Gang Life in Two Cities

Gang Life in Two Cities PDF Author: Robert Duran
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023115867X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Refusing to cast gangs in solely criminal terms, Robert J. Durán, a former gang member turned scholar, recasts such groups as an adaptation to the racial oppression of colonization in the American Southwest. Developing a paradigm rooted in ethnographic research and almost two decades of direct experience with gangs, Durán completes the first-ever study to follow so many marginalized groups so intensely for so long, revealing their core characteristics, behavior, and activities within two unlikely American cities. Durán spent five years in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, conducting 145 interviews with gang members, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other related individuals. From his research, he constructs a comparative outline of the emergence and criminalization of Latino youth groups, the ideals and worlds they create, and the reasons for their persistence. He also underscores the failures of violent gang suppression tactics, which have only further entrenched these groups within the barrio. Encouraging cultural activists and current and former gang members to pursue grassroots empowerment, Durán proposes new solutions to racial oppression that challenge and truly alter the conditions of gang life.

Gang Life in Two Cities

Gang Life in Two Cities PDF Author: Robert Duran
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023115867X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book

Book Description
Refusing to cast gangs in solely criminal terms, Robert J. Durán, a former gang member turned scholar, recasts such groups as an adaptation to the racial oppression of colonization in the American Southwest. Developing a paradigm rooted in ethnographic research and almost two decades of direct experience with gangs, Durán completes the first-ever study to follow so many marginalized groups so intensely for so long, revealing their core characteristics, behavior, and activities within two unlikely American cities. Durán spent five years in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, conducting 145 interviews with gang members, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other related individuals. From his research, he constructs a comparative outline of the emergence and criminalization of Latino youth groups, the ideals and worlds they create, and the reasons for their persistence. He also underscores the failures of violent gang suppression tactics, which have only further entrenched these groups within the barrio. Encouraging cultural activists and current and former gang members to pursue grassroots empowerment, Durán proposes new solutions to racial oppression that challenge and truly alter the conditions of gang life.

Gang Life in Two Cities

Gang Life in Two Cities PDF Author: Robert J. Durán
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023153096X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Refusing to cast gangs in solely criminal terms, Robert J. Durán, a former gang member turned scholar, recasts such groups as an adaptation to the racial oppression of colonization in the American Southwest. Developing a paradigm rooted in ethnographic research and almost two decades of direct experience with gangs, Durán completes the first-ever study to follow so many marginalized groups so intensely for so long, revealing their core characteristics, behavior, and activities within two unlikely American cities. Durán spent five years in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, conducting 145 interviews with gang members, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other relevant individuals. From his research, he constructs a comparative outline of the emergence and criminalization of Latino youth groups, the ideals and worlds they create, and the reasons for their persistence. He also underscores the failures of violent gang suppression tactics, which have only further entrenched these groups within the barrio. Encouraging cultural activists and current and former gang members to pursue grassroots empowerment, Durán proposes new solutions to racial oppression that challenge and truly alter the conditions of gang life.

The Gang Life: Laugh Now, Cry Later

The Gang Life: Laugh Now, Cry Later PDF Author: Robert Matthew Brzenchek
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351655833
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The Gang Life: Laugh Now, Cry Later examines the criminal gangster mindset and offers gang prevention strategies, using real-world examples to demonstrate a holistic approach toward combatting this surging societal problem. The text outlines the evolution of gang membership from a state of interest, to association, to hardcore "O.G." (Original Gangster) status, and explores the evolution of law enforcement’s multi-pronged approach to combating criminal street gang violence, from the catch-and-release mentality of the 1970s and 1980s to today’s collaboration with private organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs. In-depth profiles, case studies, and lengthy histories of gangs, gang members, and their transformations are provided to demonstrate the deleterious effect of gangs on society. Designed for criminal justice students and for practitioners in the field, this text offers readers a holistic approach toward gang prevention from three nationally awarded educators and gang investigators.

Gang Life

Gang Life PDF Author: Mark Totten
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459406273
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
For the first time, here's a no-holds-barred inside account of life for criminal gang members in cities and towns across Canada. Mark Totten has slowly gained the confidence of gang members in many Canadian cities and small towns, and he knows enough to get the real goods from these men and women. In this book he tells the life stories -- so far -- of ten gang members drawn from across the country. Murderers, rapists, addicts, drug traffickers, victims of child abuse, abusers themselves -- these are people who many consider the worst of the worst. But from their life stories, a more nuanced and complex picture emerges. The circumstances and events which lead children and teens into criminal life become clearer. Meet: Jake, a 28-year-old former neo-Nazi skinhead gang member who beat people up "just for the fun of it," then became a drug dealer and a freelance enforcer for organized crime groups Kim, a Cree woman with two addicted parents who joined her gang at 14, kept off drugs, and ran a group of prostitutes until going to jail -- at just 16 Dillon, a Latino-Canadian, sexually and physically abused as a young boy, a drug dealer and gang leader in high school and later head of a local chapter of a major international gang until he was "honoured" out No one will think the same way about criminal gang members and the circumstances that lead to a life in crime after reading this compelling and revealing book.

