Gangs in the Midwest
Detroit and St. Louis
This painting is one of humanity's most poignant protests against violence and war. It represents Picasso's cry of pain over the destruction of the village Guernica by Fascist Spain. Today, this painting might be seen as lamenting gang violence on our streets. But I think Picasso would imagine America's central cities as modern Guernicas, tortured and devastated by those who are the masters of the economy or lords of the "war on drugs."
Detroit Gangs
Dangerous Society by Carl Taylor.
Taylor argues that gangs have fundamentally changed in the crack era. His tyology of gang, while slighted by mainstream criminology, is useful in understanding how today's gangs differ from yesteryear.
1989. East Lansing. Michigan State University Press.
Girls, Gangs, Women, and Drugs by Carl Taylor
Lots of female crew members talking. The only book on female gangs published in the 1990s, despite all the talk about more research on girls. Taylor's history of female gangs is outstanding, and republished in Female Gangs in America.
1993 East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Land of Opportunity: One Family's Quest for the American Dream in the Age of Crack.by William M. Adler
A journalistic account of the riseand fall of the Chambers Brothers.They don't seem as organized as law enforcement claims, but they are a far cry from the territorial gangs described by many academics.
1995 New York: Atlantic Monthly.
Detroit, I do Mind Dying by Dan Georgakis and Marvin Surkin.
Captures the revolutionary turmoil of the sixties and seventies with the backdrop of doom as the auto industry declines. Georgakis has just published an updated edition
1975 New York: St. Martin's Press.
The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas J. Sugrue
An insightful look at the transformation of Detroit's economy and the politics of race.Not a book on gangs, but an indispensible political economy of Detroit.
1996. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press
St. Louis Gangs
Life in The Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence by Scott Decker and Barrik Van Winkle.
A description of gangs in St. Louis. A high percentage of those interviewed were subsequently killed, reflecting St. Louis' high homicide rate.
1996 New York: Cambridge.
Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling, Bruce A. Jacobs
A description of disorganized drug dealing by addicts.
1999 Boston: Northeastern University Press.
This cover of Time Magazine was drawn by Robert Templeton to depict the 1967 disturbance and rebellion in Detroit.