Lewis Yablonsky

About the author: Lewis Yablonsky, professor emeritus of sociology and criminology at the University of California, Northridge, is the author of several books on crime and juvenile deliquency, including Gangsters: Fifty Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America.

Gangs during the 1950s and 1960s were not heavily involved in drug trafficking. However, during the 1990s drugs became an important and lucrative business for gangs. As a result, gangs have become much more violent—and due to the easy availability of guns and semiautomatic weapons, much more lethal— than they once were. Gangs use violence to maintain control over their drug-selling territory and to settle business disputes, often killing their rivals in an effort to build up a reputation. Drugs and their gang-related violence are becoming America's biggest crime problem.

Atrocious...