Gangbangs And Drive Bys

Gangbangs and Drive-Bys

This study, based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered over a twelve-year period, takes its title from the two predominant styles of gang violence: 'drive-bys,' which have replaced 'rumbles' as the primary form of gang violence; and 'gang-bangs' - a generic term for other gang violence that includes assaults, knifings, and beatings.The author attempts to understand the situations in which a young man would drive up to another human being and, without further ado, blow his head off. By examining hundreds of such situations, and employing both structural and phenomenological analysis, Sanders explores the various configurations of gang violence.Gangbangs and Drive-bys also examines the routines of gang members and their view of life, the different styles of gangs, and changes undergone by gangs from the early 1980s to the end of the same decade. Over that period, the emphasis shifted from parties and paybacks to big money from the sale of rock cocaine, and from unstructured to organized crime. Along with that shift came an increase in the violence.Finally, Sanders traces the beginning and evolution of a metropolitan police gang unit over the same decade in order to present an inside view of how the police attempt to deal with and understand gangs.

Gangbangs and Drive-bys

Gangsters

Why young people participate in violent gang behavior The effects of gang violence are witnessed every day on the streets, in the news, and on the movie screen. In all these forums, gangs of young adults are associated with drugs and violence. Yet what is it that prompts young people to participate in violent behavior? And what can be done to extract adolescents from the gangster world of crime, death, and incarceration once they have become involved? In Gangsters: 50 Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America, Lewis Yablonsky provides answers to the most baffling and crucial questions regarding gangs. Using information gathered from over forty years of experience working with gang members and based on hundreds of personal interviews, many conducted in prisons and in gang neighborhoods, Yablonsky explores the pathology of the gangsters' apparent addiction to incarceration and death. Gangsters is divided into four parts, including a brief history of gangs, the characteristics of gangs, successful approaches for treating gangsters in prison and the community, and concluding with a review and analysis of notable behavioral and social scientific theories of gangs. While condemning their violent behavior in no uncertain terms, Yablonsky offers hope through his belief that, given a chance in an effective treatment program, youths trapped in violent behavior can change their lives in positive ways and, in turn, facilitate positive change in their communities and society at large.