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Dead End Kids: Gang Girls and the Boys They Know, by Mark Fleisher. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. 278 pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-299-15880-2.
Mark Fleisher has given us a glimpse into the daily lives of gang members. The primary setting is the Fremont Hustlers territory in Kansas City, Missouri. Fleisher attempts to take the reader beyond life in the gang, developing a picture of the home and work life of gang members. He uses the daily lives of gang members to illustrate the social ills that permeate their world. Experiences with poverty, teenage pregnancies, single-parent families, drugs, domestic abuse, the judicial system, and school lead them to decide to join and stay in a gang. Despite attempts by Fleisher to help one gang member, Cara, have a "productive" life, in the end she chose life on the street with her fellow gang members.
Throughout the book, Fleisher provides insights into successful participant observation that might be useful for students, such as "Cardinal rule number one of street fieldwork is: Never say anything you don't want repeated to everyone" (p. 24). Or "Cardinal rule number three of street fieldwork: Be there all the time. These kids don't trust adults" (p. 32). While his "cardinal rules" illustrate important techniques and may be beneficial for the...