Thinking Seriously about Gangs by
This book examines the current debate about UK street gangs termed the 'UK Gang Thesis' debate. It argues that policy formations in the UK aimed at addressing street gangs preceding and succeeding the English riots of 2011 have encompassed positions of both gang denial and gang blame. The policy pendulum of denial and blame raises questions about where UK gang-policy stands, and which ideas and influences have framed our responses to this issue. The book will explore the UK Gangs Thesis using an analysis of empirical evidence from three sites in three English regions which encompasses periods of both gang denial and gang blame. This book is an examination of the relationship between theory, policy and practice in the context of the current UK gangs-discourse, and one of the first to examine the country lines phenomena. There is a need to formulate a less partisan analysis of gangs in the UK, and to recapture the debate from analyses which understate or overstate the gang problem. In order to do so, Andell argues that a realist approach is needed which defines what constitutes social reality and overcomes theoretical and methodological difficulties in order to critique present formulations of gangs. This book provides this critique and makes suggestions for a more comprehensive and democratic approach to gang policy, in what can be termed a critical realist approach to gangs.
How gangs work : an ethnography of youth violence by
Drawing on extensive interviews with gang members, this book provides a vivid portrayal of gang life. Topics include the profiles and motivations of gang members; the processes of gang evolution, organization, and recruitment; gang members' uses of violence, media, and technology and the role of gangs in the drugs trade and organized crime
A world of gangs : armed young men and gangsta culture by
For the more than a billion people who now live in urban slums, gangs are ubiquitous features of daily life. Though still most closely associated with American cities, gangs are an entrenched, worldwide phenomenon that play a significant role in a wide range of activities, from drug dealing to extortion to religious and political violence. In A World of Gangs, John Hagedorn explores this international proliferation of the urban gang as a consequence of the ravages of globalization.Looking closely at gang formation in three world cities-Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, and Capetown-he discovers that some gangs have institutionalized as a strategy to confront a hopeless cycle of poverty, racism, and oppression. In particular, Hagedorn reveals, the nihilistic appeal of gangsta rap and its street ethic of survival "by any means necessary" provides vital insights into the ideology and persistence of gangs around the world.This groundbreaking work concludes on a hopeful note. Proposing ways in which gangs might be encouraged to overcome their violent tendencies, Hagedorn appeals to community leaders to use the urgency, outrage, and resistance common to both gang life and hip-hop in order to bring gangs into broader movements for social justice.
The Modern Gang Reader, 4th edn by
Updated to reflect current research, the fourth edition of The Modern Gang Reader brings together articles that discuss the prevalence, structures, and behaviors of gangs today and analyze society's responses to them. Now with section introductions that link concepts across the text, thisvolume contains new articles on gang desistance, reentry from incarceration, victimization, and international gangs.
Critical Perspectives on Child Sexual Exploitation and Related Trafficking by
This collection is the first major exploration of the issues related to young people who are affected by child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child trafficking for exploitation. These include consideration of the language we currently use to construct and understand CSE; how to conceptualise CSE and sexual violence that takes place in gangs or between peers; issues of how 'consent' relates to young people in abusive or exploitative sexual relationships; how young people themselves might participate in work to improve service delivery; why some looked after young people are at greater risk of CSE than others and how they might bekept safe. The volume also reviews policy and practice developments in Scotland; the risk of CSE for young women who go missing to escape forced marriages; the importance of including young people at risk of CSE in decision-making about their care; how and why trafficking and CSE came to be defined as objects of international policy concern and how community organizations might be mobilized to protect young people from the risk of trafficking for CSE. This volume is essential reading for academics, students, practitioners and policymakers in the fields of social work and social policy, child protection and youth work, criminology and sociology and the health care services."
Reluctant gangsters : the changing face of youth crime by
This book provides an account of the emergence, nature and impact of armed youth gangs in an East London Borough over the last decade. It describes the challenges these armed young men and women pose to their communities, those charged with preventing crime and those struggling to vouchsafe 'community safety'. While the focus of the book is 'local', the processes it outlines and the effects it chronicles have both a national and international relevance. It argues that the main reason behind the emergence of the armed youth gang has been the coalesence of two previously discreet socially deviant groups; the rowdy, episodically criminal, adolescent peer group on the one hand and the locally-based organized criminal network on the other. The book analyses the impact of the globalisation of the drugs trade and the consequent shift in the focus of local organized crime from the 'blag' to the 'business'. It also discusses how socio-economic and cultural factors, as well as family and neighbourhood histories and loyalties and localized racial antagonisms all play their part in the emergence of the armed youth gang.
