SIU Press kicked off our Fall 2024 season with the release of two exciting new books in August.
Through interviews, analysis, and life-course theory, retired Boston police officer and criminologist Paul F. Joyce uncovers the long-term impact of gang membership and explores which intervention methods can make a difference in the lives of current gang members in his new book It Started with the Hats: The Life Experiences of Boston’s Founding Street Gang Members.
“This book packs a punch. Joyce pulls back the curtain on Boston’s gangland to unveil the trials and tribulations of the boys who were there when it started and the men they became. Having policed the city for 28 years before undertaking his graduate training in criminology, Joyce is uniquely positioned to tell this story in the pursuit of a safer future for youth in Boston and beyond.” —David C. Pyrooz, author of On Gangs and Competing for Control: Gangs and the Social Order of Prisons
As the first book to document the experiences of Puerto Ricans in the state of Illinois, Puerto Ricans in Illinois maps the pedacito de patria (little piece of home) that many Puerto Ricans have carved from the bitter hardships faced in Illinois.
“In Puerto Ricans in Illinois, Maura I. Toro-Morn and Ivis Garcia have crafted a detailed, comprehensive, and accessible account of Puerto Ricans in Illinois. Through the use of archival collections, aggregate data, interviews and focus groups, and a profound sociological analysis, the authors bring to life the history, peculiarities, struggles, and contributions of Illinois’s—and the nation’s—second-largest Latino group. There are no better scholars who could bring us this well-crafted book about the Puerto Rican experiences in Illinois.” —Xavier Totti, editor of Centro Journal