A tribe apart: a journey into the heart of American adolescence, by Patricia Herscha. Answer the scenario that prompted Hersch to claim that “this kind of tolerance amounts to a new ethic of situational excuses, a vague sense of right and wrong.” What are the cultural factors at play in this scenario? This book, having been written in 1998, offers an interesting perspective on how much things have changed since then. Having had the opportunity to work with incarcerated clients in the Department of Community Justice's secure treatment facility, I have had the benefit of seeing the differences – from then to now – evident in culturally centered criminal thinking and behavior. While the criminal thinking and behavior observed in the previous decade was truly disturbing, the behavior of teenagers today is much more heinous and widespread than most people realize. Many would say that little was done to mitigate the rampant racism and pervasive inequality when gang activity grew in the 1980s, and today people might say that not much has been done to solve this abominable social problem more than a formal membership. from then until today. Having received limited instruction on this complicated issue, I am unable to use more than a simple guess to describe how I view gang-related behavior. I focus on gang activity because the social isolation experienced by many children has left few options for family-oriented connections. I believe that economic disparity, which has become increasingly worse over the years, plays an important role in the rise of gangs and similar activities. The resulting increase in poverty has produced an increase in anger and frustration that is exhibited by more than one race, culture or exponent......center of paper......people from a position of power rather than as an interpreter and mentor of moral reasoning. Fortunately, in Mr. Vance's case he was able to understand that many teenagers have an innate ability to see beyond the nonsense that adults often present as wisdom. Furthermore, he understood that it is much better to meet children halfway in any important conversation related to their lives. In consulting jargon, this is called motivational interviewing, and Vance used the "rolling with resistance" technique to engage his audience. This very effectively diffuses the conflictual relationship between adults and young people, thus promoting a climate of mutual respect. This interaction may have shown many of these rather cynical youth that there are ways to interact with the adult world without conflict being an expected outcome (Hersch, pp.. 93–95).