Gangs in America's Communities

"[Gangs in America′s Communities] is one of the most comprehensive treatments of gangs in the marketplace. . .  . I highly recommend its adoption as you will not be disappointed and, most importantly, neither will your students."
―Elvira White-Lewis, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Gangs in America′s Communities, Third Edition blends theory with current research to help readers identify essential features associated with youth violence and gangs, as well as apply strategies for gang control and prevention. Authors Dr. James C. Howell and Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths introduce readers to theories of gang formation, illustrate various ways of defining and classifying gangs, and discuss national trends in gang presence and gang-related violence across American cities. They also offer evidence-based strategies for positioning communities to prevent, intervene, and address gang activity. 

New to the Third Edition:

• A series of new case studies document the evolution of numerous gangs in large cities, including the community aspect, evolutionary nature, and how cities influence levels of violence. 
• New discussions highlighting the role of social media, insights into how gangs use it to recruit members, and the response from law enforcement. 
• Current nationwide gang trends are discussed to encourage readers to analyze and interpret the most recent statistics for which representative data is available.
• Updated macro and micro gang theories enable readers to explore a recent encapsulation of leading developmental models.
• New discussions around female gang members offer readers potentially effective programs for discouraging females from joining gangs―along with highly regarded delinquency prevention and reduction programs that have the potency to be effective in reducing gang crimes among young women. 
• A comprehensive gang prevention, intervention, and suppression program in Multnomah County, Oregon shows how theory was successfully applied to reduce gang activity in a local community. 
• New research on "gang structures" and their rates of crime illustrate the connections between violent crimes and the amount of violent offenders within a gang. 
• Additional discussion of distinguishing features (e.g., typologies) of major gangs, and numerous examples of gang symbols, tattoos, and graffiti has been added to help readers identify and differentiate various types of gangs.

Dr. James C. (Buddy) Howell is a Senior Research Associate with the National Gang Center, in Tallahassee, Florida, where he has worked for over twenty years. He formerly worked at the U.S. Department of Justice for 23 years, mostly as director of research and program development in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He has published over 50 works on youth and street gangs, and a similar number on juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, and seven books on both topics. His gang publication topics include street gang history; gang homicides; drug trafficking; gangs in schools; hybrid gangs; myths about gangs; risk factors; gang problem trends; gang history in the United States; and what works in preventing gang activity, combating gangs, and reducing gang crime. He is very active in helping states and localities reform their juvenile justice systems and use evidence-based programs, and in working with these entities to address youth gang problems in a balanced approach.

Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark. After completing her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Toronto, she joined the faculty of the Department of Sociology at Emory University before moving to Rutgers in 2011. She is also a former predoctoral fellow of the National Consortium on Violence Research and a former Junior Fellow of the Centre of Criminology at the University of Toronto. Her research spans multiple substantive and methodological areas, including communities and crime, spatial diffusion of violence, temporal trends in homicide, the emergence of gangs in places, the transformation of public housing, youth crime and the code of the street, the efficacy of drug-free zones, and victimization risk, among others.