Mexican Mafia

"Part courtroom drama, part history lesson, and part detective story, this is the first published book to take a long, hard look at the history, operations, and structure of the Mexican Mafia. Founded in 1957 by a group of young Los Angeles street gangsters, the Mexican Mafia has grown into a powerful prison gang that for nearly fifty years has eluded public scrutiny and flown under the law enforcement radar." "Directly or indirectly responsible for hundreds of homicides every year, the Mexican Mafia has projected its influence beyond prison walls and now controls almost every L.A. neighborhood that has a strong Hispanic street gang presence. Like a corporate conglomerate, the Mexican Mafia has vertically integrated its criminal operations. It controls wholesale and retail drug trafficking and collects street taxes from a vast network of drug dealers and enforcers." "In addition to its traditional business of drug dealing, murder, and extortion, the Mexican Mafia has expanded its portfolio of activities into infiltrating publicly funded drug- and gang-intervention programs, corrupting local politicians, and embarking on an ethnic cleansing policy to drive African-Americans out of neighborhoods it claims for itself." "Based on original research conducted over ten years, Tony Rafael counters conventional wisdom and popularly held misconceptions about the nature of gang culture and the roots of gang violence. He also examines the often haphazard nature of police investigations and how criminal prosecutions are successfully brought forward in spite of, rather than because of, the existing justice system."--BOOK JACKET.Rafael, Tony is the author of 'Mexican Mafia ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781594031953 and ISBN 1594031959.