Tom Hayden Quotes

In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma.

Three thousand jurisdictions across the U.S. are estimated to have had gang activity in 2001. In 2002, 32% of cities with a population of 25 to 50 thousand reported a gang-related homicide.

I was raised inside the gang culture.

Me, myself, I was a part of gang bangin', you know what I'm sayin'?

However, don't let these statistics mislead you, gang violence is not limited to California and or big urban areas - that might have been true a while ago but it is no longer the case today.

I've never been in a gang. None of my friends have been in a gang. I've never rolled around with big entourages.

What people don't understand is joining a gang ain't bad, it's cool, it's fine. When you in the hood, joining a gang it's cool because all your friends are in the gang, all your family's in the gang. We're not just killing people every night, we're just hanging out, having a good time.

Many areas of Los Angeles have gang problems.

We will not rest until being a gang member is a miserable, undesirable life.

I think 98% of gang members in Los Angeles would agree that being a gang is just like being part of a community.

My family had been involved in gangs since the 1970s.

Whether it is kids carrying knives because they are in gangs or kids carrying knives because they are afraid of gangs, it is the gang culture that underpins the problem.

The truth is that those who join gangs - more often than not they are young men in their later teens - often do come from the most difficult family backgrounds, from an environment where they feel neglected and unwanted. Gang membership can bring a perverse sense of belonging which they may not have ever got at home.

Gangs are a part of living in Los Angeles, but you can exist in Inglewood or Culver City or anywhere else, without joining one.

In this society, you have to belong to something, I feel, and all we have in the neighborhood is a gang.

Gangs are formed by kids who want love.

With gangs, there could be a positive outlook because it takes the older guys to come school these younger guys on the right roles.

My mum was a bookies' runner at nine years old and my dad's uncles were Peaky Blinders and gangsters.

My father figures were all gang members.

I have made only two films on the underworld. I am not educating the people on the underworld.

The gang culture - tragically - has for some young people become the only source of stability in their lives.

Every level of government has a role to play in combating the rise of MS-13 and other gangs, and we must crack down on the aspects of our nation's broken immigration system and other policies that have allowed MS-13 and other gangs to take hold in our communities and stay there.

Books are absent teachers.

And Alpo ordered guys to slaughter guys, and the whole Harlem was in tears when Rich Porter died.

Freedom of teaching and of opinion in book or press is the foundation for the sound and natural development of any people.