Winning the War Against Youth Gangs

Winning the War Against Youth Gangs
Author: Valerie Wiener
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 225
Release: 1999-11-30
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0313032459

Gangs have spread throughout the entire sector of society, and what was once viewed as an inner-city problem can now be found everywhere, including suburbia. This guide for teenagers, their families, and impacted communities addresses the youth gang issue in understandable, manageable terms. Quotes from teens themselves provide valuable insight into the problems that can cause kids to join gangs: absent parents, the need for excitement or to belong to a group, following in the footsteps of family members who are involved in gangs. These factors and others are explored (including an examination of the workings of the adolescent mind), and sound solutions are suggested to help kids resist gang membership. Four distinct sections bring into focus the topic of youth gangs and ways to prevent kids from joining them. Part I describes many basic issues and needs all teens and pre-teens have in common and how these relate to gangs. Part II addresses how and why certain young people enter and sometimes exit gang alliances. Part III focuses on how several integral components of the teen's life and community can work together to resolve youths' involvement with gangs. Part IV analyzes the critical influence of families and the teens themselves as they approach important life choices. Wiener's unique approach includes suggestions and comments from the young people themselves to try to bridge the gap between themselves and the adults in their lives.

Youth Gangs

Youth Gangs
Author: James C. Howell
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 22
Release: 1998
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The United States has seen rapid proliferation of youth gangs since 1980. During this period, the number of cities with gang problems increased from an estimated 286 jurisdictions with more than 2,000 gangs and nearly 100,000 gang members in 1980 (Miller, 1992) to about 4,800 jurisdictions with more than 31,000 gangs and approximately 846,000 gang members in 1996(Moore and Terrett, in press). An 11-city survey of eighth graders found that 9 percent were currently gang members, and 17 percent said they had belonged to a gang at some point in their lives (Esbensen and Osgood, 1997).Other studies reported comparable percentages and also showed that gang members were responsible for a large proportion of violent offenses. In the Rochester site of the OJJDP-funded Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, gang members (30 percent of the sample) self-reported committing 68 percent of all violent offenses (Thornberry, 1998). In the Denver site, adolescent gang members (14 percent of the sample) self-reported committing 89 percent of all serious violent offenses (Huizinga, 1997). In another study, supported by OJJDP and several other agenciesand organizations, adolescent gang members in Seattle (15 percent of the sample) self-reported involvement in 85 percent of robberies committed by the entire sample (Battin et al., 1998).This Bulletin reviews data and research to consolidate available knowledge on youth gangs that are involved in criminal activity. Following a historical perspective, demographic information ispresented. The scope of the problem is assessed, including gang problems in juvenile detention and correctional facilities. Several issues are then addressed by reviewing gang studies to provide aclearer understanding of youth gang problems.An extensive list of references is provided for further review.

Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings

Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings
Author: Eric C. Schneider
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691223300

They called themselves "Vampires," "Dragons," and "Egyptian Kings." They were divided by race, ethnicity, and neighborhood boundaries, but united by common styles, slang, and codes of honor. They fought--and sometimes killed--to protect and expand their territories. In postwar New York, youth gangs were a colorful and controversial part of the urban landscape, made famous by West Side Story and infamous by the media. This is the first historical study to explore fully the culture of these gangs. Eric Schneider takes us into a world of switchblades and slums, zoot suits and bebop music to explain why youth gangs emerged, how they evolved, and why young men found membership and the violence it involved so attractive. Schneider begins by describing how postwar urban renewal, slum clearances, and ethnic migration pitted African-American, Puerto Rican, and Euro-American youths against each other in battles to dominate changing neighborhoods. But he argues that young men ultimately joined gangs less because of ethnicity than because membership and gang violence offered rare opportunities for adolescents alienated from school, work, or the family to win prestige, power, adulation from girls, and a masculine identity. In the course of the book, Schneider paints a rich and detailed portrait of everyday life in gangs, drawing on personal interviews with former members to re-create for us their language, music, clothing, and social mores. We learn what it meant to be a "down bopper" or a "jive stud," to "fish" with a beautiful "deb" to the sounds of the Jesters, and to wear gang sweaters, wildly colored zoot suits, or the "Ivy League look." He outlines the unwritten rules of gang behavior, the paths members followed to adulthood, and the effects of gang intervention programs, while also providing detailed analyses of such notorious gang-related crimes as the murders committed by the "Capeman," Salvador Agron. Schneider focuses on the years from 1940 to 1975, but takes us up to the present in his conclusion, showing how youth gangs are no longer social organizations but economic units tied to the underground economy. Written with a profound understanding of adolescent culture and the street life of New York, this is a powerful work of history and a compelling story for a general audience.

