CIJD Book Review | MTN

UAM Participant - Summer 2025

Real Solutions to Youth Violence in Today's Society.

Crime Is Just Dumb offers a blunt, no-nonsense message to youth: crime leads nowhere, and the choices we make matter. It emphasizes personal accountability, which is important—but it barely scratches the surface of why young people, especially in communities like Southeast DC, turn to violence in the first place.

As a young Black woman from an underrepresented area, I can tell you this: no one wakes up and chooses crime for fun. Most of the time, it’s a response to conditions created by neglect, generational poverty, trauma, and a constant sense of invisibility.

In today's society, youth violence isn’t just about bad decisions—it’s about broken systems. It’s about schools with metal detectors but no guidance counselors. It’s about entire neighborhoods that are over-policed but under-resourced.

When the only people consistently checking on you are police officers or parole officers—not mentors, teachers, or professionals—you start to believe that’s all life has to offer. The book's solution to "just make better choices" sounds simple, but for many, it's not realistic. Choices are shaped by exposure. And when you're not exposed to real alternatives—college tours, creative outlets, financial literacy, therapy, or even just safety—you do what you have to in order to survive.

Social media has made it worse in many ways. Today’s youth are constantly bombarded with images of wealth, violence, and validation through clout. When your reality is food stamps, housing instability, and grief from gun violence, chasing fast money or street fame feels like the only way to gain respect. Crime Is Just Dumb doesn't account for that pressure. It doesn’t address how society celebrates violence in music, movies, and media, then punishes youth for copying what they've been taught to admire.

We also have to talk about the criminal justice system. It’s not designed to rehabilitate—it’s designed to punish, especially if you're Black and from a poor neighborhood. Too many of our boys and girls are being funneled into prisons instead of classrooms. Once labeled a “felon,” society makes it nearly impossible to re-enter with dignity: no jobs, no housing, no second chances.

That pipeline isn’t accidental. It's systemic, and it’s profitable. A book that tells youth to "be smart" without calling out these structures only tells half the story.

So what does real change look like?

We need to put power back into our communities. That means investing in programs that give us agency: entrepreneurship labs, youth-led media outlets, STEM boot camps, political education spaces, and trauma-informed care. We also need policies that reflect our lived realities—universal basic income pilots, housing for students and youth in transition, free college or trade school access, and protections for youth impacted by incarceration.

Healing is also key.

Black youth are walking around with PTSD from gunshots, funerals, and loss that we’re expected to carry in silence. Therapy and mental health support must be de-stigmatized and normalized. But it can’t just be white clinicians telling us what’s wrong with us—it needs to be Black and brown professionals from our communities, trained to understand our cultural context and pain.

Finally, the solution isn't just about youth avoiding crime—it’s about youth *leading* the way. Let us lead our own peace circles, design our own campaigns, run our own initiatives. When youth are given leadership, they rise. We don't need saviors. We need platforms, resources, and trust.

In short, Crime Is Just Dumb has a message that may wake some people up—but it's not enough for this generation.

We need deeper work.

We need systems that serve us, not cage us.

We need to be seen, heard, and invested in—not just corrected.

Because crime isn’t just “dumb” . . .

It's a desperate scream for change.

And until we ANSWER that scream with love . . .

Opportunity and equity,

Nothing will shift.

N O T H I N G!

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