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A distinctive feature of the conflict in Northern Ireland over the past forty years has been the way Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries have policed their own communities. This has mainly involved the violent punishment of petty criminals involved in joyriding and other types of antisocial behavior. Between 1973 and 2007, more than 5,000 nonmilitary shootings and assaults were attributed to paramilitaries punishing their own people. But despite the risk of severe punishment, young petty offenders—known locally as “hoods”—continue to offend, creating a puzzle for the rational theory of criminal deterrence. Why do hoods behave in ways that invite violent punishment? This book explains why this informal system of policing and punishment developed and endured and why such harsh punishments as beatings, “kneecappings,” and exile have not stopped hoods from offending. Drawing on a variety of sources, including interviews with perpetrators and victims of this violence, the book argues that the hoods' risky offending may amount to a game in which hoods gain prestige by displaying hard-to-fake signals of toughness to each other. Violent physical punishment feeds into this signaling game, increasing the hoods' status by proving that they have committed serious offenses and can “manfully” take punishment yet remained undeterred. A rare combination of frontline research and pioneering ideas, this book has important implications for our fundamental understanding of crime and punishment.

Arquitecto Tucci, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, is a place where crushing poverty and violent crime are everyday realities. Homicides—often involving young people—continue to skyrocket, and in the emergency room there, victims of shootings or knifings are an all-too-common sight. This book takes a harrowing look at daily life in Arquitecto Tucci, examining the sources, uses, and forms of interpersonal violence among the urban poor at the very margins of Argentine society. It provides a powerful and intimate account of what it is like to live under the constant threat of violence. It argues that being physically aggressive becomes a habitual way of acting in poor and marginalized communities, and that violence is routine and carries across various domains of public and private life. The book traces how different types of violence—criminal, drug related, sexual, or domestic—overlap, intersect, and blur together. It shows how the state is complicit in the production of harm, and describes the routines and relationships that residents, particularly children, establish to cope with and respond to the constant risk that besieges them and their loved ones.

For many Americans, the Middle West is a vast unknown. This book sets out to rectify this. It shows how the region has undergone extraordinary social transformations over the past half-century and proven itself surprisingly resilient in the face of such hardships as the Great Depression and the movement of residents to other parts of the country. It examines the heartland's reinvention throughout the decades and traces the social and economic factors that have helped it to survive and prosper. The book points to the critical strength of the region's social institutions established between 1870 and 1950—the market towns, farmsteads, one-room schoolhouses, townships, rural cooperatives, and manufacturing centers that have adapted with the changing times. It focuses on farmers' struggles to recover from the Great Depression well into the 1950s, the cultural redefinition and modernization of the region's image that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of secondary and higher education, the decline of small towns, the redeployment of agribusiness, and the rapid expansion of edge cities. Drawing arguments from extensive interviews and evidence from the towns and counties of the Midwest, the book provides a unique perspective as both an objective observer and someone who grew up there. It offers an accessible look at the humble yet strong foundations that have allowed the region to endure undiminished.

More than thirty million Americans live in small, out-of-the-way places. Many of them could have joined the vast majority of Americans who live in cities and suburbs. They could live closer to more lucrative careers and convenient shopping, a wider range of educational opportunities, and more robust health care. But they have opted to live differently. In this book, we meet factory workers, shop owners, retirees, teachers, clergy, and mayors—residents who show neighborliness in small ways, but who also worry about everything from school closings and their children's futures to the ups and downs of the local economy. Drawing on more than 700 in-depth interviews in hundreds of towns across America and three decades of census data, the book shows the fragility of community in small towns. It covers a host of topics, including the symbols and rituals of small-town life, the roles of formal and informal leaders, the social role of religious congregations, the perception of moral and economic decline, and the myriad ways by which residents in small towns make sense of their own lives. It also tackles difficult issues such as class and race, abortion, homosexuality, and substance abuse. The book paints a rich panorama of individuals who reside in small communities, finding that, for many people, living in a small town is an important part of self-identity.

Once known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social conflicts within postindustrial cities. This book examines the perspectives and actions of disparate social groups who have been affected by or played a role in the nightlife of the Lower East Side, East Village, and the Bowery. Using the social world of bars as windows into understanding urban development, it argues that the gentrifying neighborhoods of the postindustrial city are increasingly influenced by upscale commercial projects, causing significant conflicts for the people involved. The book explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification. It considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture. By focusing on commercial newcomers and the residents who protest local changes, the book illustrates the contested and dynamic process of neighborhood growth. Delving into the social ecosystem of one emblematic section of Manhattan, it sheds fresh light on the tensions and consequences of urban progress.