The inner city is always known as a very daunting scene. People are all aware that crime is predominant in that area, but why? Why is crime a bigger problem there, then in the suburbs? I am going to attempt to answer that question. To understand why that area is full of crime, you need to figure out where it is coming from. I mean, why are crimes more likely to happen in the housing projects than in a suburban neighborhood? If anything is to be done to address this issue, we need to figure out what exactly is the problem. In this paper, I am going to find the problem. I am going to take a few theories of criminology and apply them to the book, Our America. .
In 1993 a journalist named David Isay gave two teenage boys a tape recorder to record their daily lives. Thirteen-year-old LeAlan Jones, and fourteen-year-old Lloyd Newman lived in a housing project in the south side of Chicago. These two boys carried around the tape recorders for a week, interviewing members of the community and describing their everyday routines. In 1994 after the murder of a five year old boy named Eric Morse, they started recording again. They recorded for a year, focusing on the issues surrounding the death of young Morse. Both of these recordings were aired on the National Public Radio's (NPR) show, "All Things Considered". These two documentaries won numerous national and international broadcasting awards such as the Prix Italia, which is Europe's oldest and most prestigious award (Jones and Newman 1997 pg. 20). Nationally, they won a Peabody award, a Hillman Foundation citation, and the youngest to win and also the first radio production to win, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award (Lehmann 1997 pg. 16). In 1996 Isay, Jones, and Newman decided to piece together the two radio documentaries, add additional recordings, and bring it all together into a book titled, Our America. .
This book is an excellent source on life-style in an inner city housing project.