gang members to leave the gangs. they leave the gang for a variety of reasons. they all have a turning point, when they decide to leave. and it changes them. this would be something that any of you would logically imagine. for female gang members, and we did not see many of them on that video, but they are out there. they are not mothers, they are active gang members. female gang members, the turning point came at the birth of a child. for male gang members, the picture is more complex. it may be, surprisingly, it may be because they got their second strike, and they're frightened of getting the third. it may be because of the birth of a child, usually a sign. the gang world has not caught up with post-feminist theory. with the story that a gang member named maniac told me, he decided to leave the rolling 60's after 20 years, after achieving status. he was in the back seat of a car, being driven by one of his underlings in the front seat. one of his fellow gang associates got in the back seat with him. the associate said to move over. maniac did not want to move

you work every day with gang members. you were once a gang member yourself. why do you think you are effective working with young people and what does this mean to you and how we know that this is working. first of all, i want to thank god for his grace. i work with united players. i do reentry and the youth involved in juvenile delinquency. the majority of the kids i work with our gang members. i was formally -- formerly a gang member who grew up in san francisco. we all have stories of guys involved with the gang. everyone has a different story of why they joined. my thing is, i believe it works for me to be involved with kids who were in gangs -- i worked with all of the shot colors and i had a goal while i was there. it took me 10 years before i started to transform my life. in the meantime i have the goal that i wanted to be out here. i wanted the opportunity. i was given a life sentence in 1979. i was involved in gang and i caught a murder case. 15 years to life -- and i came here in 1979 and i got out -- and i have been out for almost five years. in my

leave gangs. either one, they need help building their identities. they need help with sang an alternative to the gang life. they need someone who is interested in them. i am going to tell you a story, and i will talk about who those people are. when i was a sweet young thing and a social worker in nickerson gardens, i had that one kid. every gang interventionist, every person in this room knows about that one kid. all of us have that kid. they touch us for reasons we cannot articulate. i don't know why bobby touched me, his name was little devil but i never wanted to call him by that name. i think about his personality and that maybe the reason. he was 14 years old and had been abused, and was in foster placement with his hat -- aunt. i fell in love with him in the most proper, loving, in the most big sister way. i would say to him, with all the ignorance of the young social worker, i will always be here for you, always. always. it was a friday night, and i had gone on a string of disasters state

as being prison gangs. no ester familia is known as nf. or the family. the junior high school to their high school would be the northern structure. >> the northern structure is composed of california hispanics from north of los angeles. >> the nazi low riders, they refer to themselves as the nlr. >> the nazi low riders is a white supremacist gang formed in the '60s. membership can only be achieved by killing someone, and death is the only way out. >> the bgf is the black guerilla family. >> the black guerilla family is the only recognized black prison gang. street gangs like the crips and bloods are merely regarded by prison officials as disruptive groups. but the most notorious gang in the california prison system is called the mexican mafia. >> the mexican mafia is known as m.a., la m.a. they will be recognized by the eme, which is the spanish letter m. >> the mexican mafia was born in california prisons in the mid 1950s. its members, who swear allegiance for life, are mostly mexican-americans from southe

at the same time, we were told if he assaults a gang member, he could come back with the gang.ance of ever coming back. he has a chance. we can't afford him the housing opportunity that he's requesting, which is housing with other ex-members. we're still looking to see if he is a true ex. we're going to wait a little bit and just watch. >> until then, rubio will remain se quested in a single-man cell. away from active and ex-members of the mexican mafia. >> his erratic behavior has put his status with the gang in jeopardy. now the bedrock verlander has built his life on is crumbling. he's sent a letter saying he's been ex-ed out of the brotherhood. >> i was doing dope, i was doing crime, i was doing things that i probably shouldn't have been doing, but i was on a run. am i supposed to hold down a 9-5 job and be on the run? >> what does it mean to be exed out? someone tries to hurt you? someone tries to kill you? >> i honestly don't know. >> meanwhile, verlander has been counting on his girlfriend to get him out. >> i feel like i have the weight of the world on my shoulders. tha

