Beggars and Thieves: Lives of Urban Street Criminals

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The research for Beggars and Thieves was funded by the u.s. Bureau of the Census, Center for Survey Methods Research, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Leslie Brownrigg (U.S. Census Bureau) and Karen Colvard (Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation) supported this research over many years. Thanks for your assistance and encouragement. Numerous law enforcement agencies contributed to this research. The Federal Bureau of Prisons granted me permission to interview inmates at USP Lompoc. The King County Correctional Facility gave me access to its premises. All over California, city detectives and state parole and probation agents, as well as staffers in the California Department of Corrections and California Youth Authority, assisted me in many ways. The California Prison Gang Task Force listened to ideas at the earliest stages of analysis and offered streetwise opinions. I'm grateful for their advice. In years of full-time employment in the Federal Bureau of Prisons I had experiences few scholars have had. During those years I had two mentors. Dr. Calvin R. Edwards tossed me onto the playing field of correctional administration and management and taught me how a professional administrator makes the right decisions in the sensitive, high-profile business of federal corrections. Dr. Richard H. "Dick" Rison supported me at the very beginning of this research , and years later he had confidence in my ability to work in federal corrections. Cal's and Dick's kindness, generosity, and thoughtfulness led to experiences I would have missed without them and to opportunities that dramatically altered the trajectory of my professional life. vii Copyrighted Material viii Acknowledgments Dale Welling and Lenny Lopez, Sacramento Intelligence Unit, Federal Bureau of Prisons, helped me bring this research and analysis to federal, state, and local law enforcement officials. Thanks for your friendship. Street officers and administrators in the Seattle Police Department treated me wonderfully. These officers were helpful, honest, and encouraged my research from the first day I arrived in Seattle. Seattle's police officers do a tough job, often in dangerous neighborhoods, and they do it fairly with a high degree of personal and professional integrity. Every Seattle street cop I accompanied, watched, listened to, and interviewed had a genuine concern about lost kids on the street, and they showed it with kindness toward these kids. I wished many times that street kids' parents cared as much about their children 's well-being as Seattle's street cops did. Were these children's parents as vigilant and as kind as these cops, they wouldn't have had to take the kids to prison. Years of prison and street research touches numerous agencies and dozens of critics and colleagues in the academic world. Philippe Bourgois, Fox Butterfield, Scott Decker, Jeffrey Fagan, James B. Jacobs, Lynette Lee-Sammons, Bob Littlewood, Nancy McKee, Matt Salo, Carl Taylor, Torn Ulen, David Ward (Minnesota), Ralph Weisheit , Neil \tY;einer, Ed Wells, Torn White, Kevin Wright, as well as many others, listened to field tales, offered opinions about my perceptions and interpretations of ethnographic data, and read portions of the early versions of this book. Thanks for your assistance, support, and good ideas. This book was reviewed for the University of Wisconsin Press by three world-class scholars: H. Russell Bernard (University of Florida ), Robert F. Meier (Iowa State University), and James F. Short, Jr. (Washington State University). With their comments, criticisms, advice, and suggestions I was able to transform a manuscript into this book. This research began while I served in Washington State University 's Department of Anthropology. My colleagues there supported me by showing patience for the time spent off campus conducting fieldwork. Dr. Geoffrey Gamble, then chairman of the Department of Anthropology, now vice provost for Academic Affairs, has been a friend and strong supporter of my street and prison research since 1976. I am grateful, Geoff, for nearly 20 years of friendship. After leaving the Federal Bureau of Prisons I joined the faculty at Copyrighted Material Acknowledgments ix Illinois State University, which is firmly committed to scholarly activity and demonstrates it with substantial support for its research faculty. Colleagues in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences listened to my street stories and offered good criticisms while I wrote this manuscript. Dr. Betty Chapman, dean, College of Applied Science and Technology, encouraged the writing of this book, and has supported all my current research. Dr. Ann McGuigan, my wife, has traipsed around the country with me...