Product Description
by Carter F. Smith (Author)
Over the past several decades, there has been a continuous and growing focus on street gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and domestic extremist groups. Many of these groups have members with military training, and some actively recruit from current and former military veterans and retirees. That military experience adds to the dangerousness of veteran gang members, as well as those groups they associate with.
Communities everywhere are experiencing the damaging impact of gang criminal behavior. By observing gang activity from the Revolutionary War to today Smith examines the presence of military-trained, often veteran, gang members in the communities. He looks at the turning points in gang investigations in the military, and also looks at the laws and policies designed to specifically counter the criminal activity the threats of gang activity pose on a community. Grounded in current knowledge and research, Gangs and the Military successfully addresses the growing presence of criminal gang members in the United States. As well as reflects on how the authorities that counter and combat them are doing so on a national and global level.Author Biography
Carter F. Smith, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Department of Criminal Justice at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN. Carter is a retired Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) Command Special Agent, and was the inaugural team chief for the Army's first and most consistently operating Gang & Extremist investigations team. Carter has provided training on Gangs and their impact on the community to police and community leaders throughout the country. His academic publications include such topics as the dangers of spontaneous gang formation, military-trained gang members, gangs and their use of technology, and gang members in colleges and universalities. He was a co-author or author of Private Security Today, Gangs, and Introduction to Gangs. He has been interviewed about gangs by several national as well as regional and local television, print, internet and radio news sources, and has appeared twice in the History Channel's Gangland series. He was a founding, and still serving, board member of the Tennessee Gang Investigators Association, a member organization of the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations. In 1995, he was a recipient of the U.S. Army CID Command Special Agent of the Year award, and is a three-time recipient of the Frederic Milton Thrasher Award of the National Gang Crime Research Center.
