On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City

Really good book on stereotypes and the way that social constructions are built in society that shape  people's perspectives of one. This book really conveys the idea that the class and area in which one is born into really does take play in their economic status when they're older of their lifestyle. had to read for a sociology class and really enjoyed it.

In recent months, we have watched news clips of inner city black men getting stopped for such things as a missing tail light. Next we see the black man running before he gets shot or beaten or... So we wonder in our comfortable living rooms, why did he run for a missing tail light? Well, this book answers that question in full. I found the author's language clear, precise, objective, and completely illuminating. She has exposed a sore on our social fabric that is way beyond the point where it needs to be addressed and healed. First the Civil War, then the Civil Rights movement of the '60s, and now whatever must arise to solve the crises of mass incarceration of black men.

This is a fabulous book. I was seriously unable to put it down, and I woke up wanting to read more. It reads like the personal journal of a professional researcher who is deeply immersed with people she cares about (which is what it basically is). Haunting, painful, beautiful, and real. I ordered more copies to give as holiday gifts. I read constantly, and this is the best book I've read in the past year. I wish that everyone I know would read this important and powerful book.

This book is limited in that it attempts to describe what is thoroughly an experience that the writer cannot access--that of poor, black people in a particular Philadelphia neighborhood. However, the writer clearly recognizes that as a white woman she is an inherent observer in these interactions and happenings--her whiteness may even make her a more obvious observer.

I especially recommend this book to people interested in ending mass incarceration. It gives a very personal, particular view of how mass incarceration affects individual lives and begins to change entire families and communities.

Social study she did on her friends. She seems to be very bias. Cannot be called a study, more like story telling. Life stories of her "subjects of study" are interesting, but hard to read because of her style of writing. I liked "Gettoside" by Jill Leigh much more. Don't waste your time on bias opinion. There are better writers who write on this topic.

I approached this book with a heavy dose of suspicion. Who gets a book contract, based on their undergraduate thesis? That is almost unheard of. And unfortunately my suspicions were indeed warranted. My fear was the look at black life from the base of pathology. She obviously anticipated some of these concerns, she writes in the introduction, "The appendix recounts the research on which this work is based, along with some personal reflection about the practical and ethical dilemmas of a middle-class white young woman reporting on the experiences of poor Black young men and women."

Her thesis is based on the lives of young black men caught up in the criminal justice system in a black community in Philadelphia,PA and how that impacts not only their own lives, but the lives of family and community members as well. She becomes completely immersed in the community, and her goal is to become a fly on the wall. "Blending into the background became an obsession." On some occasions this works, and in other situations not so much. This method however skates the ethical line.

At times the book reads like a memoir, she attempts to become a honorary member of the community dubbed "6th St." The numerous times she documents clear cases of police brutality yet remains silent because the community seems unconcerned and there is not a lot of conversation around the event. Well, had she done some historical studying about policing in Philadelphia, she would have been well aware of the sordid and brutal history of the Philly PD, concerning the black residents, and what seems to her like apathy could indeed be fatigue, fear and a historical understanding of how reporting police brutality often leads to more of the same.

So, she is writing from a place of privilege, while attempting to act as though she is organic to the community. To her credit she acknowledges this privilege. "People have asked how I 'negotiated my privilege' while conducting fieldwork. Given that I am a white woman who comes from an educated and well-off family, this is a good question. In fact, I had more privilege than whiteness, education, and wealth: my father was a prominent sociologist and fieldworker."

While this method doesn't completely derail the book, it does dent the project somewhat. The undented parts allow us to see how a simple arrest, can lead to a life diminished by law enforcement. ..."Though the crimes that start them off in the penal system are often crimes of which richer young men, both Black and white, are also guilty: fighting, drug possession, and the like." This is a worthy exposition, and one I think we all sometimes lose sight of. "Thus, the great paradox of a highly punitive approach to crime control is that it winds up criminalizing so much of daily life as to foster widespread illegality as people work to circumvent it. Intensive policing and the crime it intends to control become mutually reinforcing. The extent to which crime elicits harsh policing, or policing itself contributes to a climate of violence and illegality, becomes impossible to sort out."

I wanted to go 2.5 stars, but not possible, so 2 it is.

A book that everyone should read to understand how generations of poverty have provided what I would call a new caste of Americans, one that there seems to be no way to save. Well written and easy to read, it is one of those books you never forget.

