This book is an exploration of the sociological, biological, and psychological forces that create pathways into and out of street deviance. Utilizing in-depth case studies, the book examines the relationship of an individual's learned and inherited human traits and the culture that receives, socializes, and judges him or her. The book centers on the compelling life stories of City Baby and Star, two women who became criminal drug addicts, and the colorful history of San Francisco's Tenderloin District. It explains why City Baby is trapped in a world of drugs and violence, and how Star escaped...

This book is an ethnographic account of San Francisco's most inner city neighborhood, the Tenderloin. Using its streets as campus and its people as teachers, Stannard-Friel uses storytelling as a way of explaining why inner city social problems, such as homelessness, drugs, prostitution, untreated mental illness, and death of young people by murders and suicides, exist and persist there. The work delves into who lives in the Tenderloin and why, the role of dedicated service providers in meeting people's needs and encouraging social change, and what lessons university students, many coming...