Youth in Crisis by 
Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime by
Violent crime in America is more strongly associated with poverty and with changing social and economic conditions than with race or ethnicity, and patterns of violence are changing. These are among the conclusions of Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime, a searching analysis that draws on scholarly research from all the social and behavioral sciences. By framing his analysis in terms of different levels of explanation, James Short is able to identify fundamental causal conditions and processes that result in violent crime. The book also examines current policies and political and scholarly controversies concerning the control of violent crime. This book can serve as a text or as supplementary reading for a variety of criminology courses.
The gang : a study of 1,313 gangs in Chicago, 2nd edn by
While gangs and gang culture have been around for countless centuries, The Gang is one of the first academic studies of the phenomenon. Originally published in 1927, Frederic Milton Thrasher's magnum opus offers a profound and careful analysis of hundreds of gangs in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. With rich prose and an eye for detail, Thrasher looked specifically at the way in which urban geography shaped gangs, and posited the thesis that neighborhoods in flux were more likely to produce gangs. Moreover, he traced gang culture back to feudal and medieval power systems and linked tribal ethos in other societies to codes of honor and glory found in American gangs. Thrasher approaches his subject with empathy and insightfulness, and creates a multifaceted and textured portrait that still has much to offer to readers today. With handsome images that evoke the era, this unabridged edition of The Gang not only explores an important moment in the history of Chicago, but also is itself a landmark in the history of sociology and subcultural theory.
Deadly Symbiosis by
This book explores the rise of prison populations in the US, in Britain and in other European countries, as well as in Latin America. Beginning with a ethnographic account of being inside the Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles, the author moves on to develop an argument about the connections between neoliberalism as a political doctrine, and incarceration as a social policy. Wacquant reveals that the growing symbiosis between politics, the media, immigration and penal institutions are transforming the definition, treatment and representation of crime, justice and citizenship not only in the United States but also in Europe and Latin America. In the age of unfettered markets and enfeebled social-welfare states, the penal system is a major engine of social stratification, urban change and cultural demarcation in its own right. It remakes those segments of the city onto which it latches in its own image, turning them into devices for the expurgation of dispossessed groups and the symbolic destruction of important urban ills.
The exclusive society : social exclusion, crime and difference in late modernity by
In this major new work, which Zygmunt Bauman calls a 'tour de force of breathtaking erudition and clarity', Jock Young charts the movement of the social fabric in the last third of the twenthieth century from an inclusive society of stability and homogeneity to an exclusive society of change and division. Jock Young, one of the foremost criminologists of our time, explores exclusion on three levels: economic exclusion from the labour market; social exclusion between people in civil society; and the ever-expanding exclusionary activities of the criminal justice system. Taking account of the massive dramatic structural and cultural changes that have beset our society and relating these to the quantum leap in crime and incivilities, Jock Young develops a major new theory based on a new citizenship and a reflexive modernity.
In search of respect : selling crack in El Barrio, 2nd edn by
In Search of Respect, Philippe Bourgois's now-classic, ethnographic study of social marginalization in inner-city America, won critical acclaim after it was first published in 1995 and in 1997 was awarded the Margaret Mead Award. For the first time, an anthropologist had managed to gain the trust and long-term friendship of street-level drug dealers in one of the roughest ghetto neighborhoods in the United States - East Harlem. This edition adds a prologue describing the major dynamics in America that have altered life on the streets of East Harlem in the six years since the first edition. Bourgois, in a new epilogue, brings up to date the stories of the people - Primo, Caesar, Luis, Tony, Candy - who readers come to know in this remarkable window onto the world of the inner-city drug trade.
Gangs in the global city : alternatives to traditional criminology by
Although they were originally considered an American phenomenon, gangs today have grown and transformed into global enterprises. Despite these changes, criminologists have not yet reassessed worldwide gangs in terms of the other changes associated with globalization. John M. Hagedorn aims to correct this oversight by incorporating important theoretical advances in urban political economy and understanding changes in gangs around the world as a result of globalization and the growth of the information economy. Contrary to older conceptions, today's gangs are international, are often institutionalized, and may be explicitly concerned with race and ethnicity. Gangs in the Global City presents the work of an assortment of international scholars that challenges traditional approaches to problems in criminology from many different perspectives and includes theoretical discussions, case studies, and examinations of gang members' identities. The contributors consider gangs not as fundamentally a crime problem but as variable social organizations in poor communities that are transitioning to the new economy.
