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In the tradition of great urban ethnography, Clean Streets offers a compelling portrait of one community's struggle to keep crime out of its neighborhood. Patrick Carr takes the reader into a typical white, working-class Chicago neighborhood struggling to keep its streets clean and safe. Through a five-year study, Carr shows the lived reality of this urban neighborhood by profiling attempts to create a safe environment, one free from drugs, gangs, and crime. In remarkable prose, Carr details the singular event for this community and the resulting rise of community activism: the shootings of two local teenage girls by area gang members outside an elementary school. As in many communities struck by similar violence, the shootings led to profound changes in the community's relationship with crime prevention. As much as this story is that of one Chicago neighborhood, it could just as easily be any other city's and Carr is careful to put this tale in the larger context. The book should be of interest to scholars in criminology, sociology, urban studies and race and ethnicity studies, and should attract attention from policymakers and practitioners concerned with keeping communities safe.