Life in the Gang Family, Friends, and Violence [Paperback]

Extensive interviews with gang members and their relatives provides unique picture of gang life.Based on three years of field work, this study describes all aspects of gang life. Told largely in the gang members' own words, it depicts their organization and members' predominant activities--hanging out, drinking, and using drugs--as well as involvement in major property crime and drug traffic.Based on three years of field work, this study describes all aspects of gang life. Told largely in the gang members' own words, it depicts their organization and members' predominant activities--hanging out, drinking, and using drugs--as well as involvement in major property crime and drug traffic.This study is based on three years of field work with ninety-nine active gang members and twenty-four family members. The book describes the attractiveness of gangs, the process of joining, their chaotic and loose organization, and their members' predominant activities--mostly hanging out, drinking, and using drugs--and their rather slapdash involvement in major property crime and drug traffic. Extensive interviews with family members provide groundbreaking insights into the gang members' lives, and the story is told largely in the gang members' own words.1. Introduction; 2. 'Are you claiming?': methods of study; 3. 'I'm down with the Bloods, what's up cuz?': individual issues; 4. 'We ain't no worldwide thing or nothing': group membership issues; 5. 'Where you hanging?': minor crime and gang members; 6. 'I love to bang': serious crime by gang members; 7. Gang members and social institutions; 8. Gang members and their families; 9. Responding to gangs: theory and policy; References. ...the authors make effective use of direct quotes from subjects as well as limited bar charts to present distributions of characteristics of the youth and their beliefs Choice