This is an interesting book and highlights many of the substantial problems within the current urban black community. Certainly problems of police repression, complete economic failure of the black urban milieu and lack of supportive family structure are issues that need to be addressed by both the white and black populations. I found several of her observations enlightening (e.g. the use of bail bonds in lieu of banks because black residents lack the required identification to open and account) but I think the author missed the point. Black urban communities are in the shape they are due in large part to the activities of that population of people. The police would not have such a large presence if things like shootings, robberies and assaults didn't occur so frequently in that community.

The onus of correcting the issues she identified lies largely within the residents of the black communities. The main personalities she describes were black males who lack the attitudes needed to change things. The rampant decline of the family unit, the chronic drug and alcohol addiction and the "chip on the shoulder" attitude of many people identified in the book are all major impediments to ever changing the environment for the people of that community.

I do have several significant reservations about the book. Many are clearly identified in the Epilogue section where the author goes into the methods she used while doing her research. She has breached the line from being a researcher and impartial observer to being a participant. The clearest example of that was her description of driving the car with one of the principle characters of her study while looking for someone to shoot in retribution for a slaying of one of his friends. She is very lucky the man in the car did not fire on the person who was thought to be involved in the original slaying otherwise she could have been an accessory to murder. She comes across and just another rich white girl who gets involved with the black community and then wishes her skin color were the same as theirs.

Another issue I have is that every time she uses the word black to describe a race of people she capitalizes that word but does not do so when using the word white or Hispanic. I am not trying to be petty here but I don't understand why one word describing a race of people is capitalized while words describing other racial groups are not.

This is an interesting book but is fatally flawed by the manner in which the research was conducted. It shows just how far the gap is between the mainstream white society and that of the urban black community.

A sociological study by a university student who lived in one of Philadelphia's crime prone neighborhoods (though not the most violent by far) to study the lives of residents with an emphasis on the young men in the criminal justice system as parolees, probationers and prisoners.

Be patient as you read the first chapters and think it's the usual liberal writing. Hoffman does a good job balancing her study by examining the excuses for young males who repeatedly break laws and fail to comply with probation terms, blaming others or circumstances for their problems, but not changing their ways.

She presents a view of the residents leading non- criminal lives, and their frustrations with crime, police and relatives engaged in crime.

She also admits that police are placed in an impossible role, required to use the criminal justice system to address family and social issues that need a different set of solutions.

Goffman advises that most habitual offenders are high school drop outs from poor and dysfunctional families, though growing up in a financially stable home doesn't guarantee anything. I did see that a hard working single parent spoiling a child can lead to serious trouble, too.

Both the poor kids with drug addict parents and spoiled children are lacking the personal responsibility and sense of empowerment needed to cope with life's challenges. Grown men with mommies keeping track of their court dates for them to keep them from getting locked up are not doing their sons a favor.

Other young people are living in terrible poverty in spite of welfare programs and figuring life out on their own or given negative examples due to addicted or irresponsible moms and nonexistent fathers paying no child support.

I am incredibly impressed by the personal sacrifice the author made for her research. Her drive and compulsion takes her deep into a culture few of us can relate to. She writes with refreshingly simple and clear language (especially considering her association with Cornel West).

I found the meat of the book, however, to be incredibly frustrating. All of the criminal actions of her subjects felt like they were described in the passive voice. The police acted to inflict pain and punishment. The "boys" were victims.

I kept wondering about her conclusions of cause and effect and whether she could have gained some insight if she hadn't blown off her statistics class. There are lots of descriptive statistics about percentages of minorities in the criminal justice system (all well trodden ground), but no attempt to quantitatively untangle the cycle of violence, police response, more violence, more response, etc. To me, this is the core of the issue. Maybe that is work for others, but it requires some note if her conclusions are to have clout.

Stockholm syndrome was always on my mind as I read the book. For the first half I felt like she had fallen in too deep with her subjects which led her to conclude that the boys were the victims, despite their continuous criminal actions. By the end, I became more convinced that it was her academic environment that clouded her conclusions.

Her descriptions of her personal experiences and those of the "clean" were beyond compelling and were more honest (by my reading) than the main part of the book that focused on the sociological conclusions. Her work chronicling of the "clean" and "decent" was inspiring. The writing on her personal experiences kept me up late at night.

I have to give Alice Goffman tremendous praise for writing about an underside of American society that we are mostly blind to. This examination of the permanent underclass is both depressing and frightening. Their reactions to society and the fact they live a life which is alien to most other people in the country.

I did find two issues with her conclusions. The first being the lack of accountability in the subjects she examines. While speaking of drugs, especially crack, Ms. Goffman seems to place most of the blame at the feet of the government and mostly the police. While she does conclude the police are forced to do a terrible job she, at no times, places any blame on the subjects she profiles. She does not absolve them but she also does not question if they share any blame for their conditions.

Secondly, Ms. Goffman seems to perpetuate the stereotype of African Americans as a criminal underclass. There are allusions to people who avoid this trap but they are seen as the exception and not the rule. It's unfortunate as it results in many successful blacks being seen as rare exceptions. Perhaps her next study can focus on them to provide a more balanced, or not, view.

Still this is compelling and heart breaking reading.

Alice Goffman undertook a massive project for her academic dissertation in sociology - an ethnographic study documenting the lives of a group of people living in a predominately black, crime ridden neighborhood in Philadelphia. She ended up doing more than documenting - she lived in and around the 'hood for six years, becoming roommates with two of the young men who figure prominently in her book.

Goffman ends up being accepted as part of the scenery in the pseudonymous 6th Street, welcomed by a group of young men and their families to document their lives. And those lives are full of trouble - crime, drugs, poverty, arrests, warrants and any other number of hardships. Goffman immerses herself in part their lives, crossing the impartial observer line in many cases to become a participant.

Her statistics regarding young, poor black men are frightening. This book does serve to underscore what we see almost every day on news feeds. We also get to know the friends and families of this core group. Goffman does also make connections with people in the neigbourhood who are 'clean' and trying to make a good life without the crime, guns etc. These subjects are just as interesting, but receive less focus.

I did find that some stories were repeated in more than one chapter - Goffman seems to be using certain compelling incidents to illustrate numerous points she wants to highlight. I found the appendix of her own journey to and through the book quite fascinating.

On the Run is an accounting from one side of the street. There are some questions as to the veracity of some of the anecdotes and interactions that Goffman describes. Some of her own motives, behaviors and recollections have been called into question. Despite that, On the Run does provide much food for thought - and discussion.

Robin Miles was the narrator. She has a voice that is easy to listen to, clear and well modulated She is able to emphasize and empathize with a change in tenor and tone. She's also able to provide suitable voices when one of the subjects of the book is 'speaking'. I thought she interpreted the book well.

The New Republic has a great article on this book, "Ethnography on Trial". The problem is, you have to keep asking yourself, is she lying? Did she make this up? Did she conspire to commit murder, as she relates in the book? Or, was that just all a lie for dramatic effect, as she claimed when confronted about this? Why did she not help the police in their murder investigation? And how many more of these stories are true at all?

In her story about Chuck's murder, she claims to have been in his hospital room but ignored by the detectives. She says this is proof of something evil in the police department. "Did they think I was medical personnel? A social worker? A distant friend of the family? How much did race or class or gender play a role? I don't know," But her story does not fit the facts in the police reports, who in their detailed reports note others being there but not her. "The real story of Chuck's death and its aftermath differs from Goffman's account in significant ways, and these differences call into question the reliability of much of her narrative." But how much?

She goes on to regale us with her tale of driving around, helping the armed gang to hunt down and kill the perp. "She did this, Goffman writes, not because she wanted to learn firsthand about violence, but because she 'wanted Chuck’s killer to die.'” When advised later that this is a felony, she claimed it was a "make believe" hunt, just a ritual that wasn't really going to hurt anyone. Which is it? "Why write about sitting in the car with the engine running, ready to speed off, if Goffman really believed there would be no violence?"

She also claims that the gang (and herself) had a good idea who the perp was. But why didn't she share this with the police? As one detective said, "if this alleged female witness had information back in 2007, this case may have been cleared much quicker if she had come forward."

Then she claims that the investigation was dropped because the "white" police had no interest in finding the killer, which is also untrue. But "acknowledging the efforts of law enforcement to solve the case would also contradict one of the main themes of her book, in which the police and prosecutors oppress but do not really serve the 6th Street community."