part of gangs is paranoia. it's like a virus. it invade. sometimes people hear things that weren't said. sometimes people see things that didn't happen. as an end result, a lot of innocent people have died. i just tired of all the lies, you know, all of the backstabbing, all of the politics, paranoia. i just got tired of it. >> victor joined the mexican mafia while serving a prior 23-year prison sentence for kidnapping and aggravated assault. a recent parole violation has landed him back in jail. he has adopted a fatherly role with some of the younger ex-gang members in the unit. >> you want to earn your keep but you want to do it the right way, the legal way. >> i'm too cold, i can't be doing this. i can't be going to prison at this age. >> among those victor counsels is johnny robles, charged with attempted capital murder and theft. he pled not guilty and is awaiting trial. >> you get to a point where you have to make a decision, is this the type of life that i want? >> i have to first of all be willing to ch

but now a new gang has emerged.n in san antonio and rapidly spreading both on the streets and in prisons and jails. they are called the tango orejones. >> at one point they were all together and then as the years progressed they eventually broke away and now they're at odds with each other. the orejones began as foot soldiers of the mexican mafia but in the late 1990s they split off to form their own gang, which today rejects the mafia's strict rules and structure. >> [ bleep ]. >> they're very loose. there's no constitution. there's no real process on getting in. you can literally be an orejone tomorrow if you want to be one. orejones recruit on a daily basis. you send one orejone to population, within 24 hours he's going to have three people with him. what started as a few members of orejones quickly grew into hundreds of members. and we went from having a small problem to having a large problem. >> orejone, baby! >> we eventually had to get all the orejones we confirmed and basically corral them to one living are

he didn't have gang. he didn't even know too much about the game as a matter of fact he said to him when i warned him about where to go and where not to go he said grandma. this is america and. this is. where we're supposed to be free this is where we're supposed to be able to walk down any street we need to use. and the next day he died doing what he thought. was his right. def which is a way a live man. and optimism and. can you imagine a society where mothers are burying their children instead of their children burying their mothers. were were. were . why. it's ok to cry and have to cry. i had to cry in order to to to keep gone. have to cry because if i don't cry and i keep body and go up to me. i may do some you know people say oh you can get over it hell no we can't we just get through it just get through that one never get over it if you didn't take my dog you didn't walk alone on my house you know you didn't you know repossessed my car my son was murdered he just didn't die he was murdered. so when

as being part of a gang. the term "gang" is manifested through the media, and law enforcement for numbers. it was more of a community. i did not go to school and meet somebody. i lived on this block and this is where my grandmother's house was, or i was born and raised. what people may see on tv was at my front door. the killing and the dope dealing. it was right there. this was a community list of people, we just grew up together. there were no handouts and no one told us how to conduct ourselves. and tell us what to wear. someone could have a school fight, and we may be at the mall, and see the person we have a fight with. the army and navy have their bar fights. i did not see this as being a game, or a community. supporting each other, this may have been in a negative way. i did not have a stable household. many of them do not of their fathers are, where their father is dead. in their return, the block i gave up -- this is who i looked up to. he had a notorious reputation. there was the violence and in ret

you are not a gang member? >> no. >> go back to your unit. >> thank you. >> thanks for your time. >> officer rodriguez and corporal garcia will continue to monitor perales and for now, would like to see her pen pal relationships continue. >> one reason why we're not jumping on that right at this point, we don't want to expose the fact that we know she's receiving mail. once we expose that they'll cut her off and this may be something we could potentially use to learn information. so, so far we'll go ahead and give her the benefit of the doubt that she's not doing anything, however we did warn her if anything comes out we'll take appropriate action. >> perales has no intention of giving rodriguez and his team any more to work with. she says her brief experiment with pen pals has been more trouble than it's worth. >> i mean, i don't even know who he is, i never seen that person. and, you know, i get letters and i can't even read them, i don't know what the hell it says and find out it has gsrp, whatever it is in