People and folks : gangs, crime, and the underclass in a rustbelt city by
When People and Folks first appeared, William Julius Wilson called it "the most insightful book ever written on inner-city gangs" and "required reading for anyone seeking an understanding of gang activity in our large urban centers." It was also praised by Ron Huff as "a vicarious journey into the underbelly of a rustbelt city, the breeding ground of gangs--Underclass America." This gritty and poignant portrait of gang members has become a major contribution to the academic literature.The first edition of People and Folks broke new ground, influencing a generation of researchers. This expanded edition also offers provocative new insights into race and class, challenging accepted theories with fresh data from one of the most extensive studies ever undertaken of street gangs in a single city. In particular, Hagedorn questions prevailing assumptions about gang violence, drug use, and the cultural differences between the inner-city "underclass" and the suburban middle classes. Unlike many other gang studies, he explores the nature of gender for both male and female gangs members and examines the differences between male and female gangs.
The gang and beyond : interpreting violent street worlds by
Challenging the widely held conjecture that gangs represent 'the new face of youth crime' this book repudiates claims which situate the gang at the heart of sexual violence, mass shooting and control of the illegal drugs trade. It pushes the epistemological, methodological and ontological borders of cultural criminology in order to understand violent street worlds and the informal organisations that operate within them. In part polemic, in part theoretical treatise, the book deciphers the gang talk now mediated by a developing industry of gang-talkers and explores how street realities have become lost in a collectively induced fantasy where gangs are regarded as public enemy number one. The book makes a case for returning to the analysis of street culture and the imperatives that orientate patterns of social action within it. It concludes by examining how better we might understand the violence of the street and the organisations that inhabit it.
The street casino : survival in violent street gangs by
Gang violence is a continual problem in urban neighborhoods around the world. But most of our understanding of the violence and its causes comes through the lens of policing and crime control, with little attention to the role played by the structure, organization, and social makeup of a gang. The Street Casino offers new insight on that front, drawing on an extensive ethnographic study of gang members and community residents in South London. Simon Harding uses this new data to propose a new theoretical perspective on survival in violent street gangs, a constantly fluctuating life built on the accrual of "street capital."
Street Gang Patterns and Policies by
In the past two decades, many prevention and suppression programs have been initiated on a national and local level to combat street gangs--but what do we really know about them? Why do youths join them? Why do they proliferate? Street Gang Patterns and Policies is a crucial update and critical examination of our understanding of gangs and major gang-control programs across the nation. Often perceived solely as an urban issue, street gangs are also a suburban and rural dilemma. Klein and Maxson focus on gang proliferation, migration, and crime patterns, and highlight known risk factors that lead to youths form and join gangs within communities. Dispelling the long-standing assumptions that the public, the media, and law enforcement have about street gangs, they present a comprehensive overview of how gangs are organized and structured.The authors assess the major gang programs across the nation and argue that existing prevention, intervention, and suppression methods targeting individuals, groups, and communities, have been largely ineffective. Klein and Maxson close by offering valuable policy guidelines for practitioners on how to intervene and control gangs more successfully. Filling an important gap in the literature on street gangs and social control, this book is a must-read for criminologists, social workers, policy makers, and criminal justice practitioners.
What is to be done about crime and punishment? : towards a 'public criminology' by
Read: Pitts, J. 'Critical Realism and Gang Violence' pp.57-72
View from the Boys by
This book is one of the few participant observation classics of young men's delinquent careers ever carried out in Britain. Based on a study of adolescents growing up in Liverpool in the 1970s - The Boys - the author skilfully penetrates the world of the down-town teenager and provides a fascinating study of the urban adolescent and his delinquency.
Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears by 
Tarnished vision : crime and conflict in the inner city by
Once a group of young people (reformed street robbers) had a vision to transform their poor divided community. But the vision was tarnished by harsh reality, violent feuds and factional strife, corrupt and ineffective leaders, and youths involved in networks of criminality.Tarnished Vision is the story of the rise and fall of a utopian community project told against a background of crime and delinquency in a troubled neighbourhood. This vivid and authentic account of life in "Satellite City" is set in the 1980s, a decade when the promises of the enterprise culturefailed to deliver, and the conditions were created for a generation hooked on crime.Tarnished Vision depicts the 1980s inner-city cycle of social tragedy followed by inept societal response, followed by social tragedy. But this is not only a story for the 1980s. The message is that programmes to save the inner cities, however well-resourced, cannot afford to ignore the destructivefrustrations of urban male youths who are involved in crime. Community action programmes can be no more than window-dressing to camouflage these realities.
