Download Free Understanding Street Gangs Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Understanding Street Gangs and write the review.

UNDERSTANDING STREET GANGS offers a unique and pioneering approach to the street and prison gang dilemma and provides both local and national perspective. This popular book is used by colleges, universities, and academies, and also for advanced officer training throughout the country. The authors are leading authorities on gang activities. No other book offers such insight or understanding into this escalating threat. It covers causative factors, family structure and profiles, socioeconomic pressures, and drugs. It also defines gangs, membership, structure and organization, communication, and measurements of gang violence, offers perspective on gang activity, and suggests possible solutions.
Guide for law enforcement and crminal justice related professionals, mental health professionals, teachers and parents. It includes gang life style, sociology and characteristics of Latino, Asian, African-American, White Supremacists, Prison, Outlaw Mortorcycle, Occult and Hybrid gangs.
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.
The problem of gangs and gang subculture is a growing threat to the stability of neighborhoods and entire communities. During the past two decades, gang members have increasingly migrated from large urban centers to suburban areas and other countries. This book addresses the intricacies and diversities of street gangs, drawing on the expertise of high-ranking law enforcement officials monitoring terrorist activity and gang-related crimes as well as professional private investigators who have spent several decades investigating gangs and learning their subculture, lifestyle, motivations, and relationships. Ideal for supplemental reading in gang violence courses on criminal justice, sociology, law, and psychology, this comprehensive anthology presents thorough coverage of a notoriously difficult subject. It explores the following key topics: Social, psychological, and criminal impact of street gangs on juveniles Psychology of gang membership and the pathways that lead into and out of gang culture Relationship between religion and dangerous criminal gangs How U.S.-based gangs are using technology to advance their operations Use of graffiti by street gangs Evolution of gangs and recommendations for preventing future growth Gang enhancement crimes and associated misconduct of police and prosecutors Like any type of crime, street gang criminal activity cannot be totally eliminated. This book aims to provide a better understanding of gangs so that we can influence today’s potential gang members to make the right decisions for their sake and the sake of society.
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.
The overall goal of the research in this book was to understand gang phenomenon in the United States. In order to accomplish this goal, the author investigated gangs in different cities in order to understand what was similar in the way all gangs behaved and what was idiosyncratic to certain gangs. The research for this book took place over ten years and five months from 1978 to 1989 and will give the reader a comprehensive overview of gang behavior in the United States in that time period.
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."
Many people in America think that gang violence is concentrated in the inner cities of New York, Los Many people in America think that gang violence is concentrated in the inner cities of New York, Los Angeles and other isolated metropolitan areas. They are mistaken, says Loren Christensen, a veteran Portland, Oregon, gang-enforcement officer. After completing Skinhead Street Gangs, Christensen went back to the streets to see what's happening with gangs, and what he found scared the hell out of him! He found that gangs are everywhere and are here to stay - in the big cities and small towns, in the suburbs and the rural areas, on both coasts and in the heartland. His research also showed that gangs are equal-opportunity destroyers. Their members - and victims - are white, black, Hispanic and Asian. His most disturbing discovery was that gangs are nastier than ever. Ten years ago gangbangers fought with fists, clubs and pistols. Now they have lots of incredible firepower, and they don't think twice about using it. Here, Christensen lets gang members, former gang members and street cops tell you in their own words how gangbangers think, why they are so violent, who they target and what (if anything) can be done to curb the growth of gangs in America.
"Amber, Bev, Chantel, Jazmyne, Faith, and Jorgina are six Indigenous women previously involved in street gangs or the street lifestyle in Saskatoon, Regina, and Calgary. In collaboration with Indigenous Studies scholar Robert Henry (Métis), they share their stories using photovoice, an emancipatory research process where participants are understood to be the experts of their own experiences. Each photograph in Indigenous Women and Street Gangs was selected and placed in order to show how the authors have changed with their experiences. Following their photographs, the authors each share a narrative that begins with their earliest memory and continues to the present. Together the photographs and narratives bring a deeper meaning to the women's lived realities. Throughout, these women show us the meaning of survivance, a process of resistance, resurgence, and growth. While often difficult to read, the narratives shared by Amber, Bev, Chantel, Jazmyne, Faith, and Jorgina are direct, explicit, sensitive, and imbued with hope and humour. They provide unparalleled insight into the lives of these women and break all kinds of stereotypes along the way."--
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.