Gangs

I've never watched an episode of Ross Kemp on Gangs on Sky One but that didn't stop me from reading the book based on the documentary series.

The book - written by the host of the series - features seven chapters. Each one looks at a different country's gang culture.

It was quite the eye-opener reading how these gangs operate and I was more intrigued to see how each group welcomed Kemp in to discuss this way of life.

The most interesting gang, I believe, was the Numbers gang based inside Pollsmoor Prison in South Africa. The reason why I think this was the most noteworthy of the seven countries featured in the book is because this gang is ruled within a place which is meant to be the end result in crime rather than on the streets which should be the first part of the calculation.

With that said - it was also interesting to read about that the Los Angeles war between the Crips and the Bloods has moved to El Salvador due to the US Government's ruling that anyone with ties to El Salvador gangs are immediately deported. This deportation does not rule out American people with El Salvadorian blood. Therefore, there must be a lot of American gangsters fighting in a country that only their parents or their parents' parents were born in. Crazy.

The other countries on Kemp's list are - Brazil, New Zealand, USA, Russia and Jamaica.

After reading this, I have decided to seek out the series. I've also bought the second book and plan to read it in a few weeks.