From the barrios of East Los Angeles to the corners of Chicago and New York, Geraldo Rivera takes viewers inside the rise of America’s street gangs — the turf wars, the codes, and the violence that reshaped entire neighborhoods. This shelf gathers Geraldo’s most direct reporting on gang life across five decades: Crips and Bloods, 18th Street, Latin Kings, and the satellite crews that carried the violence coast to coast, told through the people who lived it — members, former members, law enforcement, and the families caught in the crossfire. It is a field reporter’s front-line account of how street-level conflict became one of the defining stories of urban America.
For viewers of true crime, urban history, and documentary journalism, this collection documents a problem that never fully left the national conversation — from the crack-era gang explosions of the 1980s and 90s to the organized gang injunctions and policing debates that followed. Geraldo brings the same unflinching access he brought to the drug wars and outlaw bikers: sitting down with the people most affected, walking the neighborhoods the cameras usually avoid, and asking the hard questions about violence, poverty, and survival. It is the third pillar of his reporting on America’s criminal underworld — street gangs, alongside the biker clubs and the mafia families — preserved here in one place.
1993. Gang-bangin', girl gang members interviewed on the why and what
Machine guns, American right or dangerous privilege? A 1982 look at gun modifications
1991. Gangs in New York and Los Angeles connected via satellite
The Dark Reality of 90s Street Life: Rough Girls Speak Out
2001. Gangs proliferate in East Los Angeles, 37 with over 10,000 members
1994. Gritty tales of crime as these girls fend for themselves
1997. Coolio talks gang violence, crack made it worse, he shares stories
1994. A gang member in Chicago talks about why he carries a Mac-11
1997. The 18th street gang and injunction passed against it
