Youth Street Gangs: A Critical Appraisal [Paperback]

Introduction, 1. Gangs and the Community: History from Below, 2. Divergent Gazes: From Humanism to Hobbesian Positivism and Social Reproduction, 3. Gangs and Situated Resistance: Agency, Structure, Culture and Politics, 4.?Studying the Gang Critically, 5.Imagining Gangs: From Folk Devils to Objects of Desire, 6.Reflections From the Field, 7. The Need for a Critical Gang Studies, 8. Gang Interventionism (Part 1): Credible Messengers and the Neo-Liberal Imagination of Anti-violence Models, 9. Gang Interventionism (Part II): The Prison Life of Antonio Fernandez and the Making of a Gang Intervention, 10.Gang Interventionism (Part III): Gang Legalization in Ecuador, 11. Conclusion, 12.?Appendix: Cultural Criminology and its Practices: A Dialogue Between the Theorist and the Street Researcher

The book critiques the pathologization of gangs in recent decades, particularly its negative consequences for democracy in an age of punishment, cruelty and coercive social control. It critically reviews gang theory and the enabling role of orthodox criminology,?and concludes by making a plea for researchers to engage the gang reflexively.

David C. Brotherton is Professor of Sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA.

Gangs have been heavily pathologized in the last several decades. In comparison to the pioneering Chicago School's work on gangs in the 1920s we have moved away from a humanistic appraisal of and sensitivity toward the phenomenon and have allowed the gang to become a highly plastic folk devil outside of history. This pathologization of the gang has particularly negative consequences for democracy in an age of punishment, cruelty and coercive social control.

This is the central thesis of David Brothertons celebrated book on street gangs. Drawing on a wealth of highly acclaimed original research, Brotherton explores the socilC1