Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/gangs/page/2/)
For close to seven years, a Mississippi man bought firearms in and around Natchez before sending them to contacts in Chicago, many of them family members he grew up with.
Once there, the weapons would find their way to the streets of some of the city’s most violence-plagued communities and be used in homicides, shootings and other crimes.
Do not call Brittany Gray, Kenderick Cox and Marcellus Gray activists. The Greenwood natives prefer to be called who they are — members of the community...
Make a release plan now: A mentor of mine once told me he’d started preparing for the day he was released the same day he came to prison. Start to plan for your release now. Whether you get an acquittal or conviction, use every opportunity available while awaiting trial to improve yourself.
In the early morning hours of April 27, 2016, Kraig Lewis was up late studying for his statistics final. A graduate student at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut with only nine credits left until completing his MBA, Lewis planned to go to law school next. At about 4 a.m., Bridgeport Police banged on his door.
I scrolled down my Instagram feed when I spotted it. It was an image of a jail cell on Rikers Island. Below was a caption that read, “Free studio apartment in a gated community with ocean views and vintage style rod-iron double doors. Excellent security and free laundry.”
“Animals.” “Menace.” “Blood-stained killing fields.” These are all terms President Donald Trump used in a one-week period to describe undocumented immigrants, alleged members of MS-13 and the purported harm they are causing our country. The White House doubled down on these assertions by releasing an official statement titled, “What You Need to Know About the Violent Animals of MS-13.”
Garry Powers stands on Alameda Street near the North Vignes Street overpass, across from a smoke shop and a Vietnamese restaurant. He’s on the edge of Chinatown and a couple of miles north of Boyle Heights, a neighborhood once rife with gangs.
Ninety-nine percent. The number sent an audible gasp throughout the City Council chamber. Chief of Detectives Dermot F. Shea had just read off the percentage of people of color on the NYPD’s controversial — and until now — largely secretive gang database.
I have worked since 1981 with teenagers who are homeless, runaways, addicted to drugs and alcohol, in the criminal justice system, former gang members and victims of abuse and neglect. I am now the director of Spectrum Youth and Family Services, the largest program in Vermont for this population.
I am 38 years old. I have been incarcerated almost 15 years now. I have a sentence of LWOP (life without parole) plus 25 to life for a first-degree murder with drive-by enhancement. I was raised in the Bay Area on the Oakland side of the water. My family was big. Dad’s side was Mexican, mom’s side was white.