"The publication of On the Run was greeted by effusive praise from social science luminaries such as Christopher Jencks of Harvard and Tim Newburn of the London School of Economics, but not one of Goffman’s enthusiastic reviewers has yet publicly disavowed her troubling behavior. The unfortunate lesson for future graduate students seems clear: Don’t worry about getting too close to your subjects and don’t worry about morally compromising situations, as long as you craft a compellingly told story."

This was a strange, strange book. Young white girl, son of a noted ethnographer who died before she ever knew him, moves to Philadelphia ghetto while a sophomore at Penn--to befriend thugs. All the while, she knows this is all for the research. She is actively seeking her life's work and she finds it on "6th Street".

Still in her late adolescence and not fully formed as a person, she gives up the normal social life of an undergraduate, has no real friends, she tells us, no romantic interests, is dumped by some friends who question her life choices, and lives as a "lame" (that is ugly and socially clueless) among the urban poor. She does all this to learn the language, mindset, and rules of life on the street. And she succeeds. By the end of the book, she tells us that she wanted members of the opposing gang killed and had started acting and behaving like a thug herself, checking out the electronic equipment at her graduate school to see what she could steal if ever needed some cash. (Whether or not you want to believe all this is up to.)

That her primary informant and roommate (!), "Mike" ended up finally going to jail right about the same time she got her acceptance letter from Princeton is a testament to the ethical dilemmas inherent in academics studying any downtrodden culture. His life was interesting. Hers was not, or rather was interesting only in so far as she got to hang with him. But she had a plan and he did/does not.

The author is open about the fact that everyone questioned her relations with the black men she hung out with. At the death bed of one of the men, she says she loves him. When they first meet, "Mike" tells her she's got a nice little body. But it's not like that, she tells us. Fine, I believe her. Nevertheless, their relationship is deep.

We could fault Goffman for her privilege but it seems like she has used her position for good. At this point, this is her life and no doubt future books by her will continue to explore the issues she introduces in On the Run.

Loosely organized according to the "Clean People" and "Dirty People", a distinction pointed out in earlier scholarship, the book reads like a story of what happened during her six years living on 6th Street with looong anecdotes to illustrate, for example, that loyalty and protection from the police served as a form of social collateral in this community. (Isn't loyalty a form of social collateral in any community?)

This isn't sounding like a five stars review but it is. The book was a totally readable, thoroughly researched ethnography. It would be great if all scholarship was this relevant, engaging, and useful. Even her footnotes were interesting and important.

Toward the end of the book, she makes the comment that what she observed was not racial profiling, a startling conclusion based on some of the things she saw, and one which I imagine some people will critique. But the book reports how some chose this complicated life "on the run" while others chose to follow the rules and keep their records clean. The book offers lots and lots of data for us to explore why this might be, but it would have been interesting if she'd turned to one of her boys and just asked, Why do you choose to live like this? Cause it's exciting? Cause it's who I am? Cause I need to prove my manliness by pulling the trigger and showing that I'm a threat? It'd be interesting to hear what they'd say.

Officials parrot the same refrain in crime-plagued communities: we can't stop it by ourselves; we need the help of the public. So, why don't the residents, the afflicted ones, help? If Goffman's exercise in sociology does nothing else, it answers that question neatly, and powerfully. Who would cooperate with a paramilitary force that imprisons men, leaves women to fend for themselves, destroys already weak families, ensures perpetual poverty, and generally turns life upside down (as in taking care of business in the dead of night)? Would you?

But the larger question, which Goffman leaves readers to formulate and answer for themselves, is: what would work? Perhaps a system that punished when necessary; that showed more understanding and mercy most of the time; that, in doing so, made it possible for people to cooperate with authorities in bringing order and real justice to these neighborhoods.

As for Goffman's methods, well, many will find them questionable. She immersed herself in the neighborhood and became one of the gang, the accepted white sister. Her immersion led her into risky situations, some, such as abetting lawbreakers, illegal. Even more, though, while it provided her with deep insight into how these poor and sieged communities work, it distorted her lens. She was no longer an impartial observer; she was an active participant in the life, to the point where she questioned who she was. That seems a certain signal that she carried things over the line and tosses a pall over her findings and conclusions.

Some may find the book tedious slogging after the first couple of sections. If so, you might jump to the conclusion, which summarizes her findings and thoughts. You might also read her section on methodology to grasp how far down the rabbit hole she tumbled.