to get out of a gang inside a prison. and in order to do that, there's a whole debriefing process they have to go through. and it basically entails the inmate coming in and confessing everything's he's done with the gang and sometimes even, you know, throwing some people under the bus and confessing against other people. so it's really a deadly thing for someone to do inside a prison. >> when inmates debrief, they must write a lengthy account of their criminal history both in and out of prison. the review process can take months. but if accepted, the inmates will be allowed to live in the safety of a protective custody unit and be granted many more privileges than they would have had as confirmed gang members. >> because of your march 11th, '99, incident with another inmate that you almost killed, came very close to killing, we have a question about your sincerity about debriefing. >> "lockup" cameras were at california state prison corcoran when thomas spiller, a long-time gang member, went before the inmate review board

that's where the gang problem so-called is it's been redefined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it's really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools and so on we know that what we've been doing to deal with gang violence isn't working but we just keep doing the same thing over and over again and then we say well the fact that it isn't working doesn't mean that we're acting out of ignorance or maybe we need to learn something we say it just proves that these kids are unredeemable. it's a belief that our society did not contribute to the formation of this problem it's the story of the scapegoat. the gang member is the scapegoat. nothing's our fault it's their fault. we didn't create them. they're inevitably incorrigible. this continuing hapless fear of denial virtually guarantees that history would repeat. people twenty nine one thousand nine hundred twenty seven used and five miles away from the flashpoint for the one nine hundred sixty five watch rebellion . again broke. these violent costly outbreaks of civil unrest in u.s. history. but . the explosion of angry protest

pay attention, gang. let's suppose someone's standing on a planet here and they have a flashlight and they shine a flashlight off to a distant planet over here. and people on this distant planet are gonna have a telescope all lined up here and they're gonna stand right here and they're gonna watch the flashes of light. and let's suppose a person here emits a flash of light every three minutes. this little flash, flash... i got a question for you. if there's no relative motion between the two planets, it's gonna take some time for that first flash to get up here. but under zero gravity here, boom, sees a flash. how long they're gonna have to wait for another one? three. - and the next one? - three. - and the next one? - three. they'll come at regularly spaced intervals, all right? now, let's suppose i have a rocket ship that's traveling at a very, very high speed between the two planets. now, this rocket ship is traveling away from the planet, the source of light. will that rocket ship see the flashes as o

believe there is one way in and one way out of their gang. that is through violence. we tell any ex-member of any prizt prison gang, your life is in danger. there is somebody out to get you. it is going to happen. that's the way it goes. those are the rules. you are in it for life. or you are dead. >> because of threats he faces for leaving the mexican mav yeah, victor asked that we only use his first name. he is housed in a unit made up entirely of inmates who have chose tine lean to leave their . >> the worst part of paranoia. it invade. some times people see things that didn't really happen. as aenn end result. a lot of innocent people died. i just tired of all the lies, you know, all of the backstabbing, all of the politics, paranoia. i just got tired of it. >> victor joined the mexican mafia while serving a prior 23-year prison sentence for kidnapping anding ara va ing aa assault. a recent parole violation, landed him back in jail. he has adopt aed a fatherly rol with ex-gang members in the unit. >> you want to do it in the right way, le

what's the wavelength, gang? let's go. watch this, one, one, two, two, three, three, four, four, five, five, now it's 3/14. okay. so wavelength equals 3/14 of a what? - kilometer. - kilometer. okay? that's like 3,000 meters divided by 14. why did you pick a four, man? i mean--how many times does 14 go into 3,000? does anyone have a calculator? 214.28571. 214 meters long. is that surprising to you? that's like two football fields and then some. so the wavelength of your favorite radio station is more than two football fields long. radio waves are long or short compared to light waves, gang? we'll do the same thing for light waves later on and find out it's a smidge, smidge, smidge, smidge, smidge. zero's go the other way. yey. anyway, that's how you find the wavelength of something. i can show you the slinky here. can someone grab the end of this for an "a" in the course. [laughter] right over here. now, i'm gonna take this wave and i'm gonna shake it back and forth along the direction like this. well, i'm gonna expect a li

