cover image The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control

The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control

Malcolm Klein. Oxford University Press, USA, $27.5 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-19-509534-0

Klein, director of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Southern California, views street gangs--as opposed to drug gangs, bikers or skinheads--as not monolithic and certainly not cohesive. Although such a gang may contain a core group, many more are made up of fringe members, he asserts, and there is overlap among gangs. A large number of gangs have a criminal orientation, and their crimes have traditionally been against property. Gangs' major activity, according to the author, has been inactivity. But in recent times, the number of street gangs has grown enormously, he shows, with gangs now found in at least 800 American cities, their growth abetted by media attention and inept law enforcement officials. But as the gang culture has spread across the nation, the seriousness of its crimes has increased, with hundreds of homicides yearly in L.A. alone. Though written by a scholar who has studied street gangs for 30 years, this telling commentary is generally free of academic jargon. (June)