"Getting paid" : youth crime and work in the inner city by
The working class in New York City was remade in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1820s a substantial majority of city artisans were native-born; by the 1850s three-quarters of the city's laboring men and women were immigrants. How did the influx of this large group of young adults affect the city's working class? What determined the texture of working-class life during the antebellum period? Richard Stott addresses these questions as he explores the social and economic dimensions of working-class culture. Working-class culture, Stott maintains, is grounded in the material environment, and when work, population, consumption, and the uses of urban space change as rapidly as they did in the mid-nineteenth century, culture will be transformed. Using workers' first-person accounts--letters, diaries, and reminiscences--as evidence, and focusing on such diverse topics as neighborhoods, diet, saloons, and dialect, he traces the rise of a new, youth-oriented working-class culture. By illuminating the everyday experiences of city workers, he shows that the culture emerging in the 1850s was a culture clearly different from that of native-born artisans of an earlier period and from that of the middle class as well.
The Handbook of Crime and Punishment by
Crime is one of the most significant political issues in contemporary American society. Crime control statistics and punishment policies are subjects of constant partisan debate, while the media presents sensationalized stories of criminal activity and over-crowded prisons. In the highlypoliticized arena of crime and justice, empirical data and reasoned analysis are often overlook or ignored. The Handbook of Crime and Punishment, however, provides a comprehensive overview of criminal justice, criminology, and crime control policy, thus enabling a fundamental understanding of crimeand punishment essential to an informed public. Expansive in its coverage, the Handbook presents materials on crime and punishment trends as well as timely policy issues. The latest research on the demography of crime (race, gender, drug use) is included and weighty current problems (organizedcrime, white collar crime, family violence, sex offenders, youth gangs, drug abuse policy) are examined. Processes and institutions that deal with accused and convicted criminals and techniques of punishment are also examined. While some articles emphasize American research findings anddevelopments, others incorporate international research and offer a comparative perspective from other English-speaking countries and Western Europe. Editor Michael Tonry, a leading scholar of criminology, introduces the 28 articles in the volume, each contributed by an expert in the field. Designedfor a wide audience, The Handbook is encyclopedic in its range and depth of content, yet is written in an accessible style. The most inclusive and authoritative work on the topic to be found in one volume, this book will appeal to those interested in the study of crime and its causes, effects,trends, and institutions; those interested in the forms and philosophies of punishment; and those interested in crime control.
Street Corner Society : Social Structure of an Italian Slum. 4th edn by
Street Corner Society is one of a handful of works that can justifiably be called classics of sociological research. William Foote Whyte's account of the Italian American slum he called "Cornerville"--Boston's North End--has been the model for urban ethnography for fifty years. By mapping the intricate social worlds of street gangs and "corner boys," Whyte was among the first to demonstrate that a poor community need not be socially disorganized. His writing set a standard for vivid portrayals of real people in real situations. And his frank discussion of his methodology--participant observation--has served as an essential casebook in field research for generations of students and scholars. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new preface and revisions to the methodological appendix. In a new section on the book's legacy, Whyte responds to recent challenges to the validity, interpretation, and uses of his data. "The Whyte Impact on the Underdog," the moving statement by a gang leader who became the author's first research assistant, is preserved. "Street Corner Society broke new ground and set a standard for field research in American cities that remains a source of intellectual challenge."--Robert Washington, Reviews in Anthropology
The Vertigo of Late Modernity by
The Vertigo of Late Modernity is a seminal new work by Jock Young, author of the bestselling and highly influential book, The Exclusive Society. In his new work, Young engages with some of the most important concerns facing society today. He brings a fresh, intellectual perspective and offers a new dimension to sociological and criminological theory. He deals with the impact that major social issues have on the modern world, as well as the way in which society and individuals respond to these issues. The book looks at key areas including: Identity and questions of the 'normal' and the 'other' Deviance and disorder Social exclusion and the underclass Work and welfare Punitive cultures Immigration Terrorism This major new work explores the fundamental debates that need to be addressed in a late modern world filled with inequality and division. Through discussion of these issues Jock Young points toward transformative politics which tackle problems of economic injustice and build and cherish a society of genuine diversity. The Vertigo of Late Modernity is essential reading for academics and advanced students in the areas of criminology, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and the social sciences more broadly.
