The Gang Paradox (eBook)

Inequalities and Miracles on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Robert J. Durán (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
320 Seiten
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
978-0-231-54343-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Robert J. Durán analyzes the impact of deportation, incarceration, and racialized perceptions of criminality on Latino families and youth along the U.S.-Mexico border. He finds significantly less gang membership and activity than common fearmongering claims would have us believe.

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The areas along the U.S.-Mexico border are commonly portrayed as a hot spot for gang activity, drug trafficking, and violence. Yet when Robert J. Duran conducted almost a decade's worth of ethnographic research in border towns between El Paso, Texas, and southern New Mexico-a region notorious for gang activity, according to federal officials-he found significantly less gang membership and activity than common fearmongering claims would have us believe. Instead, he witnessed how the gang label was used to criminalize youth of Mexican descent-to justify the overrepresentation of Latinos in the justice system, the implementation of punitive practices in the school system, and the request for additional resources by law enforcement.In The Gang Paradox, Duran analyzes the impact of deportation, incarceration, and racialized perceptions of criminality on Latino families and youth along the border. He draws on ethnography, archival research, official data sources, and interviews with practitioners and community members to present a compelling portrait of Latino residents' struggles amid deep structural disadvantages. Duran, himself a former gang member, offers keen insights into youth experience with schools, juvenile probation, and law enforcement. The Gang Paradox is a powerful community study that sheds new light on intertwined criminalization and racialization, with policy relevance toward issues of gangs, juvenile delinquency, and the lack of resources in border regions.

Autor

Robert J. Durán is associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Gang Life in Two Cities: An Insider’s Journey (Columbia, 2013).

Inhalt

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: A Revisionist History1. The Context for the Origination of Gangs: Double Colonization2. The Formation of Gangs in El Chuco3. Moral Panic Under a Research Microscope: The Organizational Scene Prior to ArrivalPart II: An Ethnographic Foundation4. How Youth of Mexican Descent Encounter Criminalization5. Contradictions in Law Enforcement6. Participatory Action Research Teams at a Minority-Serving Institution7. Empirical Miracles and Where Do We Go from Here?ConclusionAppendix 1: MethodsAppendix 2: Development of Gangs Timeline in the New Mexico/Texas RegionNotesReferencesIndex

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.9.2018
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Transgression
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Transgression
• Zusatzinfo: 7 charts & 7 maps
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Strafrecht ► Kriminologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Makrosoziologie
• ISBN-10: 0-231-54343-3 / 0231543433
• ISBN-13: 978-0-231-54343-9 / 9780231543439