Book Review: The stickup kids: Race, drugs, violence, and the American dream

• Author: John C. Navarro
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016815571202
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

open communication policing is offered in Chapter 9, and the authors spend some time discussing

managerial and organizational issues relating to policing in Chapter 10. In this chapter, the authors

also examine police stress and how officers can manage their stress levels.

In Chapter 11, the text offers a discussion on the various types of police corruption as well as

police accountability issues. Both discussions convey nothing to readers, as the two main issues are

not well discussed. The 11 pages making up Chapter 12 capture the discussion of terrorism. A large

part of this chapter is spent explaining the difficulty of defining terrorism. In the words of the

authors, ‘‘terrorism has not been clearly and concisely defined, either on a national or international

level. There has not yet been, nor is there ever likely to be, an academic consensus on the definition’’

(p. 301). In the final chapter (Chapter 13), the authors discuss the future of policing and ask whether

there would be a new era of policing.

After reading the text, I asked myself whether it had any value or made any contribution to exist-

ing knowledge. The answer is no. There are several well-written introductory policing books already

published, and one might expect a new addition to serve some purpose: either to introduce needed

ideas or identify and fill in gaps created by existing texts. The current text serves none of these pur-

poses. According to the authors, existing introduction to policing or criminal justice and law

enforcement texts ‘‘are based, primarily, on an overview of specific topics rather than themes’’

(p. xv). After reading this text, one will surely conclude that the text did nothing different from exist-

ing ones and even did so poorly. As I have mentioned earlier, most topics discussed did not receive

much attention and left unanswered questions. Chapters in the text are disorganized and can easily

make readers confused, especially student readers. Authors and the publisher should have put in

some effort to ensure that the organization of the chapters was logical and coherent.

Overall, I will recommend other policing texts to scholars and readers who want to be well

informed about policing rather than wasting time reading a text that will not add anything to their

knowledge.

Contreras, R. (2013).

The stickup kids: Race, drugs, violence, and the American dream. Berkley: University of California Press.

296 pp. $29.95, ISBN: 0520273389.

Reviewed by: John C. Navarro, University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016815571202

Randol Contreras’ The Stickup Kids chronicles drug robberies, drug violence, and the capitalistic

pursuit for the American Dream of Dominicans from the South Bronx. Raised in the South Bronx

during the crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s, the Dominican author returned to his childhood

origins in order to examine the structural impact of crack cocaine primarily toward Dominican drug

robbers. The author offers a personal perspective of these criminals while using some theoretical

concepts, mainly those based on sociology. Contreras accomplished this by using ethnographic

methodologies. Particularly, Contreras has various conversations with his childhood friends and

others who became ‘‘stickup kids.’’ The aim of the book is to describe drug dealing and robberies,

their dynamics, and the participants’ lifestyles and their development in the context of the rise and

fall of the drug market—most notably, crack cocaine—in the South Bronx.

Separated into three parts and 11 chapters, Part I entitled ‘‘Becoming Stickup Kids’’ provides

background of the crack-cocaine culture in the South Bronx and the author’s primary childhood

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