busting stereotypes about gang violence

Listen to this week's "This American Life" at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/harper-high-school-part-one .  I think it demonstrates that stereotypes about gang violence may well be out of touch with reality, in this case about block gangs that filled in when the gangsta disciple leadership was taken out by forces of law and order, as even a local police officer well recognizes.  The moral:  Let's not presume we know "best practices" to "stop" gang violence without first asking people involved what they are really fighting or threatening to fight about, according to the principle of asking people to speak about their own lives before we criminologists presume to talk about them.  l&p hal