Street Gang Development, Research, and Prevention Strategies
¶ … gang development, research and reduction strategies as outlined by Klein and Maxson in their 2006 study Street Gang Patterns and Policies. It incorporates additional research beyond Klein and Maxson, but focuses on…
Character Response From All Souls
My name is Michael Patrick Macdonald and before I begin attending therapy sessions with you, I thought it best to introduce myself in hopes of explaining where I come from. My story begins in a housing project known as Old Colony, in the Lower End, which was an especially crime-ridden and impoverished area of the South Boston neighborhood affectionately known by residents as “Southie.” Despite the regular occurrence of murder, robbery and other violent crime, and no matter how badly my family and our neighbors struggled to make ends meet, Southie was always supposed to be “the best place in the world, as Ma used to say before the kids died.” But my four brothers did die and they are still dead, just like the hundreds of other young people for whom the crowds still gather at the old Gate of Heaven Church, where candles are lit and the neighborhood holds vigil for generations of fallen children. When I recently returned to Southie, encountered once again by the landmarks and monuments of my own broken childhood, “I didn’t know now if I loved or hated this place. All those beautiful dreams and nightmares of my life were competing in the narrow littered streets of Old Colony Project.” Despite the sense of loss which still pervades every corner store and stoop in Southie, the place is still my home, and I feel a sense of obligation both to my own four brothers, and to the untold number of young people who have succumbed to South Boston’s notorious underworld elements.
Strategies to Tackle Gang Violence
Kubrin, C. E. (2015). Chicago Hustle and Flow: Gangs, Gangsta Rap, and Social Class. American Journal of Sociology, 121(3), 999-1001.