Download or read book Understanding Gangs and Gang Violence in America written by Gabe Morales and published by Cognella Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Gangs and Gang Violence in America examines past, current, and future concerns regarding street and prison gang life in the United States. Author Gabe Morales combines his personal history, his experience serving in the adult and juvenile criminal justice system, thought-provoking case studies, and the perspectives of other experts within the field to paint a comprehensive and holistic portrait of American gangs and gang violence. The text examines what a gang is, how gang members are defined by various segments of society, common forms of gang communications, and the rules of the streets. It covers the history of major gangs in America, gang recruitment and behaviors, hate groups, and prevention and intervention programs. Dedicated chapters discuss teen brain function and risk factors for gang involvement, national and local responses to gang activity, and the efficacy and inefficacy of state laws. The book concludes with a discussion of gangs on an international scale, the future of gang-related issues, and how readers can apply their knowledge at the community level. Understanding Gangs and Gang Violence in America is valuable for courses in criminal justice and corrections. It can also be used by criminal justice and law enforcement practitioners who work with at-risk or gang-related populations.

Download or read book Maras written by Thomas Bruneau and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensational headlines have publicized the drug trafficking, brutal violence, and other organized crime elements associated with Central America's mara gangs, but there have been few clear-eyed analyses of the history, hierarchies, and future of the mara phenomenon. The first book to look specifically at the Central American gang problem by drawing on the perspectives of researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America provides much-needed insight. These essays trace the development of the gangs, from Mara Salvatrucha to the 18th Street Gang, in Los Angeles and their spread to El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua as the result of members' deportation to Central America; there, they account for high homicide rates and threaten the democratic stability of the region. With expertise in areas ranging from political science to law enforcement and human rights, the contributors also explore the spread of mara violence in the United States. Their findings comprise a complete documentation that spans sexualized violence, case studies of individual gangs, economic factors, varied responses to gang violence, the use of intelligence gathering, the limits of state power, and the role of policy makers. Raising crucial questions for a wide readership, these essays are sure to spark productive international dialogues.

Download or read book The Gang Problem in America written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.

Download or read book Youth Gangs written by James C. Howell and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1998 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has seen rapid proliferation of youth gangs since 1980. During this period, the number of cities with gang problems increased from an estimated 286 jurisdictions with more than 2,000 gangs and nearly 100,000 gang members in 1980 (Miller, 1992) to about 4,800 jurisdictions with more than 31,000 gangs and approximately 846,000 gang members in 1996(Moore and Terrett, in press). An 11-city survey of eighth graders found that 9 percent were currently gang members, and 17 percent said they had belonged to a gang at some point in their lives (Esbensen and Osgood, 1997).Other studies reported comparable percentages and also showed that gang members were responsible for a large proportion of violent offenses. In the Rochester site of the OJJDP-funded Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, gang members (30 percent of the sample) self-reported committing 68 percent of all violent offenses (Thornberry, 1998). In the Denver site, adolescent gang members (14 percent of the sample) self-reported committing 89 percent of all serious violent offenses (Huizinga, 1997). In another study, supported by OJJDP and several other agenciesand organizations, adolescent gang members in Seattle (15 percent of the sample) self-reported involvement in 85 percent of robberies committed by the entire sample (Battin et al., 1998).This Bulletin reviews data and research to consolidate available knowledge on youth gangs that are involved in criminal activity. Following a historical perspective, demographic information ispresented. The scope of the problem is assessed, including gang problems in juvenile detention and correctional facilities. Several issues are then addressed by reviewing gang studies to provide aclearer understanding of youth gang problems.An extensive list of references is provided for further review.

Download or read book MS 13 written by Steven Dudley and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the year’s most important books, a gripping meticulously reported account of the rise of one of the world’s most notorious street gangs.” —Mitch Weiss, Pulitzer Prize winner Winner of the Lukas Prize An NPR Best Book of the Year The MS-13 was born from war. In the 1980s, Alex and his brother fled El Salvador for the US and formed the Mara Salvatrucha Stoners. Initially bound by a love of heavy metal music, the group soon took on a harder edge, selling drugs, stealing cars and killing rivals. Gang members like Alex were incarcerated and deported. But in the prison system, the group only grew stronger. Today, MS-13 is one of the most infamous street gangs on earth—and also largely misunderstood. Longtime organized crime investigator Steven Dudley brings readers inside the nefarious group to tell a broader story of flawed US and Central American policies and the exploitative, unequal systems that shape them. “A remarkable feat of reporting; the ways in which the United States is complicit in the creation and preservation of MS-13 might well keep you awake deep into the night, as it did me.” —Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises “By detailing the experiences of gang members and victims alike, he anatomizes the complex, fluid dynamics of this elusive transnational network. A startling book.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times–bestselling author of Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks “The definitive account of MS-13 . . . An outstanding book for true crime readers.” —Library Journal (starred review)

Download or read book The Youth Gang Problem written by Irving A. Spergel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This systematic analysis of the youth gang problem in the USA focuses on current patterns of gang behaviour, with reference to historical and cross-cultural dimensions. The author integrates his own theory and practices with material on research programmes set up to address the problem.

