by Ross Kemp
What else? Give people a legitimate way out of poverty, give them equality, a way to succeed and gangs will stop flourishing. Of course however bad their circumstances, gangsters still make a choice. As one female ex-gang member told me, ‘We may have all these things against us, but we are the ones who pull the triggers.’ I’ve learned food in your stomach matters. And education and housing.
And I’ve learned how much home matters. In fact, when I came back from one recent gang trip, I knelt down and kissed the tarmac.
Street kids in Borel
A Borel street kid testing the poor quality foundations of a local shack
What it’s all about
Everywhere you go, the Comando Vermelho gang has marked its territory
Third command TC high on ecstasy
The Borel CV head honcho with his best friend on his lap
Enough guns to start a small war
A battery farm for humans - 150 prisoners held in cells meant for 15
Clapping and chanting to the evangelical Christians’ music
Me and Dennis with his V8
Social event for Mongrel Mobsters in Porirua
Hastings mobster
Me and the guys in Wairoa
Dennis and me
Mahi Kamona’s patched-up stomach after nearly being disembowelled
Small Psychopaths’ memorial in Delgado, El Salvador
Inmates in Ciudad Barrios
Hugo is the one in the T-shirt, and his scary enforcer is on the far left. All these guys were tough, but the enforcer was in a league of his own.
Removing make-up to show off tattoos
Chucho visiting his wife, Ingrid, in Susaltepeque prison and meeting his baby daughter for the first time
Ciudad Barrios – attempting to keep your whites whiter than white
Failed removal of a tattoo
Making the MS sign
Tributes to the dead in St Louis: sad statements of loss involving the very young to gang violence
A short life
In your face policing from the gang unit
Mask Man, the Blood gang leader (right), and his young apprentice
Pollsmoor prison, Cape Town
Being made to squat while officers check for the poke
John Mongrel, the scariest man I’ve ever met… so far
Me with the high-ranking 26s and a wyfie in the background
Having a conversation with kids in the Cape Flats
Dimitri in full Nazi flow
Practising for the duel
Me on fire
Me and Fast Mover
Wani with Martin
Gangsters in the Grants Pen garrison with Donovan looking on
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Will Pearson, without whose talent this book would never have happened, and to my agent, Michael Foster.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to Ross Kemp on Gangs, the programme. I am indebted to the bravery and dedication of the researchers, directors and crews. In particular I’d like to thank Jackie Lawrence, Jarrod Gilbert, Andrew O’Connell from Sky and Clive Tulloh from Tiger Aspect.
I’d also like to thank everyone at Penguin, especially my editor Katy Follain.
I particularly want to thank all the people who risked their personal safety to talk to me.