"A daring and hard-hitting examination of urban gangs, Islands in the Street provides a new understanding of these underworlds of violence, defiance, and criminal activities. Eating, sleeping, and sometimes fighting with gangs in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, Martin Sanchez Jankowski takes us inside a secretive world, giving us gang members' own words as well as those of police, public officials, and community members who live among gangs.

Emphasizing gangs as organizations, Jankowski gleans new insights into why they outlast efforts of law enforcement agencies and negative media campaigns and why some gangs rise and thrive while others decline and die. Jankowski shows us a world of surprising entrepreneurial drive and sometimes stringent hierarchical order and discipline. He probes the often close ties between gangs and politicians and investigates media hype and sensationalism around gang activities." - from inside flap of dust jacket

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