Download or read book Gang Life in Two Cities written by Robert J. Durán and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Refusing to cast gangs in solely criminal terms, Robert J. Durán, a former gang member turned scholar, recasts such groups as an adaptation to the racial oppression of colonization in the American Southwest. Developing a paradigm rooted in ethnographic research and almost two decades of direct experience with gangs, Durán completes the first-ever study to follow so many marginalized groups so intensely for so long, revealing their core characteristics, behavior, and activities within two unlikely American cities. Durán spent five years in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, conducting 145 interviews with gang members, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other relevant individuals. From his research, he constructs a comparative outline of the emergence and criminalization of Latino youth groups, the ideals and worlds they create, and the reasons for their persistence. He also underscores the failures of violent gang suppression tactics, which have only further entrenched these groups within the barrio. Encouraging cultural activists and current and former gang members to pursue grassroots empowerment, Durán proposes new solutions to racial oppression that challenge and truly alter the conditions of gang life.
Download or read book East Side Stories written by and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A knock-out bestseller on its hardcover release just a year ago, East Side Stories has earned stellar praise from The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, The Source, Paper, & has appeared in the pages of Life, Geo, & Revu, as well as many other international publications. East Side Stories has been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York, Mexico City, & Stockholm.
Download or read book Our Gang written by Leonard Maltin and published by Random House Value Publishing. This book was released on 1977 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-01-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller "A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined." —The Economist "A sensitive, sympathetic, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype." —Finanical Times Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America’s most diverse city—is also published by Penguin Press.
Download or read book Gang Life written by Mark Totten and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, here's a no-holds-barred inside account of life for criminal gang members in cities and towns across Canada. Mark Totten has slowly gained the confidence of gang members in many Canadian cities and small towns, and he knows enough to get the real goods from these men and women. In this book he tells the life stories -- so far -- of ten gang members drawn from across the country. Murderers, rapists, addicts, drug traffickers, victims of child abuse, abusers themselves -- these are people who many consider the worst of the worst. But from their life stories, a more nuanced and complex picture emerges. The circumstances and events which lead children and teens into criminal life become clearer. Meet: Jake, a 28-year-old former neo-Nazi skinhead gang member who beat people up "just for the fun of it," then became a drug dealer and a freelance enforcer for organized crime groups Kim, a Cree woman with two addicted parents who joined her gang at 14, kept off drugs, and ran a group of prostitutes until going to jail -- at just 16 Dillon, a Latino-Canadian, sexually and physically abused as a young boy, a drug dealer and gang leader in high school and later head of a local chapter of a major international gang until he was "honoured" out No one will think the same way about criminal gang members and the circumstances that lead to a life in crime after reading this compelling and revealing book.
Download or read book Inside the Crips written by Colton Simpson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-12-24 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside the Crips is the memoir of the author Colton Simpson's life as a Crip--beginning at the tender age of ten in the mid-seventies--and his prison turnaround nearly twenty-five years later. Colton ("C-Loc") Simpson calls himself the only gang member ever allowed to quite the Crips--and one of the few to survive into his thirties. Simpson--son of a ballplayer for the California Angels and a mother who was relentlessly rough with her sons after their fathers left her--became a gang member at ten. Inside The Crips tells the remarkable--and at the same time, all too common--story of gang life in the 1980s in immediate and descriptive prose that makes this book a gripping true-life read. Inside The Crips covers the rush that comes from participating in gang violence and the years-long wars between the Bloods and Crips. Simpson's story also puts the reader in the middle of the struggle between the Crips and corrections officers in Calipatria prison. It covers gang life from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties, and introduces characters it's impossible not to care about: Simpson's fellow gangbanger Smile; and Gina, the long-suffering friend and mother of two sons who married Simpson in prison.
Download or read book Gang of One One Man s Incredible Battle to Find his Missing Daughter written by Gary Mulgrew and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2012-01-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GANG OF ONE is the remarkable true story of one man's journey from a Glasgow orphanage to a notorious gang-infested prison in Texas. Driven by his desire to return to his son in England and haunted by the increasingly frustrating search for his missing daughter, Gary Mulgrew attempts the impossible task of surviving the prison's gang culture. Told with wit and humanity, GANG OF ONE shows a man constantly confronted by the moral and physical challenges of prison life, where everyone is encouraged to turn their back and 'see nuthin''. Gary's choice - to walk away and let a man die, or intervene and lose the chance to get home - makes GANG OF ONE a book as unforgettable as it is enthralling.
