African American young men are under siege. In schools they have the highest rates of detention, suspensions, expulsions, and special education placements. In child welfare they are most likely to be removed from their parents, have their parents' rights terminated, exit without being adopted or reunited with their parents, and leave to become homeless or recruited into a survival culture of crime and drugs. (Curtis, Dale, & Kendall, 1999). In juvenile justice they have the highest rates of arrests, detention while awaiting trial, being tried as adults, being more severely sentenced at all stages of the system, and being incarcerated in secure juvenile or adult correctional facilities. Criminologists predicted that African American boys born in 1991 have a 29 percent chance of being imprisoned over their lifetime, compared with only a 4 percent chance among white boys (Mauer, 1999). The MAAT Center for Human and Organizational Enhancement, Inc. of Washington, DC, developed the Africentric Adolescent and Family Rites of Passage Program to reduce the incidence and prevalence of substance abuse and antisocial attitudes and behaviors by African American youths between the ages of 11.5 and 14.5 living in the District of Columbia. This three-year demonstration was supported by a grant from the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. This article describes the components of this program and the program's effect on the young boys and their parents.
