People and Folks
Gangs, Crime and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City
When the first edition of People and Folks appeared, it challenged and ultimately changed the way we thought about gangs in America. With the second edition, important new information has been added to this path-breaking research. We now hear the voices of girls and learn of their special problems in marginalized communities; we also hear what has happened to the boys we first met in the first edition. The news is not good on either count, but it is an important read. That in one post-industrial American city, drug sales have become the single largest employer of African-American and Hispanic men should be seen as a national disgrace. Maybe after this book is published, it will be.
Meda Chesney-Lind, University of Hawaii at Manoa
When the first edition of People and Folks appeared, it challenged and ultimately changed the way we thought about gangs in America. With the second edition, important new information has been added to this path-breaking research. We now hear the voices of girls and learn of their special problems in marginalized communities; we also hear what has happened to the boys we first met in the first edition. The news is not good on either count, but it is an important read. That in one post-industrial American city, drug sales have become the single largest employer of African-American and Hispanic men should be seen as a national disgrace. Maybe after this book is published, it will be.
Meda Chesney-Lind, University of Hawaii at Manoa
This new edition gives the reader a succinct summary of major developments in gang research and opens up new and important questions. Nothing else in the field gives the student such a good feel for research and for why direct research with gang members is so important.
Joan Moore, author of Homeboys: Gangs, Drugs and Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles
