THE VIOLENT UNDERWORLD OF STREET GANGS
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Number: F 712
Publishing Year: 1962
Printing: First
Cover Price: 50c
Cover Artist:
ALL THE WAY DOWN
is the story of five years spent in the vicious, appalling underworld of the juvenile street gangs. Vincent Riccio, ex-boxer with an M.A. degree from Columbia, was a street worker with the New York City Youth Board. The life he describes makes "West Side Story" sound like a kindergarten fairy tale.
This is the brutal, unadorned truth about a world where rival gangs fight "wars" with tire-chains, knives and guns; where the teen-age date is replaced by mass rape in the back seat of a stolen car; where murder is a status symbol and kids of 14 are hopelessly hooked on dope.
"Juvenile delinquency is going to be unbeatable in ten years," the Attorney General of the United States said recently. Vincent Riccio writes bitterly: "I hope it's not unbeatable now."
No comments:
Post a Comment