground screaming. At night, he can hear other prisoners being beaten and gang-raped. Steve’s observations of his brief time in prison suggest that it is an even more violent place than Harlem.
After the man leaves, Tony tells Steve he wants to “get an Uzi and blow his brains out.” Steve’s descriptions of Harlem are full of these casual threats and violent acts, suggesting that violence is common and unavoidable where Steve lives. It doesn’t seriously injure her, but her adult boyfriend comes over and beats up Tony, who he thinks threw the rock. When Steve and his friend Tony are twelve, for instance, Steve is practicing throwing rocks at a lamppost when he accidentally strikes a young woman. Even for young kids not involved in gangs, violence seems unavoidable and a normal response to being hurt. It also that that endemic violence affects people who have no wish to be involved, such as the strangers who get their faces cut. This suggests that, in Harlem, kids are often pulled into violence at a very young age. Fourteen-year-old Osvaldo admits on the stand to being a member of the violent Diablos gang, which only lets members join after they’ve fought at least one member of the gang and slashed a random stranger’s face with a knife. Witness testimonies and Steve’s memories of his neighborhood depict an environment where violence is commonplace. The novel’s depiction of both the streets of Harlem and the prison suggests that violence in inner city communities in the 1990s is an epidemic that’s seemingly unavoidable, even for well-meaning kids such as Steve. Non-violent Steve is thus thrust into violent environments and scenarios, demonstrating the manner in which Harlem’s violence absorbs even those who have no wish to participate in it. Although Steve is a sensitive person with seemingly no inclination to violence, he is being tried for a violent crime, and he’s placed in a violent prison to await his sentencing.