At fifteen Victor Rios found himself a human target-flat on his ass amid a hail of shotgun fire desperate for money and a place on the street. Faced with the choice of escalating a drug turf war or eking out a living elsewhere he turned to a teacher who mentored him and helped him find a job at an auto shop. That job would alter the course of his whole life-putting him on the road to college and eventually a PhD. Now Rios is a rising star hailed for his work studying the lives of African American and Latino youth.<br><br>In <I>Human Targets</I> Rios takes us to the streets of California where we encounter young men who find themselves in much the same situation as fifteen-year-old Victor. We follow young gang members into schools homes community organizations and detention facilities watch them interact with police grow up to become fathers get jobs get rap sheets-and in some cases get killed. What is it that sets apart young people like Rios who succeed and survive from the ones who don't? Rios makes a powerful case that the traditional good kid/bad kid street kid/decent kid dichotomy is much too simplistic arguing instead that authorities and institutions help create these identities-and that they can play an instrumental role in providing young people with the resources for shifting between roles.
