"This important new work by critically the acclaimed sociologist and author of Dangerous Society makes it clear that girls and young women have become a real force in the drug culture and in 1990s urban gang life. Girls, Gangs, Women and Drugs is based on a decade of field work undertaken in the city of Detroit by one of America's foremost gang experts and his team of researchers. In the course of this investigation, Taylor and his staff interviewed hundreds of girls and young women. Based on what they learned, Dr. Taylor has prepared this spell-binding account of drugs, money, sex, and violence. He commands the reader's attention as complex webs of female gang life and drug culture are unraveled." "Girls, Gangs, Women, and Drugs is a book about women, young and old; it is about gangs; it is a book about their survival in a society that has abandoned them; it is a book about women in the criminal justice system; it is about judges, attorneys, administrators of the court, and correctional officers; it is about the women who serve on the police force. It focuses on a large segment of Detroit's female population and how these women see what they are doing as committing acts of self-empowerment - the personal pursuit of their own version of the American Dream." "Girls, Gangs, Women, and Drugs takes a close look at the hard economic realities of life on the street and the women who must encounter them every day. Its message is clear: female involvement with drugs and gangs is yet another facet of America's decaying urban culture, one that commands our immediate attention."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

One of the Guysexamines the causes, nature, and meaning of female gang involvement. Miller situates the study of female gang membership in the context of current directions in feminist scholarship and current research on both gangs and female criminal offenders. The body of the book draws on interviews from girls in two mid-sized midwestern cities with relatively new gang histories, St. Louis, Missouri and Columbus, Ohio. It discusses how and why girls join gangs, the nature of girls' involvement in gangs (including initiation rituals, gang rules, inter-gang-rivalries, and criminal activities), and how gang involvement shapes girls' participation in delinquency and their risk of victimization, as well as the ways their gender affects this experience.

This statutory guidance on injunctions to prevent gang-related violence draws on the experience and knowledge of the police service, local authorities and a wide range of local partners involved in dealing with violent gangs. It has been developed and approved by partners across the Criminal Justice System, as well as local practitioners. It has been produced after consultation with the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls, and has been laid before Parliament by the Home Secretary. The Policing and Crime Act 2009 contains provision for injunctions to prevent gang-related violence to be sought against an individual; these were commenced in January 2011. The Crime and Security Act 2010 contains provisions for breach of an injunction to be enforced against 14 to 17 year olds; these will be commenced in January 2012.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is the first to examine how female drug user's identities, and hence their experiences, are shaped by drug policies. It analyses how the subjectivities ascribed to women users within drug policy sustain them in their problematic use and reinforce their social exclusion. Challenging popular misconceptions of female users, the book calls for the formulation of drug policies to be based on gender equity and social justice. It will appeal to academics in the social sciences, practitioners and policy makers.

This vital resource offers an intervention designed to help divert young women from engaging in girl gang culture by providing them with the opportunities to explore alternative options for themselves that ensure a sense of self-worth and belonging in a non-aggressive culture where crime in not integral to their self-definition. This unique resource will give your school access to tools and evidence-based solutions that educate students about the risks of gang culture and provide them with strategies to rationalise and reject anti-social and offending behaviours. This essential resource will enable you to: identify the existence of both girl and boy gangs in school; develop whole school curriculum offering effective teaching and learning about gang issues; adopt a holistic approach to tackling gang culture including parents, community groups and local agencies; secure help for the most vulnerable students; and, prepare staff to deal with the difficulties that arise in tackling these issues.

Scholarship in criminology over the last few decades has often left little room for research and theory on how female offenders are perceived and handled in the criminal justice system. In truth, one out of every four juveniles arrested is female and the population of women in prison has tripled in the past decade. Co-authored by Meda Chesney-Lind, one of the pioneers in the development of the feminist theoretical perspective in criminology, the subject matter of The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime, Second Edition redresses the balance by providing critical insight into these issues. Bringing much-needed attention to the state of these often "invisible" wrongdoers, The Female Offender enlightens and intrigues readers including academics, researchers, and students in the areas of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and women’s studies. Likewise, anyone seeking cutting-edge information about a growing offender population will want to read this book.

This reader accompanies The Female Offender.