Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California in the 1908s and 90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men, who now face punitive policies in their schools, communities, and a world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized. Rios followed a group of forty delinquent Black and Latino boys for three years. These boys found themselves in a vicious cycle, caught in a spiral of punishment and incarceration as they were harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages, even before they had committed any crimes, eventually leading many of them to fulfill the destiny expected of them. But beyond a fatalistic account of these marginalized young men, Rios finds that the very system that criminalizes them and limits their opportunities, sparks resistance and a raised consciousness that motivates some to transform their lives and become productive citizens. Ultimately, he argues that by understanding the lives of the young men who are criminalized and pipelined through the criminal justice system, we can begin to develop empathic solutions which support these young men in their development and to eliminate the culture of punishment that has become an overbearing part of their everyday lives.

《什麼是社會學》，大哉問也，絕非簡單的事。美國社會學大師帕深思的門徒流傳一則傳奇故事或可說明一二：再怎麼忙，帕深思每年一定找出時間，重讀涂爾幹名著《宗教生活的基本形式》，思索「社會學是什麼」的問題。帕深思為何要從涂爾幹著作裡尋找靈感，是另一個問題，在此重要的是，許多大師為何多在他們學術已有相當成就以後，重回這種看似入門教科書的問題？
或許，本質性的問題總是最耐人尋味。
本書也是Elias 在實際研究過許多具體問題，如文明過程，晚年才發表的一個反省，以及對社會科學方法論的一個總結。Elias許多著名的概念，如形構、對自我的控制 ﹝文明化﹞、權力、發展等，在本書中都有更進一步的深入衍析。從本書開始，你可以融貫瞭解Elias的理論對未來社會學的啟示。