child molesters or gang dropouts. we learned about prison, doesn't matter where you're housed, your safety is never guaranteed. >> we believe you may have been a victim of a battery. >> joseph de la cruz is a gang dropout, serving nine years for attempted murder at california san quentin state prison. when we first met him, authorities had just discovered that he had been assaulted inside his protective custody cell. >> this morning, you come out of your cell, we did a sweep to find out how many people stayed behind. you were discovered with injuries. and here's the medical report. >> despite obvious injuries, de la cruz refused to give correctional staff any information about the attack. >> we're trying to find out who -- i want to tell them what happened. >> any specific individuals you know are your enemies? >> no, sir. >> how about any prison weapons offenses? >> no, sir. >> do you belong to a gang? >> no, i don't. >> aside from what you're being accused of being a victim, are you involved in any other batteries i

anyway, anyway, gang-- is this, gang, we have to be patient of where we are in our history. everything doesn't happen at once. we're still growing, you know? now, with this fusion, how come we don't have fusion power plants? it's too hard to take these things and push them together. it's enormous electrical repulsion. if you'd heat this stuff up to a gas, maybe above a hundred million degrees, these things will be fast-- going fast enough, they'll scrunch. how does the sun and the stars do it? brute force, gravity. [makes sound] i say, "i don't care electrical repulsion, no electrical repulsion." wham. right in. and the sun and the stars is just brute force these things together, and you get your fusion. now, how do we get that-- how do we do that in earth? we've been trying brute force. with plasma reactors. heat these things up to over a hundred million degrees, get that gas, pinch it with magnetic fields. boom. try to get it defused. has the human race done that? yes, we've done that. have we had a sustained reaction? no, we haven't had a sustained reaction. have we had a

gang related.ey call them like stamps, you know. everything was done behind bars with a staple. we don't use fancy needles and all that. the main part on my chest, it's blast, dongo blast. i chose to put it in big letters because the first thing i do is take off my shirt and it's clearly visible. if someone has a problem with mem, they're going to let it be known. >> diaz is also a tattoo artist and says he has applied many himself. most are gang related but one is a fan tribute. >> which is my taylor swift. >> i did her for my own personal gratification. i don't know what it is about her but the first time i heard her voice, i was locked up. i would listen to her music and she's got a cute country voice. it soothed me. no matter what's going on, it soothed me, fights going on, buildings burning down, but if i'm listening to taylor swift, i'm relaxed. >> but it seems no melody can kwee yet the outbirth. it houses members of the jail's largest gang. >> usually they'll call a disruption if they're up

members love to put their gang somewhere visibly on their body so rival gang members or their own gang members can identify them as are they friend or foe. and we train our class officers to look for these identifiers and if they can't get the gang member to self admit, then we refer to the gang officers and we look at the tattoos. aside from their tattoos, we'll look at their history and decide if they have a history of gang activity, strong-arming in the units, group assaults, things of that kind of nature. in conjunction with that, we can go ahead and establish whether or not we think the guy's a gang member. >> raymond diaz is up front about his gang-related tattoos. >> the stuff i got on me, a lot of it is gang related. they call them like stamps, you know. everything was done behind bars with a staple. we don't use fancy needles and all that. the main part on my chest, it's blast, dongo blast. i chose to put it in big letters because the first thing i do is take off my shirt and it's clearly visible. if someone has a problem with men, they're going to let it be known. >> diaz is

you blame gangs. but not the traditional chicago gangs, a new type of gang. what's the new gang?are you talking about? >> well, the fracturing of the bigger gangs, for instance, there's these big gangs that existed going back decades in this city. the gang violence has generally been wrapped around that, as you guys pointed out. we're at about half of what we were 20 years ago in this city, as far as the murder rate is concerned. and people refer to that as the good old days of gangs. what we have today are smaller gangs, they're fractions that break off from these larger groups. and as a result, what happens is there's more gangs to be in conflict with each other. so if you have 100 gangs and they splinter into 200 gangs, you just increased the number of conflicts that you have at any given time. so that's causing a lot of the violence, as you rightfully point out, some of the rapper stuff is influencing. but at the heart of it, that's gang violence and it's being facilitated through the rapping and it's also being facilitated through the social media. >> superintendent mccarthy

