Dead End Kids: Gang Girls and the Boys They Know Book

"Most people think they know about gang girls. They know they talk tough and play rough. They know they wear tattoos and scary hair. They know-or they think they know-these are not the girls they want their daughters to grow up to be. In Dead End Kids, Mark Fleisher humanizes this harsh stereotype. We learn that many of these young women come from abusive backgrounds. We learn that they are often the pawns of men, or boys. We learn that their lives are seldom easy, and that choice is rarely in their hands. Most of society has given up on these girls. Mark Fleisher shows us why this is a tragic mistake."-Elizabeth Mehren, national correspondent, Los Angeles Times "Fleisher has done it again! Dead End Kids is simply one of the very best up-close accounts of urban crime-and perhaps the best ever account of female involvement in street gangs-ever published. His fascinating, real-life analysis of today's gang girls and boys, and his original and convincing arguments about the need to make 'protecting babies and pre-schoolers' a primary goal of gang intervention programs, places Dead End Kids on par with his now classic Beggars and Thieves as must reading for anyone who cares about the future of at-risk youth and young adults."-John J. DiIulio, professor of politics and public affairs, Princeton University "Mark Fleisher became remarkably tight with core members of a large female street gang and with their male counterparts in a devastated inner-city area. He provides a lucid, poignant, and well-reasoned account of the internal structure and dynamics of the gang world, along with insightful observations of boy/girl relationships, drug dealing, violence, values, and group norms. This is a 'must' read in the gang literature; I have learned from it."-Malcolm W. Klein, director of the Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California "Dead End Kids is a remarkable story based on firsthand science, researcher caring, and informed social policy. The ethnography of girls in gangs in a Midwest city is a wake-up call. Mark Fleisher provides insights and remedies to address the misperceptions and failures of our urban and increasingly rural institutions."-Irving Spergel, George Herbert Jones Professor of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago "Dead End Kids proves that Mark Fleisher is one of the very best, if not the single best, criminological ethnographer in the United States today. This is a fantastic book!"-James B. Jacobs, professor of law & director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice, New York University Girls are no less important to gang life than boys. Poor young women get trapped in cycles of victimization and self-defeating behavior despite their tough talk to the contrary. In his shocking yet compassionate new book, highly acclaimed criminologist Mark Fleisher exposes the depravity and humanity in gang life as seen through the eyes of a teen-aged girl named Cara. Dead End Kids provides a firsthand account of Cara's life as a member of a Kansas City gang, the Fremont Hustlers. Drugs and guns, shootings 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 fill her days. The book describes in detail the social and economic pressure on Cara and fellow gang members whose lives were shaped by poverty, family disorganization, and parental neglect. Fleisher looks for hope in Cara's life, tries to bring her a brighter future, and ultimately fails. Dead End Kids will break your heart.Read More