Peace in the Streets: Breaking the Cycle of Gang Violence

Peace in the Streets is a realistic yet hopeful look at gang life. Hernandez uses vivid imagery and poignant stories to weave a picture of children immersed in gang life. The book recreates the lives of the students that participated in his small alternative school in East L.A. Peace in the Streets portrays the children not as violent monsters but as adolescents lost in an imperfect system and society. Hernandez possesses the unique ability to understand and eloquently portray the path most children followed before entering gang life. He writes with an empathy and sensitivity rarely seen in books of this nature. As an educator working in at-risk schools I found this book to be very enlightening. Peace in the Streets is one of the few books in this genre that offers incredible insight into the lives of gang members while providing a step by step plan for communities to help their youths. This book is a pleasurable and necessary read for educators, parents, and communities struggling with issues related to gangs.

As someone who has worked with gang members for a number of years, this book really resonated with me. It is so hard to communicate to people who gang members are behind the facades they wear. Arturo Hernandez's real life experiences speak powerfully to both the hopelessness and the hope to be found in America's inner-city areas. He also provides insights as to the underlying problems which have created our gang problems today, and hypothesizes about possible solutions, many of which seem viable based on my personal experiences. This book is a must-read, particularly for those in education-related fields dealing with gangs.

I read this book for my political science class and I loved it. It gave me my first look at gang violence. The author gives you a stunning first hand account on not the gangs as a whole, but the kids as indviduals. He helps you to see that these kids are all different. Some are good in school, others can't read... he helps us, who do not have to deal with these problems, see that there is no "typical kid or family". Every student who is thinking about going into social work, Psychology, policics, teaching, etc... should read this book. It will open your eyes.

The author's recounting of his experiences setting up a school for gang-involved youth in L.A. is riveting, compelling, and moving. His accounts are simultaneously chilling, heartbreaking, and uplifting as he tells of lives both lost and saved. The book reads like a novel, but you couldn't make up stuff this good. Hernandez has a unique gift for painting vivid word pictures that remind the reader that these aren't just stereotypical media creations of gang children--he's writing about the real thing! The last section of the book offers good, solid advice--from one who has firsthand knowledge of the problems of gang-involved youth--about how communities can band together to help these kids rather than declare war on them.