The Gang Paradox by Robert J. Durán

Author:Robert J. Durán
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC026000, Social Science/Sociology/General, SOC004000, Social Science/Criminology
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

There was no doubt that Officer Mark was passionate about his job and his perception of gangs, crime, and the various networks between street gangs, prison gangs, and cartels. As he says, “I am the one making the stops, taking the guns, and doing the debriefings.” In Gang Life in Two Cities, community activists who had been involved with gangs in their past along with those who were attempting to improve relations between the community and the police rightfully challenged many of the claims made by the gang unit and other members of law enforcement. Similar to their role of community advocacy, it was clear that Officer Mark felt he was in a similar role of advocacy for this gang unit and the larger police department. The dilemma becomes clear when one analyzes the law enforcement data and sees how it often contradicts most law enforcement claims that had been provided to the media and distributed to the public. Institutions of law enforcement, from police officers to district attorneys, have based their punishment practices on the legitimacy of these claims, and they have often been reluctant to share such information with researchers because of these potential difficulties. This is not to dismiss Officer Mark’s claims but rather to place them in their proper context. Malcolm Klein’s book Gang Cop highlights the contradictions between gang enforcement and gang research, as does Policing Gangs in America by Katz and Webb.30

Officer Juan described some of the changes he noticed with gangs:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.