Always
Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez
Paperback: 260 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.67 x
8.36 x 5.50
Touchstone Books; ISBN: 0671882317; Reprint edition (February
1994)
Do
or Die by Leon Bing
Paperback: 304 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x
8.00 x 5.34
Harper Perennial; ISBN: 0060922915; Reprint edition (May
1992)
Durango
Street by Frank Bonham
(Paperback - January 1999)
East
Side Stories: Gang Life in East LA by Joseph Rodriguez, Ruben Martinez, Luis J. Rodriguez
We've heard about drive-by shootings and territorial battles in the
news. "East Side Stories" brings the code, the lives, the words, and the
hope of actual gang members to light in this stunning collection of essays,
photographs, and an interview of ex-gang member Luis Rodriguez, now the
author of five books and the recipient of several major awards. The labyrinthine
rules and codes of gang life are examined and explained, while intimate
photographs of "gang bangers" in their homes and with their families put
a human face on what is, for many of us, just another story in the afternoon
newspaper.
Luis Rodriguez explains in his interview that the demonization and false
glorification of gang life has done much disservice to the termination
of gang activity, activity which he defines as "90% boredom." What's the
key to reduction of gang violence and improvement of inner-city lives,
to the dissolution of prisons as a right of passage? Part of the solution
lies in providing better education by informed and supportive teachers
who are able to tap into the overlooked creativity in inner-city communities.
And a great part lies in nationally understanding and supporting communities
bound by poverty, and encouraging people to work together to help people
work for themselves. Amazon.com
Paperback from powerHouse Books
Book Published: 31 August, 2000
8
Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters by Gini Sikes
"TJ had never killed anyone before, but then who knew for sure? Sticking
a pump shotgun out of a moving car and blasting into a crowd--you could
never really tell which bodies fell because of you, whose life you were
accountable for..." The cover may be gaudy, but this account of girl gangbangers
is down-to-earth and refreshingly free of melodrama. In order to write
8 Ball Chicks journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl
gangs in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and San Antonio. As Salon writes, "Sikes's
analysis is sparse and not particularly illuminating ('Without an effective
national policy for youth, kids fell through the cracks in droves'), but
she's got a good ear and the sense to step back and let her subjects seize
the microphone most of the time." Amazon.com Paperback: 276 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.69 x
8.02 x 5.20
Doubleday; ISBN: 0385474326; (February 1998)
Gang
Intelligence Manual : Identifying And Understanding Modern-Day Violent
Gangs In The United States by Bill Valentine
Book Description: Marauding gangs have become a fact of life in the U.S., but where did
these violent groups come from, and why are they so appealing to so many
youths today? This comprehensive guide provides answers to these questions
and more. It will open your eyes to a world few of us know, but most of
us fear.
Paperback from Paladin Press
Book Published: October, 1995
Gangs
And Their Tattoos : Identifying Gangbangers on the Street and in Prison by Bill Valentine (Author), Robert Schober (Illustrator)
In this book, Bill Valentine, author of Gang Intelligence Manual, shares
the latest intelligence on the predominant street and prison gangs and
other disruptive groups, with particular emphasis on their identifying
tattoos. Supplementing the text are scores of detailed illustrations by
Correctional Officer Robert Schober that replicate some of the most common
tattoos worn by members of each of the groups discussed. This groundbreaking
work makes a substantial amount of previously classified information available
to the general public for the first time. In addition to presenting the
latest intel on white, black, Hispanic and Asian gangs, it also includes
new information on groups such as the White Afrikaner Resistance Movement
and the Russian Mafia, which add to the mounting challenge faced by those
laboring to hold the line against the menace posed by gangs, hate groups
and organized crime. The Publisher. Paperback: 176 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.44 x
11.00 x 8.14
Paladin Press; ISBN: 1581600992; (November 2000)
The
Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld by Herbert Asbury, Jorge Luis Borges (Foreword)
Published to coincide with the release of Martin Scorsese's film, Gangs
of New York, starring Leonard DiCaprio, The Gangs of New York has long
been hand-passed among its cult readership. It is a tour through a now
unrecognizable city of abysmal poverty and habitual violence cobbled, as
Luc Sante has written, "from legend, memory, police records, the self-aggrandizements
of aging crooks, popular journalism, and solid historical research." Asbury
presents the definitive work on this subject, an illumination of the gangs
of old New York that ultimately gave rise to the modern Mafia and its depiction
in films like The Godfather. The Publisher. (Paperback)
Hell's Angels : A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson
Listed under Motorcycle Outlaws
Monster
: Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur, Monster Kody Scott
Paperback: 383 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.07 x
7.78 x 5.02
Addison-Wesley Publishing; ISBN: 0140232257; 1 edition
(January 1, 1998)
My
Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez
In My Bloody Life, Reymundo Sanchez tells a chillingly sad tale, from
his birth in the back of a pickup truck in Puerto Rico to the day he quit
the Latin Kings gang, 21 years later. From the first page, his narrative
is unpretentious, disarmingly honest, and horrifyingly riveting. His early
years were so full of pain and abuse that by the time he opts, at age 11,
to hang out with the local gang, the Latin Kings, it seems a perfectly
logical choice. In his shoes, any one of us--smacked nightly by a mother
and beaten ragged whenever the stepfather got the chance--would likely
have chosen the same path. The gang was the family that accepted him as
well as the peer group that offered girls who didn't say "no." Any violence
that went with the territory couldn't match the atmosphere of brutality
that permeated his own home. Sanchez was a Latin King for six years and
participated in innumerable bloody gang battles--years rife with sex, drugs,
booze, and acts of gang revenge. He finally got up his pluck to leave (and
the only way was to be "violated" out through a gang beating), but admits
in his conclusion that life since then has, in some ways, been even harder.
He's had to quit drugs, lose the only community he's known, support himself,
and deal with the nightmares of all the horrors he's seen and done. Though
Sanchez still hasn't accomplished his dream of completing college, he has
managed to leave the Kings, leave Chicago, leave behind his mother's legacy
of violence, and write an impressive first book. --Stephanie Gold -
Amazon.com Hardcover: 334 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.10 x
9.29 x 6.35
Chicago Review Pr; ISBN: 1556524013; (July 2000)
The
Westies by T. J. English
Book Description: Even among the Mob, the Westies were feared.
Out of a partnership between two sadistic thugs, James Coonan and Mickey
Featherstone, the gang rose out of the inferno of Hell's Kitchen, a decaying
tenderloin slice of New York City's West Side. They became the most notorious
gang in the history of organized crime, excelling in extortion, numbers
running, loansharking, and drug peddling. Upping the ante on depravity,
their specialty was execution by dismemberment. Though never numbering
more than a dozen members, their reign lasted for almost twenty years-until
their own violent natures got the best of them, precipitating a downfall
that would become as infamous as their notorious ascension into the annals
of crime.
Mass Market Paperback from St. Martin's Press
Book Published: 15 March, 1991
Skinhead Street Gangs by Loren W. Christensen (Author)
Book Description: This is a crash course in racist violence
by Loren Christensen, a nationally recognized expert on skinhead gangs
and police officer in Portland, Oregon, a city once dubbed the "Skinhead
Capital of the U.S." This cop's view of skinheads explains who they are,
why they're violent, who their targets are, how they operate, what weapons
they favor and what danger they pose to society and to police.
(Paperback - February 1994)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
