Why? Economically suppressed? Parents who don’t care leading to gangs replacing family? All or none of these?
Mom doesn't care. Or maybe mom cares but works 3 jobs and has no time. Either way, you spend most of your time in an area where those who work hard and play by the rules are constantly struggling, while drug dealers and gangbangers are seemingly living it up.
The most heartbreaking are the kids whose parents desperately want them to do better than they did, but don't have enough education themselves to know what to do. There just aren't enough role models available in these areas. Kids literally don't know what success is supposed to look like. They don't know how to behave in a normal civilized setting because it goes completely against what they live in every moment they're outside of school.
Many have never seen the world outside of the few blocks around their house. They don't even know what opportunities are available just a half mile away. All they see is death, and a system which rewards sloth and punishes work.