Download or read book The Holly written by Julian Rubinstein and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist’s dramatic account of a shooting that shook a community to its core, with important implications for the future On the last evening of summer in 2013, five shots rang out in a part of northeast Denver known as the Holly. Long a destination for African American families fleeing the Jim Crow South, the area had become an “invisible city” within a historically white metropolis. While shootings there weren’t uncommon, the identity of the shooter that night came as a shock. Terrance Roberts was a revered anti-gang activist. His attempts to bring peace to his community had won the accolades of both his neighbors and the state’s most important power brokers. Why had he just fired a gun? In The Holly, the award-winning Denver-based journalist Julian Rubinstein reconstructs the events that left a local gang member paralyzed and Roberts facing the possibility of life in prison. Much more than a crime story, The Holly is a multigenerational saga of race and politics that runs from the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter. With a cast that includes billionaires, elected officials, cops, developers, and street kids, the book explores the porous boundaries between a city’s elites and its most disadvantaged citizens. It also probes the fraught relationships between police, confidential informants, activists, gang members, and ex–gang members as they struggle to put their pasts behind them. In The Holly, we see how well-intentioned efforts to curb violence and improve neighborhoods can go badly awry, and we track the interactions of law enforcement with gang members who conceive of themselves as defenders of a neighborhood. When Roberts goes on trial, the city’s fault lines are fully exposed. In a time of national reckoning over race, policing, and the uses and abuses of power, Rubinstein offers a dramatic and humane illumination of what’s at stake.

Download or read book The History of Street Gangs in the United States written by James C. Howell and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an historical account of the emergence of youth gangs and the transformation of these into street gangs in the United States. The author traces the emergence of these gangs in the four major geographical regions over the span of two centuries, from the early 1800s to 2012. The author’s authoritative analysis explains gang emergence and expansion from play groups to heavily armed street gangs responsible for a large proportion of urban crimes, including drive-by shootings that often kill innocent bystanders. Nationwide, street gangs now account for 1 in 6 homicides each year, and for 1 in 4 in very large cities. In recent years, the number of gangs, gang members, and gang homicides increased, even though the U.S. has seen a sharp drop in violent and property crimes over the past decade. The author’s historical analysis reveals the key contributing factors to transformation of youth gangs, including social disorganization that occurred following large-scale immigration early in American history and urban policies that pushed minorities to inner city areas and public housing projects. This analysis includes the influence of prison gangs on street gangs. The first generation of prison gangs emerged spontaneously in response to dangers inside prisons. The second generation was for many years extensions of street gangs that grew enormously during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in large urban areas in which public housing projects have served as incubators for street gangs. The third generation of prison gangs is extremely active in street-level criminal enterprises in varied forms, often highly structured and well managed organizations that are actively involved in drug trafficking. In recent years, returning inmates are a predominant influence on local gang violence. Now, prison gangs and street gangs often work together in street-level criminal enterprises. This book identifies the most promising ways that gang violence can be reduced. The best long-term approach is a combination of gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies and programs. Targeted suppression of gang violence is imperative. Street-workers that serve as violence interrupters can break the cycle of contagious gang violence.

Download or read book Oxford Textbook of Violence Prevention written by Peter D. Donnelly and published by Oxford Textbooks in Public Hea. This book was released on 2015 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Oxford Textbook Violence Prevention' brings together an international team of experts to provide an extensive global account of the global mortality and morbidity burden caused by violence through examining the causes of violence, and what can be done to prevent and reduce violence.

Download or read book Panic written by Richard C. McCorkle and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Panic: The Social Construction of the Street Gang Problem" deals with the "discovery" of the street gang problem in the United States during the 1980s. In these pages, authors Richard McCorkle and Terance Miethe argue that gangs are a major social threatnot only because of the increased concrete threat, but because of their impact on the world around us. The result has been increased crime, a proliferation of inefficient anti-gang policies, and the squandering of millions of taxpayer dollars. "Panic: The Social Construction of the Street Gang Problem" focuses on the events, organizations, and processes that surrounded the gang panic during the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period during which gangs expanded greatly in American cities. This book provides critical insights into the discovery of the gang problem throughout the country and will encourage others to re-examine the nature of the gang threat in any jurisdiction. "