gang members love to put their gangs somewhere visibly on their body so rival gang members or their own members can identify them as are they friend or foe. and we train our class to look for these identifiers. if they can't get the gang member to self admit, than they refer them and we look at these tattoos. we'll look at their history in the facility. do they have a history of gang activity. strong arming in the units, group assaults, things of that kind of nature. in conjunction with their tattoos, we can establish whether or not we think the guy is a gang member. >> raymond diaz is up front about his gang-related tattoos. >> the stuff i've got on me, a lot of them is gang related. they call them, like, stamps. everything was done behind bars with a staple. we don't use fancy needles and all of that. the main part of my chest is the blast. that's for tongo blast. that's probably one of the biggest prison gangs in texas. i chose to put it in big letters on my chest because when i get to a prison unit or pot or something, the first thing i do is take off my shrt. it's clearly visible.

did you ever hear of the madden gang? madden gang? they were where i had a ranch before.t raid. i'm sorry, ma'am, but i got no proof of that. and if you don't want us to raid you up with the rest of the madden gang, you better get off this land pronto. let him try to run us off. just let him try. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ me follow trail to dark, kimosabe. see no sign of madden gang. come back here to camp. i had better luck than you, tonto. you mean, you find out something last night? yes. all we need to know. right after midnight, i couldn't see much because it was so dark. but i heard plenty. them off on another raid? yes. only this time it didn't come off so well. tom patrick and his ranchers managed to capture madden. that leaves the gang without their leader. that plenty good news. there is some bad news, too. the gang is holding tom patrick's son jim as hostage. i would have tried to rescue him, but it was too dark. you and me go back and get him now? no, tonto, the boy is safe enough for awhile. but if his father and those ranchers come after him and a body, they'll ride into a

you blame gangs. but not the traditional chicago gangs, a new type of gang. what's the new gang?you talking about? >> well, the fracturing of the bigger gangs, for instance, there's these big gangs that existed going back decades in this city. the gang violence has generally been wrapped around that, as you guys pointed out. we're at about half of what we were 20 years ago in this city, as far as the murder rate is concerned. and people refer to that as the good old days of gangs. what we have today are smaller gangs, they're fractions that break off from these larger groups. and as a result, what happens is there's more gangs to be in conflict with each other. so if you have 100 gangs and they splinter into 200 gangs, you just increased the number of conflicts that you have at any given time. so that's causing a lot of the violence, as you rightfully point out, some of the rapper stuff is influencing. but at the heart of it, that's gang violence and it's being facilitated through the rapping and it's also being facilitated through the social media. >> superintendent mccarthy, i

we're probably unique in how we deal with the gangs out here.e've accepted the fact that there are going to be gangs and there's nothing we can do about it, so we try to control, you know, what they do. and we use the leaders a lot to control that. most of our leaders here have done a lot of time in our maximum security facility. they don't want to go back. and we hold that over their head. we tell them to keep their people in line or they're the first ones that are going to go down, because we know how gangs work. we know this gang member isn't going to do anything unless he's got it cleared to the top. come on in, have a seat. so you want to give me your story? >> well, i mean, to be honest, i don't really have one. i mean, i feel like this dude is just trying to get out of trouble. he knows who i am and i go under the bus every time. >> who was the other guy? >> wright. >> the other one that got him -- >> yeah. >> was he doing something to him? >> no, i mean, maybe. i mean, everyone knew this guy was a piece of trash, but who knows, you know?

gang member, because basically they're doing all the dirty work, and the senior gang members is getting proceeds. these poor kids are going into the life of crime, leaving a trail of disaster in their wake, and unfortunately the only time they learn their lesson is when they get caught up in a, in a feud and end up dead or end up in jail. narr: ray believes that the only way to stop the rise of teenage gangs is for srt to employ a zero tolerance policy. ray sync: we need to show the community that we are going to do whatever's necessary to be the knights in shining armour, to keep the streets safe. we're not going to allow any gang member, with whatever weaponry, and whatever preparation they may have, to supersede our authority. i don't care, whatever a gang member or crew brings to the table, i don't care if they bring additional weaponry, or they've planned for us. we plan for the worst contingency, and we're going to come out with success and as winners. >> wow! i've never seen anything like this. >> when disaster strikes sometimes the only way out is to look within. current tv digs

the gang squad went and they did a sweep on my neighborhood, on my gang on the streets. and because i'm in jail, they think i cut me a deal to turn in a couple of my homies on the streets so i could get out. basically they made some threats toward my girl like, because everybody knew where my old lady lived at. >> the next day, martinez was allowed to contact his fiance before anything happened. but he says the experience only deepened his resolve to give up gang life. >> my whole life i've been doing this. i've been in and out of jail since i was 10. the longest i stayed on the streets was three months. i know anybody who's anybody on the streets. not one of them put money on my books. not one of them sent me a postcard, visit me, or call my old lady when she's struggling, ask her if she needs gas money or if manuel is doing all right. none of them do that, you know what i mean? it's overrated, straight up. it's very overrated. everybody is afraid of the last part of their name, mafia. the mexican part, once you say mafia, everybody shivers. ooh. i don't give a [ bleep

okay, gang, let's begin. your friend calls you up. all of you are-- your so-called friend calls you up all the time and wants to come over the house to see you. but you just say, "hey, look, i'm really, really too busy." calls again and again and you say, "i don't know what to say but i'm just too busy. i'm just too busy with my work." and he say over the phone, "oh, that's too bad "because i'm into giving massages and i have to do a one-hour continuous massage." "massage? well, maybe i can find the time. come on over," right? so they come over and they gave you massage and they pour some alcohol on your back. and when they pour the alcohol on your back, you, "oh, wow, it's cold." he say, "no, it's not cold. "i got it from the medicine cabinet right where all the other stuff is." is that alcohol colder than anything else in the room? - no. - no. if it were, what would happen? thermal equilibrium. the other things would heat it up. isn't that true? doesn't heat flow from high to low temperature? and aren't all the things in our environ

they segregate inmates based on color and gangs. why do prisons not work on educating inmates on social relations, racial tolerance, and why don't they find a way so the different races can get to know each other? >> i would like to enter that. segregation has -- i would like to answer that. segregation has always been a problem in this country. i grew up in new orleans. we believe that education is the key. we all need to sit at the table. i do not believe in segregation for inmates. they need to tear that barrier down and put people together, no matter what. when we go inside the walls of san quentin, it is not just black inmates. it is hispanic, pacific islanders, white, native americans, it is everybody. when they leave that room, they go back to their communities that are segregated. they, too, do not like it. it is a barrier that has to be torn down. i know it works. being in there for the last four years, we make it a point that everybody mixes up, even the seating. you do not just sit with a black person or a white person. i

you go from one gang, go to a dropout, and you form another gang.it just doesn't seem to end. >> these people in here, they want you to do something for them. i'd rather just take care of mine, handle my business, see my family one day, you know? >> when you come to prison, it's still our obligation to protect you no matter what. the department's view about gangs is to disassemble them, get those individuals to drop out, tell on each other. because we gain better control of our population. it's an ongoing process that never stops. >> let's go, gentlemen. come on. >> i'm in protective custody because i'm a dropout. dropping out means telling. it means you gave up everything you had to give up to secure a place over here. if you try to fake a debrief, they'll know about it. they'll just put you at the back of the list and make you wait all over again. that's probably another five to six to seven years because people are dropping like flies. there's a lot of people just like me. we're involved in drug trafficking, we're involved in assaults, involved w