Community Planning to Foster Resilience in Children

Community Planning to Foster Resilience in Children
Author: Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2004-08-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780306485114

Children live in a world of ever-increasing stress factors, including global terrorism, pervasive exposure to violence, increasing substance use, and economic and social instability. To help them maneuver successfully through such a challenging world to adulthood, community-based resilience interventions are becoming more important than ever. Currently, resilience-based interventions are expanding to examine not only the internal strengths children and adolescents bring to a variety of situations, but also to explore how to leverage community and family resources in the context of a culturally diverse world. Community Planning to Foster Resilience in Children reviews a variety of innovative approaches and actions that can be used at the community level to promote resilience in children and adolescents. Key themes throughout the book focus on how to: Shift the paradigm from illness to strengths and health. Assess and improve environments to minimize harmful influences and increase protection. Adapt to and build on strengths of cultural and linguistic variation in an increasingly diverse society. Move toward collaborative approaches that involve youth, families, schools, and community members who partner at all levels of program conception, implementation, evaluation, and improvement. For researchers, clinicians, and students, Community Planning to Foster Resilience in Children will be an essential tool in their efforts to promote the health and success of youth.

Gangs

Gangs
Author: Karen L. Kinnear
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2008-10-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1598841262

A thoroughly updated look at the world of gangs, charting their growth and development in the United States and worldwide, as well as the efforts to curb their expanding criminal enterprises. Gangs: A Reference Handbook, Second Edition offers an eye-opening look at modern gangs—their history, their ability to attract members from a widening social pool, as well as efforts by community and political leaders to stop gang-related crime and weaken the grip that gangs have on our culture. This timely update shows that while genuine progress has been made, the world of gangs is evolving in fascinating and dangerous ways. The second edition features a wealth of new information, new statistical data, and new insights into the ways gangs operate in cities large and small. It also offers expanded coverage of gangs specific to other countries as well as those that have become genuinely international in nature.

Gangs

Gangs
Author: Clive Gifford
Publisher: Evans Brothers
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2010
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 023754217X

'Gangs' deals with an issue of increasing concern in towns and cities throughout the world. It explores how young people are lured into gang life; the links between gangs and the crime on our streets; and whether gangs can be a good force or are always a threat to society.

Understanding Domestic Violence

Understanding Domestic Violence
Author: Rafael Art. Javier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2018-08-10
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0765709546

Understanding Domestic Violence not only highlights and reexamines the different challenges that we continue to face in effectively addressing issues of domestic violence but provides innovated approaches to interventions that are more in keeping with the complex nature of domestic violence. This book provides a comprehensive and multifaceted examination of conditions and factors involved in domestic violence, including psychological, sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic issues. The authors look at domestic violence through the trauma lens and intersectionality to develop intervention strategies within that context. Statistics and clinical examples from the field highlight unique culturally-based issues related to domestic violence among Latino, African American, and Arab Muslim communities, issues with woman perpetrators, and violence in the LGBTQ community, to name a few. In the end, Understanding Domestic Violence offers opportunities for the reader to engage in further discussion of the poignant issues discussed in the book, with the invitation to become part of the solution.

Parent School

Parent School
Author:
Publisher: M. Evans
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2004-02-19
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1461736005

A collection of 78 original essays from the most respected parenting authors of our time. These leading authorities have contributed what they consider to be their most valuable lesson (philosophy, tips, advice) for parents.

Manual of Forensic Emergency Medicine

Manual of Forensic Emergency Medicine
Author: Ralph Riviello
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 076374462X

Manual of Forensic Emergency Medicine is a comprehensive guide to the clinical approach to criminal illness and injury. This resource offers emergency care professionals the knowledge needed to make an accurate diagnosis of abuse, neglect, sexual assault or other conditions in which forensic investigation is needed. This book offers information on victim services and resources available for patients, as well as relevant aspects of the legal system. This essential guide contains color photos, a forensic glossary, and forensic forms that can be used in a clinical practice. Key Topics include Forensic Documentation, Firearms, Evidence Collection in the ED, and Gang Violence.

The Holly

The Holly
Author: Julian Rubinstein
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0374713472

An award-winning journalist’s dramatic account of a shooting that shook a community to its core, with important implications for the future On the last evening of summer in 2013, five shots rang out in a part of northeast Denver known as the Holly. Long a destination for African American families fleeing the Jim Crow South, the area had become an “invisible city” within a historically white metropolis. While shootings there weren’t uncommon, the identity of the shooter that night came as a shock. Terrance Roberts was a revered anti-gang activist. His attempts to bring peace to his community had won the accolades of both his neighbors and the state’s most important power brokers. Why had he just fired a gun? In The Holly, the award-winning Denver-based journalist Julian Rubinstein reconstructs the events that left a local gang member paralyzed and Roberts facing the possibility of life in prison. Much more than a crime story, The Holly is a multigenerational saga of race and politics that runs from the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter. With a cast that includes billionaires, elected officials, cops, developers, and street kids, the book explores the porous boundaries between a city’s elites and its most disadvantaged citizens. It also probes the fraught relationships between police, confidential informants, activists, gang members, and ex–gang members as they struggle to put their pasts behind them. In The Holly, we see how well-intentioned efforts to curb violence and improve neighborhoods can go badly awry, and we track the interactions of law enforcement with gang members who conceive of themselves as defenders of a neighborhood. When Roberts goes on trial, the city’s fault lines are fully exposed. In a time of national reckoning over race, policing, and the uses and abuses of power, Rubinstein offers a dramatic and humane illumination of what’s at stake.