All God's Children Character Analysis

There is never one single reason or principle that triggers one to commit a life of crime. There are plenty of motives for life long criminals such as the environment where they grew up, availability of resources, how one’s parents raise you, family structure, and genetics. Fox Butterfield’s novel All God’s Children shapes these ideas through the interpretation of the Bosket family and his focus on Willie. All God’s Children is a book-length case study of Willie Bosket, One of New York correctional system’s most notorious criminals. Fox Butterfield is an American Journalist. He spent most of his writing career writing for the New York Times, and was part of the publication of the award winning Pentagon Papers. He served as the newspaper’s Bureau Chief all over the world, including China, Japan, Hong

I feel that Butterfield’s view of prison was a negative one. He felt prison only hardened criminals; moreover, it aided criminals in internalizing the honor code even further. The same code that got them in trouble from the beginning. Like I mentioned above, prison also breaks families apart, forcing children into street gangs to make up for the missing family organization, because working mothers find it hard to fully care for their child. It is apparent Butterfield acknowledges environmental factors that produce criminal behavior; however, it is also clear he is focused on the effects of a deteriorated family on criminal behavior. This is the pioneering feature of Butterfield’s work; he is not skewed to one extreme or another. He sees criminal activity as having a long, drawn out, generation-to-generation series of causes; he even takes the time to first describe how black’s inherited the southern code of honor that originated from Scott-Irish southerners centuries before. This verifies the many angles the author takes to show the reader the complexity behind