While these are critical remarks, I'm still giving the book 4 stars. Goffman raises important questions in readers' minds. She illustrates that what we are doing currently is not working. Not only not working, but doing tremendous harm to whole generations. It's a criminal justice strategy that alienates the communities it is supposed to help, and alienates the communities looking on and wondering what the heck is going on.

Only a liberal "social justice" warrior could have written this book. It places the blame of people's shortcomings and transgressions on the system and not where they truly lay...the actors. If you're an out of touch liberal, you may like this book too.

Goffman does a great job in discussing the violence that permeates inner city life for young people. Her work dovetails, and in many placces overlaps, the work of Michelle Alexander.

As one who has done prison ministry for many years now as well as working with the homeless, I kept on looking for two areas that she never addressed. One of them, the presence and power of gangs, Goffman danced all around without using the word. Was this because of the baggage related to this word? If so, she needed to address the issues of prejudice within the Black community and the community at large about gangs.

The second issue was more glaring, and this comes from someone who lives in the south, so cultural differences may account for this. There was no discussion whatsoever about faith, religion, or church anywhere in the book. Within the African American community, the church is a major source of stability, yet its effects or failures were totally absent from this book. This was really strange to me.

Overall On The Run opens up the reader's eyes to a totally broken system within inner city America. However its shortcomings minimize, for this reader, the overall power of the book.

This supposedly objective 'study' (a sociologist's Princeton Ph.D. thesis) of life of young African-Americans in inner-city Philadelphia is built upon highly-biased observations and feelings that assume those observed are being victimized - despite witnessing dozens of shootouts on public streets, witnessing the planning of robberies, hiding a man wanted for attempted murder, and helping smuggle drugs into jail, and illegitimate children of teenage mothers. Nothing the police do is referenced in a positive manner.

One wonders why she was granted a degree instead of being arrested herself for involvement in/personal awareness many illegal schemes that often involved violence.

Do ethnographers not have a code of ethics? Apparently not, because Dr. Goffman can gleefully smuggle drugs into a prison and conspire to commit murder, write about it, then have the liberal academic community fawn all over her. This gullible woman is not a serious scholar. She believed everything her criminal associates told her, no matter how ludicrous. This book is nothing more than poverty porn.

While fascinating and illuminating, Alice Goffman's On The Run is frustrating. Amazingly, she seems to miss the point of her own book. Yes, it's terrible that the young men and women who are the focus of her study lead such sad, desperate lives, and yes, America's tortured racial history may have played a role in terms of how they grew up and what they experienced, and that may have played a role in reference to their criminal behavior, but ... to blame laws and law enforcement for their problems is ridiculous. Would she say the same if the people in her study were low-income law breakers who were white? I cannot help but wonder how many law-abiding citizens living in impoverished majority-black neighborhoods wish the police would take ALL of the drug dealers and gang bangers into custody? My guess is 99% of them.

For an actual study intent on disrupting the poverty/crime cycle, as opposed to farming it for Marxist plantation building and suspect class warfare...one must study the SUCCESSES, not the failures.
One learns a minute fraction by microscoping the same old tired Marxist propaganda. If one studies who "got out", how and why...you would find the answer staring you square in the face.
What are the hallmarks of difference?
For EVERY poor person in a violent, drug-infested hellhole who "made it"...you will find consistent, repeatable, near certain commonalities.
And "racism" didn't hold them back. Never does.
That's why 99% of cultures aren't held back by it. They don't use it as a Marxist scapegoat for failure.
Everybody can see that poverty and crime are always together.
most people say crime causes poverty to explain it.
But after you've lived in a country with corrupt police always looking for a bribe, or where every house has barbed wire or in a country where you have to buy everything twice because the first one is always stolen, then you might open your eyes and see through the bias to realize:
Crime causes poverty.
There's a culture of poverty. This book describes it perfectly.
I'd like to know if there's a country anywhere, at any time, that was able to eliminate the culture of poverty. There have been various combinations of police supervision and charity/government largess. Many of these have served to *reduce* crime and make poverty less dire (or more comfortable, depending on your point of view).
But is there a country that can honestly say "We have poor people, but our social programs have eliminated the culture of poverty?" That is, no homelessness, no dysfunctional families, no alcohol or drug abuse, no juvenile delinquency, no crime or antisocial behavior?
Does anybody know "the answer?"
There are no notes or documents supporting the book. She says she destroyed them to protect her informants. A book without factual support is a novel.

