NCJ Number
148585
Date Published
1992
Length
277 pages
Annotation
The author gives her first-hand account of America's two most notorious gangs, the Crips and the Bloods.
Abstract
The story of Los Angeles' Crips and Bloods is the story of a failure of the American Dream. In their world, the gang is the family, and murder is the ticket to self-worth. It is a world of clickheads, sherms, bangers, ballers, and mummyheads. Teenage gang members wear colostomy bags and keep scrapbooks filled with funeral invitations. Kidnaping and torture are commonplace. Kids hum the theme to the latest hit movie while they kill people. Some individuals are featured: A young man, shot in the chest, drives himself to the hospital; another, caught in crossfire, uses his girlfriend as a human shield. As one gang member says, "(Los Angeles is) a black hole--the people here just get swallowed up by it."