A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior, with such behavior often constituting a form of organized crime.
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist, a professor at Harvard University, and an author of works on urban sociology, race, and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th President of the American Sociological Association, was a member of numerous national boards and commissions. He identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbated poverty within American inner-city neighborhoods.
Robert Taylor Homes was a public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois from 1962 to 2007. The second largest housing project in the United States, it consisted of 28 virtually identical high-rises, set out in a linear plan for two miles, with the high-rises regularly configured in a horseshoe shape of three in each block. It was located along State Street between Pershing Road and 54th Street, east of the Dan Ryan Expressway. The project was named for Robert Rochon Taylor (1899–1957), an African-American activist and the first African American chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). It was a part of the State Street Corridor which included other CHA housing projects: Stateway Gardens, Dearborn Homes, Harold Ickes Homes, and Hilliard Homes.
The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation is a gang active primarily in the United States as well as internationally. The gang was founded by Puerto Ricans in Chicago, Illinois, in 1954. The Latin Kings are one of the largest Hispanic and Latino street and prison gangs worldwide.
Steven David Levitt is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels. Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in the field of crime, and is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago as well as the Faculty Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change at the University of Chicago which incubates the Data Science for Everyone coalition. He was co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press until December 2007. In 2009, Levitt co-founded TGG Group, a business and philanthropy consulting company. He was chosen as one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Levitt their fourth favorite living economist under the age of 60, after Paul Krugman, Greg Mankiw and Daron Acemoglu.
Edward Sebastian Vulliamy is a British-born, Irish-Welsh journalist and writer.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Published on April 12, 2005, by William Morrow, the book has been described as melding pop culture with economics. By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Based on the success of the original book, Levitt and Dubner have grown the Freakonomics brand into a multi-media franchise, with a sequel book, a feature film, a regular radio segment on National Public Radio, and a weekly blog.
Larry Hoover is an American former gangster and street gang kingpin. He is the founder of the Chicago street gang, the Gangster Disciples.
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American businessman. He co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is chairman, chief executive officer and controlling shareholder. Zuckerberg has been the subject of multiple lawsuits regarding the creation and ownership of the website as well as issues of user privacy.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migration of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling, speakeasies and were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African American neighborhoods were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is an American sociologist and urban ethnographer. He is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology & African-American Studies at Columbia University, a position he has held since 1999. In his work, Venkatesh has studied gangs and underground economies, public housing, advertising and technology. As of 2018, he is the Director of Signal: The Tech & Society Lab at Columbia University.
Approximately 1.4 million people in the United States were part of gangs as of 2011, and more than 33,000 gangs were active in the country. These include national street gangs, local street gangs, prison gangs, outlaw motorcycle clubs, and ethnic and organized crime gangs.
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal is a 2009 book by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook, adapted by Aaron Sorkin for the 2010 film The Social Network. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin served as Mezrich's main consultant, although he declined to speak with him while the book was being researched. After Zuckerberg and Saverin settled their lawsuit, Saverin broke off contact with the author.
Azusa 13 is a street gang based in Azusa in the eastern San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles. Started in the 1960s, it is now one of the most aggressive Sureño street gangs, currently claiming around 400 active members.
Crime in El Salvador has been historically extremely high due to the presence of various gangs. As of 2011, there were an estimated 25000 gang members at large in El Salvador; with another 43500 in prison. The best-known gangs, called maras in colloquial Salvadoran Spanish, are Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and their rivals 18th Street; maras are hunted by death squads, including Sombra Negra. Newer rivals include the rising mara, The Rebels 13. El Salvador is one of the three countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America, along with neighboring Guatemala and Honduras, which are all afflicted with high levels of violence.
City & Community is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by SAGE Publishing on behalf of the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. It was established in 2002 with Anthony Orum as the founding editor. The journal covers the interface of global and local issues, locally embedded social interaction and community life, urban culture and the meaning of place, and sociological approaches to urban political economy, as well as urban spatial arrangements, social impacts of local natural and built environments, urban and rural inequalities, virtual communities, and other topics germane to urban life and communities that will advance general sociological theory. The editor-in-chief is Richard E. Ocejo and.
Anthony Allan Braga is an American criminologist and the Jerry Lee Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Braga is also the Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously held faculty and senior research positions at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Braga is a member of the federal monitor team overseeing the reforms to New York City Police Department (NYPD) policies, training, supervision, auditing, and handling of complaints and discipline regarding stops and frisks and trespass enforcement.
Victor M. Rios is a professor, author, and speaker. His research examines how inequality plays a determining role in the educational and life outcomes of marginalized populations. Rios is of Mexican American origin. He has written several books and is known for developing the theories of the youth control complex, Cultural Misframing, Legitimacy Policing, Masbloom, and Educator Projected Self-Actualization.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a 2016 nonfiction book by American sociologist Matthew Desmond. Set in the poorest areas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 2007–2008 financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, the book follows eight families struggling to pay rent to their landlords, many of whom face eviction. Through a year of ethnographic fieldwork, Desmond's goal is to highlight the issues of extreme poverty, affordable housing, and economic exploitation in the United States.
Sex worker abuse by police officers can occur in one or more ways. Police brutality refers to the intentional use of excessive force by a police officer, be it physical, verbal, or psychological. Police corruption is a form of police misconduct where an officer obtains financial benefits and/or career advancements in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. Police misconduct refers to inappropriate actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Sex workers, particularly poor sex workers and those who had been manipulated, coerced, or forced into sex work, are at risk of being obliged or otherwise forced to provide free sexual services to police officers out of fear of being harmed or arrested. Some sex workers have reported that they have encountered police officers who have physically assaulted them without evidence of a crime and without making an arrest.
