Street criminals live in a dangerous world, but they cannot realistically rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from predation by fellow lawbreakers; they are on their own when it comes to dealing with crimes perpetrated against them and often use retaliation as a mechanism for deterring and responding to victimization. Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal World explores the face of modern day retaliation from the perspective of currently active criminals who have experienced it first hand, as offenders, victims, or both.

Bruce Jacobs is the author of two previous books, Dealing Crack and Robbing Drug Dealers, as well as the author or co-author of approximately 20 journal articles and book chapters. He is also the editor of Investigating Deviance and the recipient of competitive grant funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

1. Background and methods; 2. The retributive ethic; 3. A typology of criminal retaliation; 4. Gender and retaliation (with Christopher Mullins); 5. Imperfect retaliation; 6. Retaliation in perspective.