Download or read book Life in the Gang written by Scott H. Decker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-08-28 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is based on three years of field work with 99 active gang members and 24 family members. The book describes the attractiveness of gangs, the process of joining, their chaotic and loose organisation, and their members' predominant activities - mostly hanging out, drinking, and using drugs. The authors also discuss gang members' rather slapdash involvement in major property crime and their disorganised participation in drug traffic, as well as the often fatal consequences of their violent life-style. Although the book focuses on the individual, organisational, and institutional aspects of gang membership, it also explores gang members' involvement with other school and neighborhood structures. Extensive interviews with family members provide groundbreaking insights into the gang members' lives. As much as possible, however, the story is told in the gang members' own words.
Download or read book The Gang s All Queer written by Vanessa R. Panfil and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention, 2018 Distinguished Book Award presented by the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Sexualities Section The first inside look at gay gang members. Many people believe that gangs are made up of violent thugs who are in and out of jail, and who are hyper-masculine and heterosexual. In The Gang’s All Queer, Vanessa Panfil introduces us to a different world. Meet gay gang members – sometimes referred to in popular culture as “homo thugs” – whose gay identity complicates criminology’s portrayal and representation of gangs, gang members, and gang life. In vivid detail, Panfil provides an in-depth understanding of how gay gang members construct and negotiate both masculine and gay identities through crime and gang membership. The Gang’s All Queer draws from interviews with over 50 gay gang- and crime-involved young men in Columbus, Ohio, the majority of whom are men of color in their late teens and early twenties, as well as on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork with men who are in gay, hybrid, and straight gangs. Panfil provides an eye-opening portrait of how even members of straight gangs are connected to a same-sex oriented underground world. Most of these young men still present a traditionally masculine persona and voice deeply-held affection for their fellow gang members. They also fight with their enemies, many of whom are in rival gay gangs. Most come from impoverished, ‘rough’ neighborhoods, and seek to defy negative stereotypes of gay and Black men as deadbeats, though sometimes through illegal activity. Some are still closeted to their fellow gang members and families, yet others fight to defend members of the gay community, even those who they deem to be “fags,” despite distaste for these flamboyant members of the community. And some perform in drag shows or sell sex to survive. The Gang’s All Queer poignantly illustrates how these men both respond to and resist societal marginalization. Timely, powerful, and engaging, this book will challenge us to think differently about gangs, gay men, and urban life.
Download or read book My Bloody Life written by Reymundo Sanchez and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex, and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs are members of your own gang, who in one breath will say they'll die for you and in the next will order your assassination.
Download or read book Gangland 2 volumes written by Laura L. Finley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set integrates informative encyclopedia entries and essential primary documents to provide an illuminating overview of trends in gang membership and activity in America in the 21st century. Gangland: An Encyclopedia of Gang Life from Cradle to Grave includes extended discussion of specific gangs; types of gangs based on ethnicity and environment (rural, suburban, and urban); recruitment and retention methods; leadership structure and other internal dynamics of various gangs; impacts of gang membership on extended family; the historical evolution of gangs in American society; depictions of gang life in popular culture; violent and nonviolent gang activities; and programs, policies, agencies, and organizations that have been crafted to combat gang activities. In addition, the encyclopedia includes a suite of primary sources that offer a look into the personal experiences of gang members, examine efforts by law enforcement and public officials to address gang activity, and address wider societal factors that make eradicating gangs such a difficult task.
Download or read book Angels Town written by Ralph Cintron and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 1998-11-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As issues of power and social order loom large in Angelstown, Ralph Cintron shows how eruptions on the margins of the community are emblematic of a deeper disorder. In their language and images, the members of a Latino community in a midsized American city create self-respect under conditions of disrepect. Cintron's innovative ethnography offers a beautiful portrait of a struggling Mexican-American community and shows how people (including ethnographers) make sense of their lives through cultural forms.
Download or read book Real Gangstas written by Timothy R. Lauger and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Street gangs are a major concern for residents in many inner-city communities. However, gangs’ secretive and, at times, delinquent tendencies limit most people’s exposure to the realities of gang life. Based on eighteen months of qualitative research on the streets of Indianapolis, Real Gangstas provides a unique and intimate look at the lives of street gang members as they negotiate a dangerous peer environment in a major midwestern city. Timothy R. Lauger interviewed and observed a mix of fifty-five gang members, former gang members, and non-gang street offenders. He spent much of his fieldwork time in the company of a particular gang, the “Down for Whatever Boyz,” who allowed him to watch and record many of their day-to-day activities and conversations. Through this extensive research, Lauger is able to understand and explain the reasons for gang membership, including a chaotic family life, poverty, and the need for violent self-assertion in order to foster the creation of a personal identity. Although the book exposes many troubling aspects of gang life, it is not a simple descriptive or a sensationalistic account of urban despair and violence. Steeped in the tradition of analytical ethnography, the study develops a central theoretical argument: combinations of street gangs within cities shape individual gang member behavior within those urban settings. Within Indianapolis, members of rival gangs interact on a routine basis within an ambiguous and unstable environment. Participants believe that many of their contemporaries claiming gang affiliations are not actually “real” gang members, but instead are imposters who gain access to the advantages of gang membership through fraud and pretense. Consequently, the ability to discern “real” gang members—or to present oneself successfully as a real gang member—is a critical part of gangland Indianapolis. Real Gangstas offers an objective and fair characterization of active gang members, successfully balancing the seemingly conflicting idea that they generally seem like normal teenagers, yet are abnormally concerned with—and too often involved in—violence. Lauger takes readers to the edge of an actual gang conflict, providing a rare and up-close look at the troubling processes that facilitate hostility and violence.
