NCJ Number
176622
Date Published
1998
Length
290 pages
Annotation
This is a first-hand account of the lives of adolescents in a youth gang called the Fremont Hustlers in Kansas City, Mo., with attention to the saga of a female member of the gang.
Abstract
The book describes the social and economic pressure on the gang members and the social arrangements and economic adaptation caused by that pressure. More specifically, it explores how parental neglect, household poverty, crime, and drug addiction induce social and emotional malignancies in these adolescents' lives. Aggravating and intensifying these youths' anguish and problems is the neglect of an entire city, whose law enforcement and civic leaders have overlooked their moral obligation to safeguard children's well-being and have instead pursued an aggressive strategy to lock away disruptive children and keep them out of sight. The book features life in a youth gang through the eyes of a teenage gang girl whom the author calls "Cara." Cara's life consists of drugs and guns, shooting and assaults, boyfriends and pregnancies, ratty apartments, broken-down cars, minimum-wage jobs, strained relationships with family members and peers, dodging the police, and praying for peace. The boys in Cara's world are cold; they abuse the girls, father their children, and then abandon them and the babies until they again need something from the girls. The author's relationship with Cara is a central theme in her story. The story includes how he attempted to get her off the streets, get her into a private school, and guide her in a direction the author thought she wanted to go. In the end, however, Cara chose her path back to the street and her companions there. The author notes that the research findings about the socioeconomics of and the crime linked to the Fremont Hustlers, as well as Kansas City's reaction to this youth gang, are not unique to this city. Chapter notes and a subject index