Jamira Burley knew both perpetrators and victims of violence in her family and in her Philadelphia community. Now 27, she was raised largely by older brothers because her parents were in and out of jail. “My brothers had to become adults before they could fully experience their childhood,” she said. They took care of the family by whatever means available, which often resulted in run-ins with the law. “Whether that was selling drugs, getting into fights to protect the younger siblings, it wasn't done selfishly, it was done in order to ensure that me and my younger brothers and sisters were taken care of,” she said. Every one of her 10 older brothers is either currently or formerly incarcerated, which does not make her family an anomaly: 36,000 black men are “missing” from Philadelphia primarily because of incarceration or early death, according to a 2015 New York Times analysis. This is the third highest of the cities analyzed, trailing behind New York and Chicago—both with much larger populations.
[For more of this story, written by Maura Ewing, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...philadelphia/472092/]
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