The victim of a gang-related shooting, Melvin Juette shares his poignant memoir of transformation from sixteen-year-old African American gang member to star athlete of the U.S. National Wheelchair Basketball Team.
Melvin Juette has said that becoming paralyzed in a shooting was "both the worst and best thing that happened" to him. This memoir re-constructs the defining moments of his life with the assistance of sociologist Ronald Berger. It is bracketed by Berger's introduction and conclu…
Jumped In tells the story of the gangs of Los Angeles in the words of the gang members themselves as well as the people who interact with them on a daily basis--trying to arrest them, control them, and help them. There are priests and police officers, murderers and drug dealers,…
When Jorja Leap began studying Los Angeles gang violence in 2002, she encountered a myriad of proposed solutions to the seemingly intractable "gang problem" and set out to discover what was really going on. The stakes--then and now--could not be higher: a child or teenager is ki…
The darkest depths of the organized underworld, from mobsters in the U.S. to Hells Angels in Germany to child armies in Africa Historically, those outside the law have always tended to band together in pursuit of riches and power, eventually spawning the murky, brutal world of t…
Crime DOES pay. There's no denying it. And in pursuit of riches and power, those outside the law have always tended to band together? spawning today's murky, brutal world of organised crime. The origins of the archetypical gangster can be traced to 1920s America, when Prohibitio…
"Since the launch of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars--now the longest wars in American history--the US military has struggled to recruit troops. It has responded, as Matt Kennard's explosive investigative report makes clear, by opening its doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, g…
Since the launch of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, now the longest wars in American history, the US military has struggled to recruit troops. It has responded, as Matt Kennard's explosive investigative report makes clear, by opening its doors to neo Nazis, white supremacists, ga…
Since the launch of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars the US military has struggled to recruit troops. Kennard believes that the military has opened its doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, gang members, criminals of all stripes, the overweight, and the mentally ill. He provides …
Since the launch of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars the US military has struggled to recruit troops. Kennard believes that the military has opened its doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, gang members, criminals of all stripes, the overweight, and the mentally ill. He provides …
Michael Plante, a low-level Hells Angels dog's body in Vancouver, is arrested for extortion in 2003. Coincidentally, police intercept a boat carrying cocaine from Colombia to Vancouver, a shipment arranged by the East End chapter of Vancouver's Hells Angels. The cops need to sen…
The fact that Michael Plante was a trusted associate of the East End Hells Angels certainly caught the attention of police, who had been trying for years to find someone to infiltrate the gang. The police alleged that East End Hells Angels were well known in the criminal underwo…
Describes the undercover operation in which informant Michael Plante uncovers the criminal operations of the Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels.