Gang Life In Two Cities Chapter Summary

Gang Life in Two Cities: An insider’s Journey, is written by Robert J. Duran, an associate professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University. Before attending college and starting his research Duran was a member of a latino gang in Ogden, Utah. Using his skills learned in academia and reputation as a former gang member, he was able to get an inside look of gangs and their reasons for existing. He spent five years in Denver, Colarado and Ogden, Utah and conducted over 145 interviews with gang members and also members of law enforcement. In Gang Life in Two Cities Duran concludes that colonization and racial oppression of latinos are the main reasons for gangs. That the criminization of latino groups and failed gang neutralization efforts have only deepened the ideals the gangs hold and continue to persist.

Duran begins on how he first became involved in gang life, that the culture and recongnizion gang members obtained entinced him to join and how the responsibility to his family eventually led him away from it.

His mixed background pushed him to study issues of inequality and that he “ wanted to use his prior deviance to bridge the streets and academia to bring awarness about gangs”. He details how he got involved studying gangs in Denver during college and his eventual return home to study his former gang turf. Duran discusses his research approach, that he believed the only way to truly understand gangs is to actually be part of one. He chose an ethnographic route because it gave him opportunity to live how gangs members do, and that him being latino himself and a former gang member gave him opportunity to immerse himself deep into the

community.
He then focuses on the war on gangs and how aggressive tatics used by law enforcement has effected the latino community in both Ogden and Denver. As gangs became more known to the general public, concerns and fears from citizens became a catalyst for the creation of gang suppression efforts by the police. As barrios were considered “breeding grounds” for criminal activity, the violation of an indivudals rights became less of a concern. Since most latinos dressed like their peers it was hard to pick out a gang member from a law abiding citizen, police would indiscriminiatley stop pedistrains and make traffic stops in hopes of catching a gang member. Duran believe that anti- gang tatics , based on racist stereotypes of a gang member, is directed at Latinos and that it is a factor to why barrio residents alientate themselves from police agencies. This alienation leads to a stronger tie within the barrio and in result, strengthens the gang ideals and their reason for existence.
Duran agrues that gangs orgin’s comes from radicalized racial oppression. In Denver,he uses a timeline of historical events such as, the white migration to the west during the gold rush, Zoot Suit riots , and many newspaper articles to show the continued discrimination against latinos and exclusion of the latino community and how gangs rose up as a way to combat this oppression. Duran notes that community activism were at their highest levels, rates of gang violence dropped off. That social movements offered people a better way of resisting their oppression, In ogden, the same oppression can be seen but, by the dominate white mormon religion who saw non- white as inferior.