I read this book with growing disbelief. Surely, this must all be a joke. It reads like an Onion headline: White Academic Harbors And Conspires to Commit Murder with Violent Felons, Laments System In Which Police Seek to Arrest Them.

I’ll give Goffman props for entering a world in which few dare to tread. And for tutoring an at-risk kid. The kudos stop there. She writes as if she has never been the victim of a crime. As if she doesn’t understand violence or loss or accountability or the importance of telling a true account when it comes to taking on highly charged issues such as race relations and police presence in the inner city. On The Run does a disservice to its subjects, to the police, to the reader. The plight of the urban poor calls for smart, discerning folks to step up to the plate to seek solutions. And that’s what’s so depressing and wrong-headed about this awful book. Not only does it fail to provide any answers, but it doesn’t even know what the right questions are.

A well researched ethnography is almost always fascinating -- an intimate look at lives and social structures we hadn't known or understood. Alice Goffman's book definitely fits this description. But it's importance goes well beyond that. At a time when overzealous policing and the mass incarceration of young black men have become everyday topics, we sorely need insight into the communities affected and into the techniques of policing and control in order to think reasonably about alternatives. Goffman describes a community ravished by the drug trade and seriously oppressed and distorted by the policing that supposedly was a response. But underlying everything, Goffman makes clear, is the enormous weight of a system of control that actively interferes with an individual's effort to become educated or gain employment. Children arrested and jailed for schoolyard scuffles, fathers taken into custody when they try to attend the birth of their children, men jailed for months for being unable to pay their traffic tickets. And the constant threat of intracommunal violence that arises in any community when the political structures that are supposed to maintain law and order have lost all credibility. Some reviewers have felt the author "took the side" of the people whose lives she documented. Yes, that was her job as an ethnographer. And it's our job, as readers, to benefit from that perspective as we think about undoing the terrible destruction caused by the war on drugs and mass incarceration and reimagine the meaning of community.

On the Run describes the lives of young black men in a poor neighbourhood in Philadelphia, here called 6th Street. The author is a young, white female sociologist from an academic family, who spent many years living on 6th Street as part of her research.

The PhD thesis, on which it is based, was recognised by the American Sociological Association as a landmark contribution to the field. The book has become a best seller - astonishing and riveting according to the New York Times.

For many commentators the boys and men of 6th street are “bad” people who make “bad” choices and create a “bad” community. They choose to deal drugs, settle differences with a gun or a knife, skip bail, run from the cops, drive without licenses in cars they don’t own, use false names, cheat on their girlfriends, and always dealing drugs. They are the problem – they draw the criminal system onto themselves. Heavy police activity is appropriate and justified. Zero tolerance.

Goffman argues it may be in part the other way round. Since the 1970s the War on Drugs has dramatically increased the number of people in prison, especially black men. Whole communities - poor black neighbourhoods - live under the constant shadow of the penal system. This causes individual and social responses which appear to make things worse, but actually make sense from the point of view of a young black man without a high school qualification – he is likely to be sent down “anyway”. He strives to delay that event and reduce jail time as much as possible. If running from a siren buys you another three months outside then you run. If giving a false name gets you off a dealing rap then you give a false name. If your speeding ticket stops you getting a license, you get a fake ID. If going to hospital risks you being picked up in the ER, you get treated in your kitchen by a nurse aide who lives on your block.

In fact a whole culture has risen in response to Zero Tolerance- or rather subculture. How do you study such communities – off the mainstream, on the margins? How did Alice do this? Not from the outside but from the inside – the method known as participant observation. A method pioneered by American sociologists, also pioneers of the study of urban life. On the Run is especially close to the classic work by Wilfred White, Street Corner Society.

So like White Goffman lived among her subjects for many years, sharing their lives and troubles. She attended 19 funerals and witnessed at least two killings, her clothes being spattered with the blood of one man gunned down by her open car door. She provides detailed analyses of daily living based on copious field notes. She describes patterns of friendship and partnership, of love and honour, trust and loyalty. All people, she writes, “create a meaningful social world and moral life from whatever cards they have been dealt” – that includes the young men she lived among on 6th Street.

