“When a Heart Turns Rock Solid” is an ethnographical story, which explores the lives of three Puerto Rican immigrants in the United States. Timothy Black, n associate professor of Sociology at the University of Hartford befriends and follows the three lives through 18 years of challenging, educative and reflective years. Julio, Fausto and Sammy are brothers and each takes a different path in life, in a society filled with drug abuse, and other cultural, social and economic issues that in the latter decades of the 20th Century shape the livelihood of the residents of Springfield Massachusetts. There are multiple instances in the story, where the system’s intervention was ineffective and failed the boys as well as the community in terms of ensuring that they have a better life. In addition to that, there were many actions that would have been taken to secure a better future for the society.

The first failure of the system in the lives of this community is the collapse of education and lack of interest among the youth. Education gives hope, intelligence and security for a better and brighter future. The lives of the brothers began taking a downhill turn when they ignore education and decide to go on with other economic activities, namely drug peddling. According to Black, when teenagers quit education and begin making money, or make money and forsake education an ego and a feeling of superiority grows from within them, making them feel mature, responsible and limitless. This is where they end up in jail. In this case, drugs were the order of the day, and besides peddling, two of the three brothers end up being addicted. If only there were systems to ensure that education was taken more seriously and protect them from being sucked into this menace, the boys would have continued to pursue their education and secure a better life path.

Secondly, it is evident that the prison system was more destructive than constructive. The author describes it as a “…rapidly expanding prison system,” revealing that the authorities were more interested in arresting, sentencing and punishing those involved in the drug business, rather than helping them to combat it. On other words, this can be described as treating the symptoms rather than uprooting the moral rot that strangled the community. What is the essence of arresting the youngsters, only for them to be released later into the same community, this time with more skills on how to stay “safer?” The prison system was more punitive than corrective. When Fausto gets arrested and sentenced to a seven-year jail term, he is confined to the life behind the bars until when Black (the author), intervenes and helps him to get into a rehabilitation center so that his addiction can be brought under control. It is due to the public action and outcry of sociologists in America that the jails are now more of a correction than a punitive system. The convicts have better access to essential services than can help them to get their lives back on the track.

In addition to those, social marginalization and isolation of certain communities by both the authorities and the social welfare services played a role in the dilapidated social structure of the society. Some neighborhoods have a tendency to be very successful in harboring, protecting and cultivating drug peddling and abuse. The children hence get eroded by the strong and immoral social pull that tear them away from what is right and lead them into tatters. The Rivera brothers grew up in Springfield Massachusetts, a neighborhood where drugs were the main activity while other events such as education or career were just sideshows. It there were more police officers patrolling the streets, more strict regulations on abiding to education and social services to aid in alleviating drug and substance abuse as well as promoting drug awareness, the social life in this society would have been better. Clearly, there were nor regular jobs, minimal investments and relative segregation of this neighborhood. It is imperative to conclude that social marginalization played a part in how poor the quality of life turned out to be for the boys.

Finally, Black displays a sense of wasted potential in this story. The Riviera brothers were naturally bright and able to take over various obstacles in their lives regardless of their illiteracy. Fausto treasured and valued education, as he says that his dream was to go to college. These opportunities were not available or possible, due to the potent pull of the society towards life in drugs. The structural, economical and social factors made this an impossibility. However, this does not mean that they are confined to live in poverty or prison, as he ends up refining his skills, securing a truck driving job, and making his way out of poverty. There should be options for everyone at different points of their lives, despite the inclination of events. The system robbed them of this, making their lives miserable.

Conclusively, when the hear turns rock solid is a socially reflective movie which highlights the lives and the plight of members of marginalized socio-economic groups, and their struggle with various obstacles that life throws at them. The three brothers have normal lives at the beginning, which take a downward turn and lead them down the road of drug peddling and abuse. Though these boys make a lot off bad decisions that lead them there, the system fails them significantly, and can be blamed for their plight. There are many mechanisms on which the society is dependent and operational. Their failure is a direct hit to the members of that society. When a society fails, it is more productive to shine light on the contributing factors, rather than point fingers at the affected.