When I was young, I thought it was normal to go to sleep to the sounds of sirens. People on my block were in the biggest gang in the city. They were my close friends - they showed me the ropes, who to watch out for.
Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming.
W a gang member, and especially in a Latino gang, gets jumped in, and then he's given a name, and he has that name forever, but it's not so much the name as being called by name.
Gangs are bastions of conditional love, and one of the ways to counteract it is to offer community, which will always trump gang, and that's what happens at Homeboy Industries.
I had friends at school, but I was never part of a gang and I dreamed of that sense of belonging to a group. You know, where people would call me 'Em' and shout across the bar, 'Em, what are you drinking?' after the show.
Now '90210' is returning with an all-new cast of slightly more plausible teens. I'll be honest: I wish the old cast was back. Ideally, this spin-off would be an Ice Storm-esque exploration of the West Beverly gang's bleak adult lives.
Three thousand jurisdictions across the U.S. are estimated to have had gang activity in 2001. In 2002, 32% of cities with a population of 25 to 50 thousand reported a gang-related homicide.
It is important that gang members are aware that if they engage in aggravated assault, maiming, kidnapping, or manslaughter that they will receiving a minimum sentence of 30 years.