Download or read book The American Street Gang written by Malcolm W. Klein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Soviet Union collapsed, the White House announced with great fanfare that 100 FBI counterintelligence agents would be reassigned. Their new target: street gangs. Americans--filled with fear of crack-dealing gangs--cheered the decision, as did many big-city police departments. But this highly publicized move could be an experience in futility, suggests Malcolm Klein: for one thing, most street gangs have little to do with the drug trade. The American Street Gang provides the finest portrait of this subject ever produced--a detailed accounting, through statistics, interviews, and personal experience, of what street gangs are, how they have changed, their involvement in drug sales, and why we have not been able to stop them. Klein has been studying street gangs for more than thirty years, and he brings a sophisticated understanding of the problem to bear in this often surprising book. In contrast to the image of rigid organization and military-style leadership we see in the press, he writes, street gangs are usually loose bodies of associates, with informal and multiple leadership. Street gangs, he makes clear, are quite distinct from drug gangs--though they may share individual members. In a drug-selling operation tight discipline is required--the members are more like employees--whereas street gangs are held together by affiliation and common rivalries, with far less discipline. With statistics and revealing anecdotes, Klein offers a strong critique of the approach of many law enforcement agencies, which have demonized street gangs while ignoring the fact that they are the worst possible bodies for running disciplined criminal operations--let alone colonizing other cities. On the other hand, he shows that street gangs do spur criminal activity, and he demonstrates the shocking rise in gang homicides and the proliferation of gangs across America. Ironically, he writes, the liberal approach to gangs advocated by many (assigning a social worker to a gang, organizing non-violent gang activities) can actually increase group cohesion, which leads to still more criminal activity. And programs to erode that cohesion, Klein tells us from personal experience, can work--but they require intensive, exhausting effort. Street gangs are a real and growing problem in America--but the media and many law enforcement officials continue to dispense misleading ideas about what they are and what they do. In The American Street Gang, Malcolm Klein challenges these assumptions with startling new evidence that must be understood if we are to come to grips with this perceived crisis.

Download or read book Don t Shoot written by David M. Kennedy and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-11-07 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of David Kennedy's crusade to combat America's plague of gang- and drug-related violence - with methods that have been astonishingly effective across the country. 'If you want to read a book on urban gangs and find out why they exist and why they kill each other, read this ... this is a sociology book, but it's like immersing yourself in The Wire ... When Kennedy says something, you believe him' Scotsman Gang- and drug-related inner-city violence, with its attendant epidemic of incarceration, is the defining crime problem in our country. In some neighborhoods in America, one out of every two hundred young black men is shot to death every year, and few initiatives of government and law enforcement have made much difference. But when David Kennedy, a self-taught and then-unknown criminologist, engineered the "Boston Miracle" in the mid-1990s, he pointed the way toward what few had imagined: a solution. Don't Shoot tells the story of Kennedy's long journey. Riding with beat cops, hanging with gang members, and stoop-sitting with grandmothers, Kennedy found that all parties misunderstood each other, caught in a spiral of racialized anger and distrust. He envisioned an approach in which everyone-gang members, cops, and community members-comes together in what is essentially a huge intervention. Offenders are told that the violence must stop, that even the cops want them to stay alive and out of prison, and that even their families support swift law enforcement if the violence continues. In city after city, the same miracle has followed: violence plummets, drug markets dry up, and the relationship between the police and the community is reset. This is a landmark book, chronicling a paradigm shift in how we address one of America's most shameful social problems. A riveting, page-turning read, it combines the street vérité of The Wire, the social science of Gang Leader for a Day, and the moral urgency and personal journey of Fist Stick Knife Gun. But unlike anybody else, Kennedy shows that there could be an end in sight.

Download or read book Gangs in Central America written by Clare Ribando Seelke and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) Background on Violent Crime; (2) Scope of the Gang Problem: Defining Gangs; Transnational Gangs; Factors Exacerbating the Gang Problem; Poverty and a Lack of Educ. and Employ. Opport.; Societal Stigmas; Role of the Media; Anti-Gang Law Enforce. Efforts; Prisons in Need of Reform; U.S. Deportations; (3) Country Anti-Gang Efforts: Mano Dura (Heavy-Handed) Anti-Gang Policies; Effects of Mano Dura Policies?; Alternative Approaches; Prospects for Country Prevention and Rehab. Efforts; Regional and Multilateral Efforts; OAS; Multilateral Develop. Banks and Donor Agencies; (4) U.S. Policy: Congressional Interest; U.S. Internat. Anti-Gang Efforts; State Dept.; Justice Dept.; USAID; Policy Approaches and Concerns.

Download or read book Gang Prevention written by James C. Howell and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents an overview of gang research and programs in the United States and examines how gangs form and why youth join them. It is based on information on research findings and prevention strategies disseminated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as part of its comprehensive anti-gang initiative. This report describes how community members can start assessing their gang problems and enhance prevention and intervention activities to help prevent delinquency and gang violence. It identifies promising and effective programs for gang prevention. Illustrations. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication.

Download or read book A Comprehensive Response to America s Youth Gang Problem written by James H. Burch and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Street Gangs written by Max G. Manwaring and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary thrust of the monograph is to explain the linkage of contemporary criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third generation gangs) to insurgency in terms f the instability it wreaks upon government and the concomitant challenge to state sovereignty. Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these "new" nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs' and insurgents' ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries. As a consequence, the "Duck Analogy" applies. Third generation gangs look like ducks, walk like ducks, and act like ducks - a peculiar breed, but ducks nevertheless! This monograph concludes with recommendations for the United States and other countries to focus security and assistance responses at the strategic level. The intent is to help leaders achieve strategic clarity and operate more effectively in the complex politically dominated, contemporary global security arena.

Download or read book Combating Gang Violence in America written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: