Journey back Inside The Blanket Fort as we take a deeper dive into one of the new books from 2024: It Started with the Hats: The Life Experiences of Boston’s Founding Street Gang Members by Paul F. Joyce.
A new installment in SIU Press’s Perspectives on Crime and Justice series, It Started with the Hats is a uniquely candid look at gang membership, made accessible through the perspectives of the men who experienced it. The book, which immediately caught the attention of the criminology community, is already on its third printing since August.
In the late 1980s, the introduction of crack cocaine and easy access to guns led to the emergence of the street gang culture and an explosion of gun violence in Boston. Black and Latino youth were both perpetrators and victims of firearm violence as the city grappled with a staggering number of shootings and homicides. Officers within the Boston Police Department struggled to find new and creative ways to combat the growing violence and neutralize gang influence. Paul Joyce was one of those officers.
Throughout his extensive career with the Boston Police, Joyce was at the forefront of the Department’s anti-gang and youth violence initiatives, including during the height of gang and gun violence in the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Later in his career, after thirty-one years in policing, Joyce transitioned to academia as a criminologist, seeking to better understand the lives of the gang members he had encountered during his time as an officer. He interviewed thirty Black and Latino men who witnessed and led the emergence of the street gang phenomenon in Boston. Joyce’s strong relationship with community leaders led to the recruitment of the men, who ultimately entrusted him with their life stories and their inner worlds. Using the men’s own words to describe the tragedies they endured, the crimes they committed, and the penalties they paid, Joyce now shares their stories of life before, during, and after gang membership.