ABSTRACT
Although the authors did notice an increasing number of news stories in which women were portrayed as actively involved in violent street crime, they were not yet convinced that these reports were any more than the demonizing or sensationalizing of which they spoke earlier. As a result, they decided to turn to police data in order to get a better idea of some of the trends and patterns of women's involvement in violent street crime. They were interested in whether there was an increase in women's involvement in violent street crime. Structural changes have brought increasing inequality into the economy and the lives of men and women who live in the most severely distressed communities. Three interrelated processes of capital disinvestment—residential segregation, racial inequality, and concentration of poverty—have intensified the crime problem in these communities. The decline in industrial manufacturing in urban areas reshaped the social organization of both conventional and deviant street networks.
