Unsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice) Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules—based largely on an individual's ability to command respect—is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.

The authors of the best-selling Talking back to Prozac expose the government and psychiatric establishment's threat to children. From the authors of the best-selling Talking Back to Prozac comes the definitive work exposing how mental health agencies and the government are using invalid science for social control rather than addressing the decline of families, schools, and communities as well as escalating racism and poverty. In 1992, Dr. Peter Breggin and Ginger Ross inspired a national campaign against the proposed federal "Violence Initiative", which was aimed at identifying inner-city children with alleged defects that were said to make them more violent when they reach adulthood.

Community violence is a pervasive problem in urban America. Those most vulnerable to violence are minority youth living in inner-city neighborhoods. Interpersonal violence has become the major cause of severe injury and death among this population. Poor, urban, African American youth have significantly higher rates of exposure to violence. This population also faces multiple social risks that are over-represented in their urban communities. Research shows that exposure to violence can have a negative impact on the physical and psychological well-being of youth. Outcomes include, but are not limited to, posttraumatic stress symptoms, aggression, and depression. Research has shown that a variety of risk factors can negatively impact youth development, however, some youth faced with adverse circumstances demonstrate positive adaptation. The mechanisms that protect youth from multiple risks are not fully understood. Research on depression and the factors that mediate adaptation in urban African American youth exposed to violence is sparse and contradictory. The goal of the current investigation was to assess levels of depressive symptoms in a sample of 318, 12 to 17 year old, inner-city African American youth exposed to community violence. In addition, risk and protective factors were analyzed to assess their contribution to levels of depression. Multiple regression analyses were performed to assess if severity of injury and/or history of traumatic life experiences further contributed to levels of depressive symptoms. Participants' history of traumatic life experiences was predictive of depression. Although rates of exposure to community violence compared with other studies, few symptoms of depression were endorsed. The majority of participants demonstrated positive adaptation in several areas of their life and endorsed fewer risk factors, however, a significant portion reported engaging in aggressive and criminal behavior and repeating a school year due to failure. Findings implicate the need for further research on distinguishing psychological sequelae in urban minority youth exposed to violence. Further investigation is necessary to clearly define the processes of risk and protection on outcomes. Support for continued prevention and intervention at multiple levels to further develop protective factors contributing to positive adjustment and to decrease accumulative risks was also demonstrated.

In low-income U.S. cities, street fights between teenage girls are common. These fights take place at school, on street corners, or in parks, when one girl provokes another to the point that she must either “step up” or be labeled a “punk.” Typically, when girls engage in violence that is not strictly self-defense, they are labeled “delinquent,” their actions taken as a sign of emotional pathology. However, in Why Girls Fight, Cindy D. Ness demonstrates that in poor urban areas this kind of street fighting is seen as a normal part of girlhood and a necessary way to earn respect among peers, as well as a way for girls to attain a sense of mastery and self-esteem in a social setting where legal opportunities for achievement are not otherwise easily available. Ness spent almost two years in west and northeast Philadelphia to get a sense of how teenage girls experience inflicting physical harm and the meanings they assign to it. While most existing work on girls’ violence deals exclusively with gangs, Ness sheds new light on the everyday street fighting of urban girls, arguing that different cultural standards associated with race and class influence the relationship that girls have to physical aggression.