On the Run

Fugitive Life in an American City

Alice Goffman

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Paperback

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English

University of Chicago Press
27 March 2015

Urban communities; Black & Asian studies; Police & security services; Drugs trade & trafficking

Series: Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries

Forty years in, the War on Drugs has done almost nothing to prevent drugs from being sold or used, but it has nonetheless created a little-known surveillance state in America's most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Arrest quotas and high-tech surveillance techniques criminalize entire blocks, and transform the very associations that should stabilize young lives-family, relationships, jobs-into liabilities, as the police use such relationships to track down suspects, demand information, and threaten consequences.

Alice Goffman spent six years living in one such neighborhood in Philadelphia, and her close observations and often harrowing stories reveal the pernicious effects of this pervasive policing. Goffman introduces us to an unforgettable cast of young African American men who are caught up in this web of warrants and surveillance-some of them small-time drug dealers, others just ordinary guys dealing with limited choices. All find the web of presumed criminality, built as it is on the very associations and friendships that make up a life, nearly impossible to escape. We watch as the pleasures of summer-evening stoop-sitting are shattered by the arrival of a carful of cops looking to serve a warrant; we watch-and can't help but be shocked-as teenagers teach their younger siblings and cousins how to run from the police (and, crucially, to keep away from friends and family so they can stay hidden); and we see, over and over, the relentless toll that the presumption of criminality takes on families-and futures.

While not denying the problems of the drug trade, and the violence that often accompanies it, through her gripping accounts of daily life in the forgotten neighborhoods of America's cities, Goffman makes it impossible for us to ignore the very real human costs of our failed response-the blighting of entire neighborhoods, and the needless sacrifice of whole generations.

By: Alice Goffman
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: UK ed.
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780226275406
ISBN 10: 022627540X
Series: Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 27 March 2015
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

ProloguePrefaceIntroduction1 The 6th Street Boys and Their Legal Entanglements2 Techniques for Evading the Authorities3 When the Police Knock Your Door In4 Turning Legal Troubles into Personal Resources5 The Social Life of Criminalized Young People6 The Market in Protections and Privileges7 Clean PeopleConclusion: A Fugitive CommunityEpilogue: Leaving 6th StreetAcknowledgmentsAppendix: A Methodological NoteNotes

Alice Goffman is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison.

Reviews for On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City

"""This is a truly wonderful book that identifies the casualties of the war on drugs that extend beyond the prison walls.... The detail is incredible. The research is impeccable. Read it and weep."" (Times Higher Education) ""Extraordinary.... The best work of ethnography I have read in a very, very long time."" (LSE Review of Books) ""An exceptional book.... Devastating."" (Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker) ""A remarkable feat of reporting."" (Alex Kotlowitz, New York Times Book Review)"