In a long final chapter she describes her method in detail. Her account is revealing. There is always a “danger” that immersion leads to loss of focus and any kind of scientific observation is slung. It is clear that Alice formed very strong attachments to Chuck and Mike especially. They gave her the street name A-Boogie. She confesses – among other things – that the murder of Chuck in 2007 was a profound and personal tragedy. She admits that she drove Mike around town looking for the presumed gunman, a man from another neighbourhood, with the clear intention of killing him and wanting to do this.

That has to be a problem. But.

Her conclusions pull no punches. She observes the persistence of a racial caste system in the United States. She does not see the problem specifically or particularly as a racist police force; she writes indeed their hands are as tied by the cuffs as much as those of the men on whose wrists they place them. The problems lie higher and wider in national social and political structures. The big picture.

I think it an amazing piece of research and really important. I can see that much of what she describes in the lives of 6th Streeters may alienate or exasperate many readers not opening their doors onto 6th Street - but we have to look beyond and behind. This is the kind of sociology that was called for by C Wright Mills, partisan and emotional, yes, but also rigorous and meticulous and honest.

As others note the author claims that she drove around with an armed man as the driver in a getaway car in order to commit murder. *If* true she is a felon who participated in attempted murder. However, numerous suspicions of her veracity have been raised (see e.g. http://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/ethics-on-the-run).
These include:
1. Claims of attending a closed court session (she would not have been allowed in).
2. Claims of charging a minor for merely riding in a stolen car (minor did not commit crime "Even adult passengers, he told me, are not charged for riding in stolen cars, because that is not a crime in Pennsylvania.").
3. Claims of hospitals giving their *visitor lists* to the police (would be a violation of federal law. In addition, the last time you visited hospital did anyone ask you for ID?).
4. Claims of sentencing a minor to probation for fixed terms (Pennsylvania does not have fixed terms of probation for juveniles. )

If you want a good fiction book, this is not a bad one. If you take this seriously you should be aware of the controversy around it.

While some of the central themes and assertions about the effects of hyper-policing and other by products of the war on drugs, poverty, and drug culture in Philadelphia and other major cities are important and valid, there have been recent findings that large portions of this book have been inflated or fabricated so that a supposedly serious academic could offer a more exciting story. If you still want to read this novel wrapped in non-fiction, please do so with that understanding. These are serious issues. Especially as a Philadelphian living in a predominantly black neighborhood, I'm frustrated by all this. The challenges our community is facing are not made better by someone muddying the water in order to sell more copies of a book.

This 'book' is finally getting the once-over it should have gotten long ago and the findings aren't pretty. Let's just say that in the near future, Ms. Goffman may find herself compared unfavorably to Sabrina Erdley of UVA/Rolling Stone fame. The truth of many of the tales she relays in her 'ethnographic study' have come into question. And it appears, if one specific tale she relays is actually true, that the author committed a felony in the process of conducting her 'research'.

Here's the latest review: http://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/ethics-on-the-run#.VWTI4SbIaZY.twitter

Unfortunately today, scientific research, along with media journalism, has become nothing more that a politicized appendage of the progressive agenda. It amazes me that so many people continue to swallow hook, line, and sinker, the kind of sensationalized, uncorroborated, ethno-dramas put forward by apparatchiks like Ms Goffman.

Growing up in Brooklyn and familiar with the struggles of an inner city, I really wanted to like this book. But it reads more like a dissertation and removes the reader from hearing Goffman's authorial voice. The structure of the book is quite cumbersome to read and very choppy--there are paragraphs full on conclusions and random dialogue between characters sprinkled throughout the book. Goffman is also very repetitive--repetitive to the point that paragraphs seem to be copied and pasted in different sections throughout the book. I have read about Miss Linda's roach-infested house at least five times. Rather than mentioning trivial details, she chooses to constantly repeat them.

I give her credit for immersing herself in a neighborhood foreign to her, but the book does not reveal anything more than her observations. The reader does not get to know the author, her own thoughts, her reactions, etc. She witnesses police beatings and even two murders--yet there is virtually no inner reflection. Also, the main characters--Chuck and Mike--as well as the supporting ones are painted as one-dimensional characters. As a reader, I wanted to learn more about Mike and Chuck instead of cloaking them as the stereotypical drug-dealing convicts. I wanted to know more about Miss Linda, other than her crack addiction, roach infested house, and the fact that her three sons have three different fathers. These descriptions reinforce the stereotype of black communities. I am sure there is more to these characters than what she chose to include.

