Annotation Questioning whether organizational theory can lead to greater understandings of gang structure, size, and growth and contribute predictive theories about gang success and expansion, Weisel (political science and public administration, North Carolina State U.) conducted field research with four Chicago and San Diego gangs. Qualitative analysis methods and software were used to identify varying aspects of gang organizations including labor specialization; patterns of leadership; extent of hierarchy; occurrence of regular meetings; payment of dues; and adherence to rules, discipline, and penalties. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
This book is an examination of contemporary gangs in American cities. Gangs have proliferated over the past ten years and pose a new set of challenges to public officials, law enforcement agencies, and urban educators. Most major cities are now confronted with serious problems derived from gang violence, drug traffic, and disruption of the public educational system. In the face of deindustrialization and deepening recession, many minority youngsters view gangs as attractive alternatives to a futile search for employment in a deteriorating urban economy. Perhaps most significant, gangs are now beginning to emerge in small and medium-sized cities. Some of the nations leading scientists and scholars have been brought together in this book to examine the contemporary contours of Americas gang problem, including Daniel J. Monti, Joan Moore, Scott Cummings, Howard Pinderhughes, Diego Vigil, Ray Hutchison, Felix Padilla, Jerome H. Skolnick, Pat Jackson, and Robert A. Destro. New material dealing with wilding gangs, migration and drug trafficking, and public educational disruption appear in this volume. Other topics covered include how gangs are organized, what social function they serve, their relation to conventional society, and the social and psychological factors that contribute to their rise. The relationship of the contemporary gang problem to past research is explored, and a rich variety of case histories and comparative analysis is presented. The book also includes a section on public policy.
This unique book provides readers with a comprehensive and contemporary perspective on gangs in America. Its current articles, written by national experts in the field, contain a variety of diverse viewpoints and contribute to a well-rounded understanding of gangs and their broad societal implications. KEY TOPICS A seven-part organization covers 1) understanding and defining gangs; 2) gender issues; 3) race and ethnicity; 4) gangs in prisons and schools; 5) violence and drugs; 6) gang victimization; and 7) gang prevention and intervention. For law enforcement, police, court personnel, prosecutors, public defenders, attorneys, lawyers, judges, prison/correction staff, social workers, educators, and government workers.
The Third Edition of this popular anthology examines contemporary gangs, gang life, and law enforcement efforts to study and coordinate the community's response to them. The book contains original essays from a broad array of renowned researchers and experienced practitioners who work with gangs. A wide variety of current topics and issues are covered, including: female gangs and ganging; ethnic diversity; economic, neighborhood and school contexts of gang behavi∨ gun and drug relationships, and research methods used in the study of gangs. As communities face ever-growing gang-related problems, Gangs in America III provides the most up-to-date information on the diverse perspectives and complex issues that arise in our efforts to understand, prevent, and control gang violence and crime. For Your Courses in: Criminology Criminal Justice Sociology Victimization Text Recommended for: Upper Division Undergraduate Level Graduate Level
The Third Edition of this popular anthology examines contemporary gangs, gang life, and law enforcement efforts to study and coordinate the community′s response to them. The book contains original essays from a broad array of renowned researchers and experienced practitioners who work with gangs. A wide variety of current topics and issues are covered, including: female gangs and ganging; ethnic diversity; economic, neighborhood and school contexts of gang behavior; gun and drug relationships, and research methods used in the study of gangs. As communities face ever-growing gang-related problems, Gangs in America III provides the most up-to-date information on the diverse perspectives and complex issues that arise in our efforts to understand, prevent, and control gang violence and crime. For Your Courses in: Criminology Criminal Justice Sociology Victimization Text Recommended for: Upper Division Undergraduate Level Graduate Level
A thoroughly updated look at the world of gangs, charting their growth and development in the United States and worldwide, as well as the efforts to curb their expanding criminal enterprises. Gangs: A Reference Handbook, Second Edition offers an eye-opening look at modern gangs—their history, their ability to attract members from a widening social pool, as well as efforts by community and political leaders to stop gang-related crime and weaken the grip that gangs have on our culture. This timely update shows that while genuine progress has been made, the world of gangs is evolving in fascinating and dangerous ways. The second edition features a wealth of new information, new statistical data, and new insights into the ways gangs operate in cities large and small. It also offers expanded coverage of gangs specific to other countries as well as those that have become genuinely international in nature.
The publication of Sanyika Shakur's Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member in 1993 generated a huge amount of excitement in literary circles—New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani deemed it a “shocking and galvanic book”—and set off a new publishing trend of gang memoirs in the 1990s. The memoirs showcased tales of violent confrontation and territorial belonging but also offered many of the first journalistic and autobiographical accounts of the much-mythologized gang subculture. In The Culture and Politics of Contemporary Street Gang Memoirs, Josephine Metcalf focuses on three of these memoirs—Shakur’s Monster; Luis J. Rodriguez’s Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.; and Stanley “Tookie” Williams’s Blue Rage, Black Redemption—as key representatives of the gang autobiography. Metcalf examines the conflict among violence, thrilling sensationalism, and the authorial desire to instruct and warn competing within these works. The narrative arcs of the memoirs themselves rest on the process of conversion from brutal, young gang bangers to nonviolent, enlightened citizens. Metcalf analyzes the emergence, production, marketing, and reception of gang memoirs. Through interviews with Rodriguez, Shakur, and Barbara Cottman Becnel (Williams’s editor), Metcalf reveals both the writing and publishing processes. This book analyzes key narrative conventions, specifically how diction, dialogue, and narrative arcs shape the works. The book also explores how these memoirs are consumed. This interdisciplinary study—fusing literary criticism, sociology, ethnography, reader-response study, and editorial theory—brings scholarly attention to a popular, much-discussed, but understudied modern expression.
Why young people participate in violent gang behavior The effects of gang violence are witnessed every day on the streets, in the news, and on the movie screen. In all these forums, gangs of young adults are associated with drugs and violence. Yet what is it that prompts young people to participate in violent behavior? And what can be done to extract adolescents from the gangster world of crime, death, and incarceration once they have become involved? In Gangsters: 50 Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America, Lewis Yablonsky provides answers to the most baffling and crucial questions regarding gangs. Using information gathered from over forty years of experience working with gang members and based on hundreds of personal interviews, many conducted in prisons and in gang neighborhoods, Yablonsky explores the pathology of the gangsters' apparent addiction to incarceration and death. Gangsters is divided into four parts, including a brief history of gangs, the characteristics of gangs, successful approaches for treating gangsters in prison and the community, and concluding with a review and analysis of notable behavioral and social scientific theories of gangs. While condemning their violent behavior in no uncertain terms, Yablonsky offers hope through his belief that, given a chance in an effective treatment program, youths trapped in violent behavior can change their lives in positive ways and, in turn, facilitate positive change in their communities and society at large.