Download or read book Gang of One written by Fan Shen and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The memoir of Shen, age 12 at the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, recounts being complicit in arduous Red Guard activities that directly or indirectly led to several gruesome deaths of political "enemies"--And later falling in love with and marrying the daughter of a man brutally tortured and killed by one of his fellow Red Guards.
Download or read book Gang Life written by Mark Totten and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, here's a no-holds-barred inside account of life for criminal gang members in cities and towns across Canada. Mark Totten has slowly gained the confidence of gang members in many Canadian cities and small towns, and he knows enough to get the real goods from these men and women. In this book he tells the life stories -- so far -- of ten gang members drawn from across the country. Murderers, rapists, addicts, drug traffickers, victims of child abuse, abusers themselves -- these are people who many consider the worst of the worst. But from their life stories, a more nuanced and complex picture emerges. The circumstances and events which lead children and teens into criminal life become clearer. Meet: Jake, a 28-year-old former neo-Nazi skinhead gang member who beat people up "just for the fun of it," then became a drug dealer and a freelance enforcer for organized crime groups Kim, a Cree woman with two addicted parents who joined her gang at 14, kept off drugs, and ran a group of prostitutes until going to jail -- at just 16 Dillon, a Latino-Canadian, sexually and physically abused as a young boy, a drug dealer and gang leader in high school and later head of a local chapter of a major international gang until he was "honoured" out No one will think the same way about criminal gang members and the circumstances that lead to a life in crime after reading this compelling and revealing book.
Download or read book The Gangster s Guide to Sobriety written by Richie Stephens and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richie Stephens is an actor who often plays hardened gangsters and criminals. This is easy for him because he was a drug trafficker, kidnapper, drug addict, alcoholic, and all-around criminal himself. His life twisted and turned in harrowing self-destructive adventures that took him from his native Ireland to San Francisco, Australia, and finally, Los Angeles, coalescing into a classic tale of a man trying to run from his problems by moving to new and more exotic locations—a hard and painful realization that comes at a point in which he’s about to take his own life. The only reason there is a story to tell is because he did not. Instead, he found help, and in doing so, found himself. More than that, he found that help comes in different forms, and oftentimes it just takes the right thought to hit at the right time for it all to make sense. The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety chronicles Richie’s descent into the abyss of crime and dependency, and how his personal understanding of freedom allowed him to become the functioning positive force he is today. Richie’s story is sprawling and epic, but the key to the book is the same key to his recovery: the 12 Steps. With his own flair and original understanding of life and the world, he followed the 12 Steps to find the clarity he needed to save his own life and evolve into a positive force for others. As Richie says, “Hopefully if people see that someone as fucked up as me could change their life, then there is hope for anyone.” The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety is gripping in its honesty and openness. Even at its darkest moments, there is a keen understanding of the absurd nature of life as the author comes to grips with his failings and his faith, while also entering a place of self-acceptance. This is a story of redemption and the power of the human spirit, and how sometimes you have to turn to something greater than yourself.
Download or read book Always Running written by Luis J. Rodríguez and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning memoir of life in an LA street gang from the acclaimed Chicano author and former Los Angeles Poet Laureate: “Fierce, and fearless” (The New York Times). Luis J. Rodríguez joined his first gang at age eleven. As a teenager, he witnessed the rise of some of the most notorious cliques in Southern California. He grew up knowing only a life of violence—one that revolved around drugs, gang wars, and police brutality. But unlike most of those around him, Rodríguez found a way out when art, writing, and political activism gave him a new path—and an escape from self-destruction. Always Running spares no detail in its vivid, brutally honest portrayal of street life and violence, and it stands as a powerful and unforgettable testimonial of gang life by one of the most acclaimed Chicano writers of his generation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Luis J. Rodríguez including rare images from the author’s personal collection.