I was hoping for something concrete and insightful regarding recidivism. Unfortunately the narrative reads like poor crime drama and there is no great insight from the author after almost decade of research.

Reading the very first sentence on the inside front cover and I knew this book was the bias opinion of a little girl who has no morals. If you believe that children living in squalor is ok, as this author does, then this book is for you. If you believe that seeking revenge is ok, as this author does, then this is the book for you. This is nothing more than an attempt to bash the laws of this country and the police who enforce them. I could not get past the first few pages.

An infuriating waste of time.

Ms. Goffman, like so many out of touch academics of her ilk, have lives based on "feelings" not reality. Her heart bleeds for the downtrodden among us. She spent 6 years living in the inner city with the street vermin that we all try and avoid if we can. I'm not referring to the poor (literally not figuratively) hardworking people who are forced to live in these crime infested ghettos. For them I have sympathy. It must be Hell. I am referring to the types of people that Ms. Goffman identifies and associates with in this book. The criminals. The lazy, violent, thugs that have chosen a life of crime. To hear Goffman tell it, these poor souls never had a chance and they are victims of their lot in life. BS. Many, many people rise above it all and make something of themselves. Living a life of crime is a lifestyle choice.

As a 30 year law enforcement veteran I have no sympathy for people who chose this lifestyle. I got to see all the victims. The blood. The gore. The ruined lives. I worked up close and very personal with the unimaginable levels of violence and destruction this thugs left in their wake. My heart bleeds also. My heart bleeds for all the poor victims who ran across one of her "friends" that she so closely identifies with.

Admittedly, I did not finish the book. After about the 5th chapter I just couldn't stomach Goffman's love affair with the thugs and miscreants she chose to spend 6 years of her life with. She spoke lovingly of them and the trials that these poor misjudged people have to go through while blaming law enforcement at every turn. She had nothing positive to say about law enforcement or anyone in it making us the bad guys because of the tactics we employed to try and rid the streets of thugs and bad guys. She complained that our tactics prevented her friends from being able to go to the hospital to get stitched up after getting beating or shot during an act of criminality. Oh boohoo. I have an idea. Get an education. Pay attention in school. Don't sell or do drugs. Don't run the streets like cockroaches. Don't hang with people just like you who are likely to beat or stab you when things go awry and you won't need the service of a hospital. Goffman seemed to have a real problem with the police (we were always at hospitals for one reason or another) checking out the various thugs that show up there. I'll use a fishing analogy. You fish where the fish are. Most people would be scared to death if they knew just how thinly the police are spread. You go where your limited resources can be most effective.

Goffman causally bemoans the fact that some 19-20 year old unmarried, never employed, street criminal can't safely visit his offspring. This is a reoccurring theme in the chapters I read. She makes no comment and reserves judgement on the fact that these thugs were having kids in the first place, offspring that would no doubt go down the same path daddy did, that of being thugs and drains on societies limited tax resources. I guess as an academic, she want's to remain impartial and not judgmental of her subject matters, BUT ONLY, when it comes to her beloved street urchins. She has no compunction whatsoever judging the police, their motives and tactics. That's a little intellectually disingenuous I think.

I lost track on how many felonies Ms. Goffman committed herself befriending and sympathizing with these people. She was a frequent accessory both before and after crimes had taken place and in one egregious example (so I read in one of the other reviews), went looking to commit murder and only failed because they couldn't find the intended victim. I'd say she's as bad as her subjects were, but to me she's way worse. Her subjects are common thugs. Uneducated street criminals. They know they are. We know they are. There's no intellectual dishonesty there. She on the other hand is worse because she's a seemingly educated woman who should know better. Her heart bleeds for the people most of us fear and try to avoid. She is missing something that makes us human. She seems to be missing the part of a normal persons DNA that makes them see reason and have empathy and sympathy for the true victims in society, the people who's lives are ruined, if not outright taken, by her beloved, perpetually picked on, inner city friends. To her, they aren't bad people, just misunderstood. Everything in their lives is somebody else's fault, usually the police's. to Ms. Goffman, personal responsibility plays no role in the violent, dysfunctional arc that these people's lives take.

For all these reasons, you might want to avoid this utter waste of time. It's complete trash. A waste of paper.