The Gang Paradox

The Gang Paradox PDF Author: Robert J. Durán
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231543433
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The areas along the U.S.-Mexico border are commonly portrayed as a hot spot for gang activity, drug trafficking, and violence. Yet when Robert J. Durán conducted almost a decade’s worth of ethnographic research in border towns between El Paso, Texas, and southern New Mexico—a region notorious for gang activity, according to federal officials—he found significantly less gang membership and activity than common fearmongering claims would have us believe. Instead, he witnessed how the gang label was used to criminalize youth of Mexican descent—to justify the overrepresentation of Latinos in the justice system, the implementation of punitive practices in the school system, and the request for additional resources by law enforcement. In The Gang Paradox, Durán analyzes the impact of deportation, incarceration, and racialized perceptions of criminality on Latino families and youth along the border. He draws on ethnography, archival research, official data sources, and interviews with practitioners and community members to present a compelling portrait of Latino residents’ struggles amid deep structural disadvantages. Durán, himself a former gang member, offers keen insights into youth experience with schools, juvenile probation, and law enforcement. The Gang Paradox is a powerful community study that sheds new light on intertwined criminalization and racialization, with policy relevance toward issues of gangs, juvenile delinquency, and the lack of resources in border regions.

Gang Life

Gang Life PDF Author: Mark Totten
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459406257
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
For the first time, here's a no-holds-barred inside account of life for criminal gang members in cities and towns across Canada. Mark Totten has slowly gained the confidence of gang members in many Canadian cities and small towns, and he knows enough to get the real goods from these men and women. In this book he tells the life stories -- so far -- of ten gang members drawn from across the country. Murderers, rapists, addicts, drug traffickers, victims of child abuse, abusers themselves -- these are people who many consider the worst of the worst. But from their life stories, a more nuanced and complex picture emerges. The circumstances and events which lead children and teens into criminal life become clearer. Meet: Jake, a 28-year-old former neo-Nazi skinhead gang member who beat people up "just for the fun of it," then became a drug dealer and a freelance enforcer for organized crime groups Kim, a Cree woman with two addicted parents who joined her gang at 14, kept off drugs, and ran a group of prostitutes until going to jail -- at just 16 Dillon, a Latino-Canadian, sexually and physically abused as a young boy, a drug dealer and gang leader in high school and later head of a local chapter of a major international gang until he was "honoured" out No one will think the same way about criminal gang members and the circumstances that lead to a life in crime after reading this compelling and revealing book.

Life in the Gang

Life in the Gang PDF Author: Scott H. Decker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521565660
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
This study is based on three years of field work with 99 active gang members and 24 family members. The book describes the attractiveness of gangs, the process of joining, their chaotic and loose organisation, and their members' predominant activities - mostly hanging out, drinking, and using drugs. The authors also discuss gang members' rather slapdash involvement in major property crime and their disorganised participation in drug traffic, as well as the often fatal consequences of their violent life-style. Although the book focuses on the individual, organisational, and institutional aspects of gang membership, it also explores gang members' involvement with other school and neighborhood structures. Extensive interviews with family members provide groundbreaking insights into the gang members' lives. As much as possible, however, the story is told in the gang members' own words.

Gangbangers

Gangbangers PDF Author: Loren W. Christensen
Publisher: Paladin Press
ISBN: 9781581600476
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

A World of Gangs

A World of Gangs PDF Author: John Hagedorn
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816650667
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
"On the street with gangs in three world cities - Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, and Capetown - Hagedorn discovers that many of them have institutionalized as a strategy to confront a hopeless cycle of poverty, racism, and oppression. The mhilistic appeal of gangsta rap and its ethic of survival "by any means necessary," he argues, provides vital insights into the ideology and persistence of gangs around the world. Proposing how gangs can 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 to bring gangs into broader movements for social justice."--BOOK JACKET.

My Bloody Life

My Bloody Life PDF Author: Reymundo Sanchez
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569762325
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex, and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs are members of your own gang, who in one breath will say they'll die for you and in the next will order your assassination.