Street Wars: Gangs and the Future of Violence [Hardcover]

Tom Hayden (Author)

Book Description

The renowned activist's impassioned look at gangs and youth violence in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York

"How come when the violence goes down, it's because of the police, and when it goes up, it's us?—Salahadeen Betts, gang member, New York City

Though never officially acknowledged, over 25,000 young people have died in America's gang wars since 1980. In cities across America, members of the Crips, Bloods, Mara Salvatrucha, 18th Street, Latin Kings, Blackstone Rangers, and Gangster Disciples are like traumatized war veterans with no way home. Drawn from ten years as an activist and public official working to understand and prevent gang violence in Los Angeles, Street Wars is Tom Hayden's searing indictment of the neo-conservative politics of law and order that dominates current policy and suffocates inner city youth.

Weaving together cutting analysis with numerous first-hand stories from gang leaders, Hayden shows how the prison-industrial complex reinforces gang identity through humiliation and punishment, and reveals how globalization has created a force of unemployable men and women around the world who are defined as incorrigible, outside law and community. The final chapters advocate an internal peace process to address the devastation of America's urban youth.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Over 25,000 young people have died as a result of urban street violence over the past 20 years, writes Tom Hayden in Street Wars. As staggering as that number is, he still finds room for optimism, stressing that gang violence is preventable, not inevitable, and that former gang members are not necessarily incorrigible criminals. In making his point, he offers many examples of how one-time violent criminals made the unlikely transformation to peacemakers and community leaders. Specifically, he focuses on the early 1990s in which a concerted effort was made by gang members to stop the violence in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and other cities by formally declaring truces and working to provide alternatives to gangs for young people in their communities. After a strong start and a significant decrease in reported gang violence, progress began to stall. Why this effort has not achieved more is a central question in Street Wars. Hayden believes the answer lies in the myopic "tough on crime" approach that continues to be favored by most politicians. Citing his decade of first-hand experience with the subject, he maintains that relying solely on law-and-order solutions will not decrease, much less solve, the crisis of urban violence in America: "When it comes to the inner city, our country thrives politically on scapegoating rather than finding solutions." As proof, he cites the construction of new prisons over funding for programs that have proven to help young people stay off of the streets. He even goes further, calling for a New Deal approach to wiping out inner-city violence and replacing hopelessness with opportunity. Though this is certainly not the final word in the punitive versus preventative debate, Hayden's research and moving anecdotes add to the discussion of gang violence in America. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

A California state senator and the founder of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), Hayden (Reunion) infuses this text with the idealism and passion for social justice for which he is well known. His central point is familiar: gang violence in areas like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago stems from the appalling social and economic conditions of inner-city life. But his exploration of the gang phenomenon's sociology is somewhat less tired: Hayden shows gang members, or homies, banding together to find connection, understanding and respect that is denied to them through pathways and social codes controlled by the more affluent. He includes vivid and involved anecdotes of the kind of gangland peacemaking attempts that he believes can, in addition to economic and social reform, save lives. He attacks the "tough on crime" mentality that, he charges, has resulted in decades of police brutality to homies and demonized them as urban terrorists. Hayden rambles on, but his arguments about the failures of the war on drugs and of the incarceration of young males to solve the endemic problems of poverty and alienation are compelling.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; First Edition edition (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848764
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848764
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,427,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Piece of Empathy, February 14, 2005

By 

Sean M. Leys (Watts, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Street Wars: Gangs and the Future of Violence (Hardcover)

As a resident, educator, and community activist in Watts I have come to know the problems this book addresses intimately. Tom Hayden is an outsider to all of this, as is most of the book's audience, but you would never know it from the positions he takes. He has done us the enormous service of having listened deeply to people who many are afraid to even look in the eye. And he adds to this his own insights as a policymaker and insider to the political world that is intimately, if often destructively, connected to the social fabric from which gangs arise. A better, more insightful analysis of gangs could come only from putting down your books, turning off your computer, and working face to face with gang members yourself.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Common Cause to End Gangs is Possible, January 11, 2011

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Citizen John (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Street Wars: Gangs And the Future of Violence (Paperback)

I don't like gangs. They degrade quality of life wherever they exist. But they serve a purpose to their members, providing a sense of family. Too bad the really violent gangs don't let their members quit. Hayden explains in this book why we have gangs and why we're not very successful at getting rid of them.

When we explore gangs, motivated to create safe neighborhoods that are gang free, we come up against the same set of fundamental problems. The greater issue of no work and dysfunctional schools always emerges. Even if after great effort the police authorities clear an area of gangs, we can't keep it clear if there aren't any easy to understand alternatives for young people. Young men must be kept busy in self-esteem generating activity that leads to financial independence and good citizenship. Every society has faced the same issue. Even Alexander the Great worried that his Macedonian warriors would fight and feud amongst themselves if he didn't keep them occupied conquering foreign lands.

A lot of thinkers don't like Hayden's approach because he stresses the responsibility of society in the formation of the gang problem. Whether society accepts this blame doesn't worry me, as we all have common cause to change the conditions that create a vacuum filled by gangs.

4.0 out of 5 stars Street Wars: Gangs and the Future of Violence, January 30, 2009

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S. Daily (N.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Street Wars: Gangs and the Future of Violence (Hardcover)

Very liberal writting on the topic of Street Gangs. However, there are many valid points indicated in the failure of the government to corral the problem early.