He has been studying gangs and violence for the past twenty years. He is the author of People & Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City and co-editor of Female Gangs in America: Essays on girls, gangs, and gender. He is edited the recent Gangs in the Global City: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology. His forthcoming book, A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture, will be released by the University of Minnesota Press in 2008.