Until now, attention to gang life has been focused almost exclusively on the world of male gang bangers. But a disturbing new phenomenon across America has been the rise of girl gangs. In 8 Ball Chicks, veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following girl gangs - white, black, and Latino - in South Central Los Angeles, in San Antonio, and in Milwaukee.

Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to male gangs, girl gang bangers in fact are frequently as violent, emotionally closed off, and dangerous as their male counterparts, Sikes finds. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car-jackings, stomp outsiders who stumble into the neighborhood, viciously retaliate against other gangs, and ferociously guard their home turf.

But Sikes also captures the unique differences that distinguish girl gangs - abortion, teen pregnancy, teen motherhood, endless beatings, the humiliation of being forced to have sex with a lineup of male gang bangers, and the struggle to raise kids in a household of drugs and guns with a part-time boyfriend who is off gang banging himself.

In following the lives of several key gang members in each city, we discover the fear and desperate desire for safety and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place - and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.