Street Gang Patterns and Policies provides a crucial update and critical examination of knowledge about gangs and major gang control programs across the nation. Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxson here focus on gang proliferation, migration, and crime patterns, and highlight known risk factors that lead to youths joining gangs and to gang formation within communities. Dispelling long-standing assumptions that the public--and 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, when evaluated. Klein and Maxson close by offering 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 will be a must read for criminologists, social workers, policy makers, and criminal justice practitioners.

This book is the third publication from the Eurogang Network, a cross-national collaboration of researchers (from both North America and Europe) devoted to comparative and multi-national research on youth gangs. It provides a unique insight into the influence of migration on local gang formation and development, paying particular attention to the importance of ethnicity. The book also explores the challenges that migration and ethnicity pose for responding effectively to the growth of such gangs, particularly in areas where public discourse on such issues is restricted. Chapters in the book are concerned to address both situations where there have been longstanding problems with street gangs as well as areas where such issues have just started to emerge. A variety of different research traditions and approaches are represented, including ethnographic methods, self-report surveys and interviews, official records data and victim interviews. It will be essential reading for anybody interested in the phenomenon of street and youth gangs.

In this absorbing new collection, Short and Hughes and their distinguished coauthors investigate why and how we study youth gangs. Over the last half-century of research by criminologists, sociologists, and gang experts, investigations of gang behavior have become increasingly specialized and isolated from studies of delinquency and deviance. The authors challenge popular and inaccurate definitions of gangs vs. non-gang youth groups, and show how the amazing diversity of gangs_both domestic and international_demands more rigorous study. This book stimulates thinking about valid methods of defining and interpreting gang behavior, in order to better understand delinquent and criminal behaviors, and their control. It is an ideal text for criminal justice, sociology, and social work courses, and a resource for law enforcement, probation and parole practitioners, and public defenders.

Paco Domingo is a street cop, a gang cop, a composite figure derived from criminologist Malcolm Klein's real observations, actual incidents, and verbatim court testimony in over 40 years of police and gang research. Klein, well-known criminologist and police consultant, tells the story of Domingo, who is deeply engaged in battling his street gang opponents. The author points to the dangers in police elite units when a 'tough cop' begins to rationalize the use of police violence and corruption. For all of those concerned with dealing in practical ways with street gangs, the greatest impediment has been ignorance about their nature. Klein highlights the importance of the training of gang cops, often the first point of contact with gang members in the community. He points out the discrepancies between some of their views and assumptions of fact in law enforcement on the one hand, and what criminological research has discovered on the other. The author assesses the knowledge and skills of the gang cop, and current gaps in our knowledge of street gangs. This book will be valuable to law enforcement personnel, lawyers, criminologists, and community and governmental agencies concerned with the proliferation of gangs in America's towns.

This book is the third publication from the Eurogang Network, a cross-national collaboration of researchers (from both North America and Europe) devoted to comparative and multi-national research on youth gangs. It provides a unique insight into the influence of migration on local gang formation and development, paying particular attention to the importance of ethnicity. The book also explores the challenges that migration and ethnicity pose for responding effectively to the growth of such gangs, particularly in areas where public discourse on such issues is restricted. Chapters in the book are concerned to address both situations where there have been longstanding problems with street gangs as well as areas where such issues have just started to emerge. A variety of different research traditions and approaches are represented, including ethnographic methods, self-report surveys and interviews, official records data and victim interviews. It will be essential reading for anybody interested in the phenomenon of street and youth gangs.

This book provides an overview of the dominant philosophical approaches and practices in handling status offenders--those children who habitually resist the control of their parents and schools, who run away from home, who drink and stay out after curfew. The three basic and competing social philosophies in responding to these troubled and troublesome youths--discussed at length in this book--are known as the treatment, deterrence, and normalization rationales. In examining these philosophies, the authors consider the quality and quantity of response to and for status offenders at local community service outlets in seven different cities. In this way, Maxson and Klein are able to determine whether such response practices conform with the ideological thrusts embedded in state legislation.
The results will surprise many legislative and youth service policy professionals. Agency characteristics, service-delivery patterns, and youth clients do indeed reflect the treatment, deterrence, and normalization rationales, but in ways that have little bearing on the dominant philosophies embodied by state legislation.
Special chapters are devoted to those minors most likely to slip through the safety-net of youth service --chronic runaways and street kids. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for lawmakers and policy developers.

Placed in a fictional but typical European city, a research team responds to reports of street gang violence by adapting the widely used research procedures developed in the Eurogang Program in a dozen countries since 1997. The author follows the development of the research team and its relationships with community leaders, the press, and several different street gangs in the city. Entre to the gangs brings research and personal problems for the staff and reveals important differences between the gangs in crime patterns and group structures. Comparison to American and other European gangs builds the case for several forms of gang knowledge, while specific incidents including violent attacks on staff members bring to life the unique aspects of Euroburg, a city of tourism and commercial success. The author humanizes the study of street gangs, based on his forty-year career in gang research and control.

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. "This is an important book. Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxson here draw upon their own rich and pioneering research experience and that of others to provide the most comprehensive review of what is known and what needs to be known about gangs and their control in community contexts. I stand in awe of their accomplishment."-James F. Short, Jr., Past President of the American Sociological Association "The need to intervene successfully with street gangs is self-evident; unfortunately the way to do so is not. Klein and Maxson, based on a masterful review of the empirical literature on gangs and on gang intervention efforts, lay out a balanced and comprehensive strategy for confronting this problem head-on. Neither falsely optimistic nor unnecessarily gloomy, they provide a road map that, if followed, will yield substantial progress in our fight against gangs."-Terence P. Thornberry, Director, Research Program on Problem Behavior, University of Colorado

An up-to-date collection of the most insightful and influential research on gangs today, The Modern Gang Reader, Fourth Edition, brings together articles that discuss the prevalence, structures, and behaviors of gangs today and analyze society's responses to them.
With a strong focus on international and comparative research, this authoritative volume exposes students to the array of dissenting points of view that represent the ongoing controversies behind the nature of gangs.
NEW TO THIS EDITION
Thirty-two new articles covering a variety of issues--gang desistance, reentry from incarceration, victimization, international gangs, and more
New sections throughout, including three devoted to better understanding the relationships between gang membership and racial inequality, gender, and community contexts
New introductions at the beginning of each section that provide conceptual links with other pieces in the anthology
Updated and expanded coverage of methodological strategies for studying gangs, the demographic characteristics of gang members, group processes within gangs, and other key topics

This book reviews what has been known about gangs, and updates that information into the 1990s. It covers reported changes in the structure and crime patterns of gangs, their age, ethnic, and gender characteristics, and their spread into almost all corners of the nation. It also reviews and updates situation in other countries to determine how unique the American gang really is.