A perfect end to a perfect trip

Wow what an amazing week I have had. Seen so much this week! I spent some time sightseeing and doing my last bits of shopping (can’t believe my suitcase is still within the weight limit....just!! lol!!). I first went to Long Beach to meet one of my contacts who works for the Boys and Girls Club. This club works with children from 6-18, providing a safe and secure environment for them to come and participate in various self esteem and confidence building programmes. This club also runs after school programmes to help children with their homework aswell as running other education based programmes to teach the young people about various computer programmes, gender specific issues around safe sex, and drug and alcohol misuse and health and fitness programmes. Unfortunately I was not able to see one of these programmes in action due to the fact that it is the summer holidays and these classes are normally run in term time but it was very interesting to speak with the leaders of some of these programmes as they said that many of the young people that attend their classes are involved in gang activity and have very difficult often abusive home lives so coming into such a programme gives them a safe and secure environment for them to be able to gain skills for the future.

I then spend some time with the Hollywood Division of the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department). This was very interesting, I went on a ride-along with them for a few hours with the Gang Unit and I was shown where most of the gang activity in Hollywood takes place and which gangs occupy which areas. It was fascinating to me because I had always thought of Hollywood as very glitzy and full of celebrities but I was shown a very different poverty stricken side of it that day and it was a very eye opening experience. During my time with the Gang Unit we stopped off at the Summer Nights Programme in Lemon Groove. This is a programme that started 3 years ago throughout the summer holidays to bring the community together. It runs from 6pm until midnight and is a place for all that live in the community to come and hang out together, the children place sports and there is music and entertainment laid on. It has a really good atmosphere and appears to be very successful. There are also 3 Gang Activists who are themselves ex gang members that attend on a nightly basis to speak to gang members and try and help them out of the life violence and gang activity. I had the chance to speak to these men and they said that each one of them have been gang members for a number of years they themselves found it very hard to leave that lifestyle behind them and stated that even though they are no longer ‘banging, you can never fully get out of the gang’ which I found very interesting. They now work with youth in an attempt to try and break the cycle of the gang violence.

Over the weekend I went on an amazing tour called LA Gang, wow it was great!!! We were given a tour of South Central LA by 4 ex gang members who have come together to raise awareness of the growing gang problem in these areas. We went all around the area to Watts, The Watts Towers, LA County Jail, Florence Avenue and Firestone Sheriff Station all being historical places relating to gang involvement and the riots in the early 1990’s. It was an extremely interesting day and very interesting to hear from the ex gang members some of whom had done up to 24 years in prison. These men now visit schools and other areas to try and educate young people on what the gang lifestyle is really like and tells them the grim reality of if they continue with the life style that they are leading it can only end two ways: jail time or death!! After the tour we went to the Graff Lab where young people from all over LA and at times the world come and graffiti on the walls of a disused area that has now been purpose designed and cleared by the County so that they can graffiti without any repercussions. The graffiti stays up for up to a week and then it is painted over by another artist. The place was fascinating, I really enjoyed it there and the graffiti is amazing! People were also rapping and street dancing there too it was amazing to watch. There was a guy there doing a massive mural of Michael Jackson and he gave me one of the paint brushes he had used that the signed which was cool!

I then visited the very well known Homeboy Industries, what an interesting place that was! They recruit ex gang members to work there and have a bakery, restaurant and merchandise shop. It was a fascinating place where they provide so many services from legal advice, counselling, mental health support to tattoo removal, all free of charge. They even have and did have while i was visiting, a group of young people from the boot camp in LA that come still hand cuffed and shackled to get their gang tattoos removed! It was amazing to see. I also met and had a brief chat with Father Boyle who started the programme 23 years ago, he has now written a couple of books about his journey one of which i bought and he signed while i was there which was great.

My final and probably my favourite in LA was the 77th Precinct Gang Unit. Wow what an amazing day!! I got to spend the whole shift with the team and went everywhere they went, it was incredible. We had a debrief first to see what was going on and the officers in charge explained that 3 raids would be taking place and told each person what their role was then at the end went through what to do it shots are fired, dogs are shot and the directions to the nearest hospital, OMG I was scared at that point!! We went out to the car and on the way the sergeant explained to me that if shots are fired at the car I had to get down in the car in the area that was bullet proof! OMG WHAT WAS I LETTING MYSELF IN FOR!!! Luckily no shots were fired but all of the police were armed in some cases with more than one gun! It was so exciting to see. One man was taken into custody and we headed back to the station to debrief on what had happened and improvements that could be made. Afterwards the sergeant showed me around the area and where all the gang members hang out and where the enemy lines are. Got to speak to a couple of gang members who were in the area, one of whom had a tattoo of his gang on his eye lids, how painful would that have been!

After my ride-along the sergeant took me to the LA County jail for a look around, it was 11 pm and we just turned up and they gave us a tour. It was brill but could not believe that they inmates were still out and about at that time of night and some of them were even being transferred, it was like it was the middle of the day, so different to where I work! Another very interesting facility that holds around 5000 inmates within the prison that is also attached another prison for mental ill prisoners holding around 1500!! Fascinating!! A great ends to my time in LA.