57th Street Books
1301 E 57th St
773.684.1300
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John Hagedorn, A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture
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Thursday May 8, 2008 (6pm)
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The city has responded to the recent wave of gang violence by stepping up SWAT-team patrols (armed with semiautomatic weapons), increasing helicopter surveillance, and organizing escort services for vulnerable students. But John Hagedorn, University of Illinois-Chicago criminal-justice professor and author of A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture, doesn't think these strategies will reduce crime rates. Gangs, Hagerdorn argues, are responses to racism, hopelessness, and poverty: give the people jobs and affordable housing and the situation will improve itself. Tonight, Hagedorn, whose motto is "research, not stereotypes," explains why organizing and empowering gangs for social change is the best solution to the city's violence.
