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to live on the streets? There are a lot of genuinely homeless youth. A couple of the kids involved in the assault on Jessica Williams had terrible histories. But when I first began researching, I expected that most of the youth involved in the murder of Jessica Williams would have backgrounds of foster care, abuse and neglect. In fact, the opposite was the case. Many of them came from very adequate families, even very loving homes. One was a college student who walked out of her dorm room and a scholarship. Another young man had a mother who had been a police officer. I think a lot of them hit the streets because it sounds romantic. How old are these kids? In the 1980s, 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds were on the street. That's our perception of what we call street kids: They're actual kids. But in reality, the majority of these youths are now adults. Ages have risen to the point where in one shelter review I found, the majority of the youth intakes were ages 18 to 20. They aren't minors. A street kid is a defined social identity. It's the same as saying, "I'm a Crip" or "I'm a Blood" or "I'm a Skinhead who belongs to the Aryan Nation." So, you see similarities between gangs and street families? Both gangs and street families are organized groups with a strong group affiliation. Street kids in families are very loyal to their leaders. Their leaders are identified as Mom and Dad. The youths identify each other as Brother and Sister. There are very strict codes of conduct, a highly developed hierarchal system. Like gangs, these kids have a very strong identity just to that particular group. And there are very savage punishments if you break their code. The difference is that a lot of African-American and Mexican gangs tend to still have strong ties with a particular community. They might still go home to Grandma's house or be living with their mom. But the street-family culture really encourages the youth to completely severe all ties with their original families and their communities. I think that has profound psychological impact on them. The street family becomes their reality. Still, the police don't seem to take street families as seriously as gangs. Why? Historically the focus with drug dealing and criminal activity has been on African-American and Mexican gangs. Here in Portland, the gang task force -- like other city gang task forces -- has overlooked the role of street kids. Part of it is a public-perception problem. People have a very romantic notion of street kids. In some cases, when police did crack down on the crimes of these street families, they were criticized for doing so. People aren't generally aware that street families exist or that they commit a lot of crimes and violence. Does racism influence our perception of street families? I wouldn't say it's overt racism. But perhaps partially because these youths are Caucasian, we just think that they're teenagers in mohawks hanging out in the street. I think if African-American youth were hanging out in our square or in the East Village or any of these cities and had formed into packs and given themselves names and organized a very elaborate, often brutal subculture, we would say, "That's a gang," and would rush to intervene. Is it just a few bad players who give street families a bad reputation? I found an amazing amount of violence within this subculture. A lot of the youth are armed. They carry knives or what they call smiley chains, which are chains that are linked into a circle. If you actually talk to them, they speak with ease about the violence they commit. It wasn't just the one particular street family I followed. I documented hundreds of crimes that other street families in the area had committed, often very violent crimes like muggings and hate crimes against gays. They call it "rolling trolls," which is their term for mugging gay men. But don't you worry that you might be tarring street families with a broad brush by using a murder to examine their society? That's something a lot of advocates came out and said when the Jessica Williams murder happened. They said, This is an anomaly. This is an aberration. This is very rare. But my reporting found that violence is not rare. In fact, violence is the defining aspect of the culture. It's how they keep each other in line. Violence is at the core of the fantasy games that they play to occupy themselves and to give themselves a sense of group identity. If they didn't have their fantasies and their games and their "code," as they call their rules, there wouldn't be much to actually hold these youths together on the streets. It gives them identity. Where does that violent urge come from? It's a natural outcome of having a lot of teenagers and young people running around on the streets unsupervised. Traditionally, most societies recognize that between the ages of, say, 18 to 20, young adults still need some guidance to help them develop strong morals and ethics. It's an age of energy and ambition. What really struck me was that the kids just have nothing to do. They're fed and clothed by shelters, and then they have the rest of the day to hang out and panhandle and do whatever. So it's not that surprising that they spiral into a savage society. Does the economy play a role? One girl named Sara fascinated me, because she was 20 and from a blue-collar background. In the past, she would have expected to get a solid job, marry, buy a house, raise a family. But we don't expect or even desire that from our young adults anymore. We've continuously moved the age of adulthood up to the point where there's a vacuum from the late teens to early 20s, particularly for young people who aren't going to college. They're bored. They don't have meaningful work. And we don't particularly want them to have kids that young. They're looking for a sense of identity and something to consume the incredible energy and risk-taking behavior of their age, and they can end up on the street. And then there is the white supremacist influence... Because we have a higher and higher number of young people sentenced to jail or juvenile homes, there's a trickle down between the criminal justice system and the street culture. And what you have in prison is a very racist, segregated and violent society. A lot of street-family culture is influenced by that. These are not benign, progressive sorts of kids. They're often very racist and very homophobic and very sexist, and they're open and accepting about it. You say the Internet plays a role in street-kid culture, too. How so? A lot of street kids are very computer savvy. I was surprised to meet kids that not only carried cellphones but also have laptops in their backpack. Through Web sites like Digihitch.com, a street kid can walk into a shelter, sit down at a computer, and within seconds be contacting and communicating with street kids in other cities. The Web has helped street kids become uniform in their subculture. So, whether you go to Seattle or New York or Minneapolis or any other place, you'll find that street kids are all talking in the same language and all have the same codes and the same rules. What impact do drugs have on street families? Drugs have made a huge impact on the street culture. Portland is a very meth-affected city. And meth is well documented for inducing psychosis. Some street kids have become heavy methamphetamine users. Many of them deal methamphetamine as well as other drugs. It has made them a lot more violent, a lot m