Chilling with the I.O.S (Insane Original Scholar)

Today I will introduce my gang series, consisting of Links and Notes entries--a set of annotated bibliographies. I have nine so far, and expect to have more than twenty when I am done: some on topics, like economics, some on individual street, prison, or motorcycle gangs. I'll just keep posting them in my August month under the gangs category, in the best order.

Each has pictures, illustrations, and videos I’ve carefully culled out of hundreds. It includes my random thoughts toward a theme, working my way as I go. Links will soon show up on my sidebar.

I’m sure there’s a vast well of secret handbooks and rules in the gangs. I’m equally sure there’s an underground lake of law enforcement information that never gets shared. Official redaction as aggressive graffiti: it’s pitifully easy to guess at the turf war between law enforcement agencies, seeing what’s missing out of these reports.

The public gets information that either creates panic or talks down to them. Many law enforcement presentations aim for middle-class voters with children--educated people, but that education isn’t trusted. We get a recipe, not a way to back up our instincts.

A few sites are giving bona-fide information, and I’ve tried to collect them in one place. A few are giving out strange or anonymous information, but what sits between the lines seems valuable. So it's the good out of the larger, mostly non-academic pile on the Web.

A good presentation often gives glamour, even to painful subjects. I don’t think it’s wrong to show what makes gangs attractive—it’s one key to understanding their persistence. But to counteract the glamour, I tried to pick examples that were realistic, as raw an example as I could find from pre-presented material.

For scholarly purposes, I looked past glamour, doubletalk, disgust or humor and tried to see what’s lying underneath or inbetween. That’s the approach I recommend.

This information helps me understand political economy and a significant set of subcultures in the U.S. and around the world. Maybe it will be useful or insightful to others.

I eagerly look forward to corrections, amplifications, requests, in fact anything that advances the streetwise, all-eyes, tell no lies, Web-u-lized, intellectual turf of the I.O.S.

Photo above, AP, Chicago, 2009. After-school fight that ended in the homicide of Derrion Albert.