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by Melvin Delgado (Author)
Gun violence occurs in urban areas more than it does anywhere else, and youth of color in these areas are disproportionately impacted in the United States. How can we approach this? What can we do to stop this from happening in the first place? In addition to trying to bolster the barriers one must cross to acquire a gun, we must also focus on the communities struggling with this abuse. In this book, Melvin Delgado approaches this nationwide issue with a specific focus on the victims: detailing the primary issues surrounding gun violence, what social workers can do about it, and why it is critical for those in the field to get involved.
Delgado identifies the current strategies used by social workers, providing professionals with the tools necessary to identify key problems before they escalate enough to lead to violence. He also discusses ways to reshape the education social workers receive to make sure they keep these racial injustices in mind in their approaches. Self-help organizations can intervene and potentially reduce the number of gun-related deaths that occur in cities nationwide, but we too often do not look to them after a shooting. Urban Gun Violence presents opportunities for improvement based on the work done by urban self-help organizations in the past. Building off of these organizations from across the US--from Louis D. Brown Peace Institution in Boston to the Community Justice Reform Coalition in San Francisco--Delgado illustrates how social workers can advocate for minority communities impacted by this lethal weapon. With chapters spanning everything from how people obtain guns--legally and illegally--to lessons from the field, the book outlines the path toward successful intervention.Author Biography
Melvin Delgado, PhD, is Professor of Social Work at Boston University School of Social Work. He is the former Chair of the Department of Macro Practice there. He has 40 years of practice, research, and scholarship published on urban population groups with focused work with the Latinx community. Delgado has focused his professional and academic career on developing urban-based outreach, research, and service-delivery models stressing participatory democratic principles. His work tackles a variety of social issues, and he has published numerous articles and 30 books on topics surrounding urban community practice. He is currently the Series Editor for Social Justice and Youth Community Practice (Oxford University Press).
