Street Justice
Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld

Bruce Jacobs, University of Texas, Dallas
Richard Wright, University of Missouri, St Louis

Street criminals live in a dangerous world, but they cannot realistically rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from predation by fellow lawbreakers; they are on their own when it comes to dealing with crimes perpetrated against them and often use retaliation as a mechanism for deterring and responding to victimization. Although retaliation lies at the heart of much of the violence that plagues many inner-city neighborhoods across the United States, it has received scant attention from criminologists. As a result, the structure, process, and forms of retaliation in the real world setting of urban America remain poorly understood. Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal World explores the face of modern day retaliation from the perspective of currently active criminals who have experienced it first hand, as offenders, victims, or both.

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Policing Gangs in America

Charles M. Katz, Arizona State University
Vincent J. Webb, Arizona State University

Describing the assumptions, issues, problems, and events that characterize, shape, and define the police response to gangs in America today, the primary focus of this book is on gang unit officers and the environment in which they work. The book is broadly focused on describing how gang units respond to community gang problems, and answers such questions as: Why do police agencies organize their responses to gangs in certain ways? Who are the people who elect to police gangs? What are their jobs really like? How do their responses to the gang problem compare with other policing strategies, such as community policing?

Schools and Delinquency

Denise C. Gottfredson, University of Maryland, College Park

Schools and Delinquency provides a comprehensive review and critique of the current research on the causes of delinquency, substance use, drop-out, and truancy, and the role of the school in preventing these behavior patterns. Examining school-based prevention programs and practices for grades K-12, the author identifies a broad array of effective and ineffective strategies. In the larger context of the community, she analyzes the special challenges to effective prevention programming that arise in disorganized settings, identifying ways to overcome these obstacles and make the most troubled schools safer and more productive environments.

Gangs and Delinquency in Developmental Perspective

Terence P. Thornberry, State University of New York, Albany
Marvin D. Krohn, State University of New York, Albany
Alan J. Lizotte, State University of New York, Albany
Carolyn A. Smith, State University of New York, Albany
Kimberly Tobin, Westfield State College

Winner of the 2003 Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology

To reveal how membership in adolescent street gangs influences human development, the authors examine the origins of gang membership and the social and psychological factors that lead to joining. After demonstrating that gang members are responsible for the major share of serious and violent delinquency, they indicate how membership facilitates delinquent behavior and other developmental problems such as teen pregnancy and school dropout.

Companions in Crime
The Social Aspects of Criminal Conduct

Mark Warr, University of Texas, Austin

Winner of the 2005 Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology

The idea of peer influence as a cause of delinquency has been around since the 1930s, when Edwin Sutherland offered his theory of differential association. Although that theory and similar ones remain popular and have strong empirical support, more recent theories reject the idea completely. This book surveys the research literature on peer influence, reveals that most offenders are imbedded in a network of friends and accomplices, and describes numerous possible mechanisms of peer influence.