Violence Prevention and Policy – serie

Clinical psychologist Daniel J. Flannery reveals the impact of violence and victimization in the lives of children and adolescents from a developmental perspective. He explores how young people experience violence in their everyday lives and how this impacts their mental health and ability to cope with challenges and crises. His case studies show the significance of these mental health issues for the individual, family, neighborhood, and community. He offers lists of professional resources, including web sites and readings related to violence and mental health. This book will be a valuable resource for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare workers, public health officials, police officers and others who interact every day with young people, to help them understand more about child development and how experiences with violence can affect development and daily life.

Clinical psychologist Daniel J. Flannery reveals the impact of violence and victimization in the lives of children and adolescents from a developmental perspective. He explores how young people experience violence in their everyday lives and how this impacts their mental health and ability to cope with challenges and crises. His case studies show the significance of these mental health issues for the individual, family, neighborhood, and community. He offers lists of professional resources, including web sites and readings related to violence and mental health. This book will be a valuable resource for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare workers, public health officials, police officers and others who interact every day with young people, to help them understand more about child development and how experiences with violence can affect development and daily life.

Paco Domingo is a street cop, a gang cop, a composite figure derived from criminologist Malcolm Klein's real observations, actual incidents, and verbatim court testimony in over 40 years of police and gang research. Klein, well-known criminologist and police consultant, tells the story of Domingo, who is deeply engaged in battling his street gang opponents. The author points to the dangers in police elite units when a 'tough cop' begins to rationalize the use of police violence and corruption. For all of those concerned with dealing in practical ways with street gangs, the greatest impediment has been ignorance about their nature. Klein highlights the importance of the training of gang cops, often the first point of contact with gang members in the community. He points out the discrepancies between some of their views and assumptions of fact in law enforcement on the one hand, and what criminological research has discovered on the other. The author assesses the knowledge and skills of the gang cop, and current gaps in our knowledge of street gangs. This book will be valuable to law enforcement personnel, lawyers, criminologists, and community and governmental agencies concerned with the proliferation of gangs in America's towns.

Gaes and his distinguished coauthors offer a comprehensive analysis of public versus private management of prisons, a competition that originated in the 1980s with the introduction of private facilities into the criminal justice system. The authors argue that prison performance must be measured in reference to the goals of a particular prison system and introduce the technique of multilevel modeling to allow for simultaneous measurement of the individual and the institution. They also show how their analytic framework can be applied to other criminal justice components_prosecution, adjudication, postrelease supervision, policing_and to evaluating the privatization of almost any publicly administered service. They contend that the ability to meaningfully compare public and private prisons can better inform penal policy and improve prison performance and accountability. This book will be a valuable resource for public administrators and policy analysts, corrections personnel and criminologists.

Although a well-known phenomenon in the U.S., street gangs and other violent and criminal groups_including racist groups_exist also in European cities and countries, and are of increasing concern in global law enforcement. The eminent contributors to this volume present valuable new data on European youth gangs, describing important characteristics of these groups, and their similarities and differences to American gangs. Their findings from the Eurogang Research Program compare European and American gang interventions, and highlight the impact of immigration and ethnicity, urbanization, national influences, and local neighborhood circumstances on gang development in several European countries. It is an important resource on crime, delinquency and youth development for criminologists, sociologists, youth workers, policy makers, local governments, and law enforcement professionals.

Although a well-known phenomenon in the U.S., street gangs and other violent and criminal groups_including racist groups_exist also in European cities and countries, and are of increasing concern in global law enforcement. The eminent contributors to this volume present valuable new data on European youth gangs, describing important characteristics of these groups, and their similarities and differences to American gangs. Their findings from the Eurogang Research Program compare European and American gang interventions, and highlight the impact of immigration and ethnicity, urbanization, national influences, and local neighborhood circumstances on gang development in several European countries. It is an important resource on crime, delinquency and youth development for criminologists, sociologists, youth workers, policy makers, local governments, and law enforcement professionals.

Family Abuse and Violence presents a new perspective for studying inter- and intragenerational forms of family abuse and violence. The framework integrates existing theories and guides an interpretation of empirical data to study socially deviant or criminal problems that occur within families. It is a text for: undergraduate students in a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year course in social problems, family abuse and violence, family and gender, or community problems; or for graduate students in MS or PhD programs in sociology, psychology, child and family studies.

Family Abuse and Violence presents a new perspective for studying inter- and intragenerational forms of family abuse and violence. The framework integrates existing theories and guides an interpretation of empirical data to study socially deviant or criminal problems that occur within families. It is a text for: undergraduate students in a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year course in social problems, family abuse and violence, family and gender, or community problems; or for graduate students in MS or PhD programs in sociology, psychology, child and family studies.

In this absorbing new collection, Short and Hughes and their distinguished coauthors investigate why and how we study youth gangs. Over the last half-century of research by criminologists, sociologists, and gang experts, investigations of gang behavior have become increasingly specialized and isolated from studies of delinquency and deviance. The authors challenge popular and inaccurate definitions of gangs vs. non-gang youth groups, and show how the amazing diversity of gangs_both domestic and international_demands more rigorous study. This book stimulates thinking about valid methods of defining and interpreting gang behavior, in order to better understand delinquent and criminal behaviors, and their control. It is an ideal text for criminal justice, sociology, and social work courses, and a resource for law enforcement, probation and parole practitioners, and public defenders.

In this absorbing new collection, Short and Hughes and their distinguished coauthors investigate why and how we study youth gangs. Over the last half-century of research by criminologists, sociologists, and gang experts, investigations of gang behavior have become increasingly specialized and isolated from studies of delinquency and deviance. The authors challenge popular and inaccurate definitions of gangs vs. non-gang youth groups, and show how the amazing diversity of gangs_both domestic and international_demands more rigorous study. This book stimulates thinking about valid methods of defining and interpreting gang behavior, in order to better understand delinquent and criminal behaviors, and their control. It is an ideal text for criminal justice, sociology, and social work courses, and a resource for law enforcement, probation and parole practitioners, and public defenders.

In this book, Irving Spergel details the efforts of his Chicago youth gang project, a comprehensive, community-based model designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. He offers an in-depth description of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, revealing the successes and failures of intervention at each level: individual youths, the gang itself, and the community at large. Spergel relates how a coalition of criminal justice, neighborhood, and academic organizations_along with a team of tactical officers, probation officers, former gang leaders, and a neighborhood organization_developed strategies for dealing with hardcore violent male youths from two gangs: the Latin Kings and Two Six. This well-known project has become the model for a series of national initiatives. Policymakers, criminologists, and gang researchers will find this model valuable for assessing gang programs and reducing gang violence.