- Do or Die
- G-Dog and the Homeboys
- Chinese Playground: A Memoir
- Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
- Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz
- Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member
- 8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters
- Baby Insane and the Buddha
- Down These Mean Streets
- Uprising: Crips and Bloods Tell the Story of America’s Youth in the Crossfire
- Voices from the Street: Young Former Gang Members Tell Their Stories
- The Cross and the Switchblade
- Life in Prison
- My bloody life : the making of a Latin King
- Lady Q : the rise and fall of a Latin queen
by Leon Bing (Harper Trade)
For the first time, members of L.A.’s most notorious teenage gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, speak for themselves.
by Celeste Fremon (University of New Mexico Press)
The extraordinary journey of Father Greg Boyle and his work with the Latino gangs of East L.A.
by Bill Lee (Bill Lee & Associates)
San Francisco’s Chinatown is the backdrop for the story of a man who narrowly escaped death or imprisonment at the infamous Chinese Playground gang battle, went on to college
and a successful career, only to have his son end up in a gang.
by Luis Rodriguez (Simon & Schuster)
Rodriguez joined his first gang at age 11 and by 18 had seen twenty-five of his friends succumb to the ravages of gang warfare, police killings, drug overdoses, and suicide.
by Mona Ruiz (Arte Publico)
She spent her youth in gangs, survived an abusive marriage, and went on to become a police officer.
by Shanyika Shakur (Penguin Putnam)
In his gang days known as “Monster” Kody Scott, Shakur recounts his brutal life as a gangbanger.
by Gini Sikes (Doubleday)
Journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl gangs in L.A., Milwaukee, and San Antonio.
by Bob Sipchen (Doubleday)
Crips member Kevin Glass, aka Baby Insane, after years in and out of juvenile hall, eventually became a police informant working with Patrick Birse, aka the
Buddha, in his work to eradicate gang-related violence in San Diego.
by Piri Thomas (Vintage)
The classis biography of a Puerto Rican New Yorker who survived his life in gangs and prison them turned his life around.
Interviews by Yusuf Jah and Sister Shay’Keyah (Simon & Schuster)
Interviews & photographs by S. Beth Atkin (Little, Brown)
by David Wilkerson (Jove)
The true story of Wilkerson’s ministry to the gangs of New York City and the conversion of Nicky Cruz, notorious gang leader.
by Stanley “Tookie” Williams (SeaStar)
Co-founder of the Crips, executed at San Quentin, Williams tried to convince young men not to make the same mistakes he did.
by Reymundo Sanchez
Autobiographical account of the early life of a member of the Latin Kings of Chicago.
Reymundo Sanchez and Sonia Rodriguez
Reymundo Sanchez, a former member of the Latin Kings street gang, recounts the experiences of Sonia Rodriguez, a young girl who became a powerful leader of the Latin Queens, and explores the devastating impact gangs can have on a young girl’s life.
