A nuanced understanding of gang life and culture is sorely lacking on the part of both the jail system and the press. L.A. gang culture—and Southern and Northern California gang culture more broadly—has become so entrenched that it has become intergenerational, with 65-year-old grandfathers doing time alongside their 20-something grandchildren. In many neighborhoods, it is expected that young adult men (and many young women) will be born into or gravitate toward one “family” or another for the sake of protection, identity, social status and the opportunity to participate in various illicit income-generating projects. Gang life offers family and community protection, a sense of identity and even steady employment in a city that otherwise affords little such stability to its poorest residents. But these motivations are lost on political leaders who seem more comfortable dealing with the situation in terms of “containment,” rather than providing people with the education, jobs and respect they would need to escape the pitfalls of gang culture. Interracial tensions between gangs do exist, but they are nowhere near the top of a gang’s priorities for taking care of their own. What happens when thousands of gang members—and unaffiliated petty criminals and substance abusers—are thrown into overcrowded jail dormitories doesn’t reflect the reality of L.A.’s rough street life so much as it creates an even uglier, more twisted life of its own. [more]