Book excerpt: "In 2003, an FBI-led task force known as Operation Fly Trap attempted to dismantle a significant drug network in two Bloods-controlled, African American neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The operation would soon be considered an enormous success, noted for the precision with which the task force targeted and removed gang members otherwise entrenched in larger communities. In Operation Fly Trap, Susan A. Phillips questions both the success of this operation and the methods used to conduct it. Balancing her roles as even-handed reporter and public scholar, she brings together personal narratives, crime statistics, gang cultural histories, and extensive public policy analysis to reveal multiple flaws within the U.S. criminal justice system, building a powerful argument that many law enforcement policies in fact nurture, rather than prevent, violence in American society."--Back cover.