Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld

Street criminals live in a dangerous world, but they cannot realistically rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from predation by fellow lawbreakers; they are on their own when it comes to dealing with crimes perpetrated against them and often use retaliation as a mechanism for deterring and responding to victimization. Although retaliation lies at the heart of much of the violence that plagues many inner-city neighborhoods across the United States, it has received scant attention from criminologists. As a result, the structure, process, and forms of retaliation in the real world setting of urban America remain poorly understood. Criminal Retaliation: Street Justice and Social Control explores the face of modern day retaliation from the perspective of currently active criminals who have experienced it first hand, as offenders, victims, or both.