In Gangsters: Fifty Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America, Lewis Yablonsky provides answers to the most baffling and crucial questions regarding gangs. How has the American gang evolved into its current structure? What prompts young people to participate in violent behavior? What can be done to extract adolescents from the gangster world of crime, death, and incarceration once they have become involved?

Using information gathered from over forty years of experience working with gang members and based on hundreds of personal interviews, conducted in prisons and gang neighborhoods, Yablonsky explores the pathology of the gangsters' apparent addiction to incarceration and death, presenting his sophisticated analysis in an engaging and personal style.