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Suggested Books

Curry, G. David, and Scott H. Decker. Confronting Gangs: Crime and Community. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company, 1998.

Emphasizing community and neighborhood, Confronting Gangs weaves contemporary research and policy findings around classic and emerging theories of gangs. The book provides readers with links between the gang literature and traditional criminological, criminal justice, and sociological approaches to gangs. The book integrates gang perspectives on many issues through the use of quotes from gang members themselves. These views from inside the gangs bring the book to life. Confronting Gangs offers a specific focus on each of the following topics:
  • The number and nature of gangs.
  • The link between gangs and delinquency.
  • The role of drugs in contemporary gangs.
  • Female gangs.

Decker, Scott H., and Barrik Van Winkle. Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

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 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.

Huff, Ronald C., editor. Gangs in America, 3rd edition. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 2002.

This edition brings together 18 contributions, discussing the changing boundaries of gangs; joining and leaving gangs; economic, neighborhood, and school contexts of gang behavior; gang, gun, and drug relationships; ethnic diversity of gangs; insights into female gangs; and evaluations of approaches to the prevention of violence and the role of gangs in violence.

Klein, Malcolm W. The American Street Gang. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

The American Street Gang provides a detailed account of what street gangs are, how they have changed, their involvement in drug sales, and why we have not been able to stop them. Street gangs, Klein makes clear, are quite distinct from drug gangs, though they may share individual members. In a drug-selling operation, tight discipline is required—the members are more like employees—whereas street gangs are held together by affiliation and common rivalries, with far less discipline. Street gangs are a real and growing problem in America, but there are many misleading ideas about what they are and what they do. In The American Street Gang, Malcolm Klein challenges these assumptions.

Miller, Jody, Cheryl L. Maxson, and Malcolm W. Klein, editors. The Modern Gang Reader, 2nd edition. Los Angeles: Roxbury Press, 2001.

The Second Edition of The Modern Gang Reader is a comprehensive anthology of recently published articles on gangs. The Second Edition provides a highly readable, accessible introduction to the most salient contemporary issues in the study of gangs—with an emphasis on defining and understanding gangs, their prevalence, structures, and behaviors, and society’s responses to them.
The Modern Gang Reader defines gangs as a social and legal problem, reviews various ways of examining them, reveals the extent and nature of the current gang problem, and explains how society has responded to it. Jody Miller, Cheryl L. Maxson, and Malcolm W. Klein are recognized as among the leading researchers on the subject of gangs. Selections are drawn primarily from professional books and journals, including entries from a host of the best-known gang scholars and practitioners.
This anthology’s coverage includes theories about gangs, research on gender and ethnicity, and recent developments such as gang proliferation and gangs outside of the United States. The volume reviews the relationship between gangs, violence, and drugs. It also provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary programs and policies for dealing with gangs.

Spergel, Irving A. The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

In The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach, Irving Spergel provides a systematic analysis of youth gangs in the United States. Based on research, historical and comparative analysis, agency documents, and the author’s extensive first-hand experience, the work explores the gang problem from the perspective of community disorganization, especially population movement, and the plight of the underclass. It examines the factors of gang member personality, gang dynamics, criminal organization, and the influence of family, school, prisons, and politics, as well as the response of criminal justice agencies and community groups. Spergel describes techniques used by social agencies, schools, employment programs, criminal justice agencies, and grassroots organizations for dealing with gangs and recommends strategies that emphasize the use of local resources, planning, and collaborative procedures.
There is no single strategy and no easy solution to the youth gang problem in the United States. There are, however, substantial steps we can take, and they must be honestly and systematically tested. Offering a practical and alternative approach to a serious social problem, The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach is a major and long-awaited contribution to this dilemma.