UI Press | Edited by John M. Hagedorn | Gangs in the Global City: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology

Gangs in the Global City

Alternatives to Traditional Criminology

Understanding world-wide gangs through the lens of globalization

Although they were originally considered an American phenomenon, gangs today have grown and transformed into global enterprises. Despite these changes, criminologists have not yet reassessed worldwide gangs in terms of the other changes associated with globalization.

John M. Hagedorn aims to correct this oversight by incorporating important theoretical advances in urban political economy and understanding changes in gangs around the world as a result of globalization and the growth of the information economy. Contrary to older conceptions, today's gangs are international, are often institutionalized, and may be explicitly concerned with race and ethnicity. Gangs in the Global City presents the work of an assortment of international scholars that challenges traditional approaches to problems in criminology from many different perspectives and includes theoretical discussions, case studies, and examinations of gang members' identities. The contributors consider gangs not as fundamentally a crime problem but as variable social organizations in poor communities that are transitioning to the new economy.

"This strong mix of fresh ideas offered by top authors in well-written and well-researched commentaries makes this book an important publication."--Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare

John M. Hagedorn, an associate professor of criminal justice and a Great Cities Institute Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of Forsaking Our Children: Bureaucracy and Reform in the Child Welfare System.