Iain Duncan Smith Quotes

Many areas of Los Angeles have gang problems.

The problems of gang crime you find in some parts of the north are little different to the problems you find on the streets of south London.

I was a gang leader. Although, it was a gang for defensive purposes. It was not a gang to sell drugs.

You know in my own area of Waltham Forest, we've had many murders as a result of the gang violence and often innocent bystanders get caught up in it.

I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.

First ship them dope, let them deal to brothers, give them guns, step back and watch them kill each other.

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 rap about Memphis and what a dangerous spot that is.

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.

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

I represent where them killers at 145th and Broadway you get your head cracked

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same.

I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx.

In the city, a lot of crime happens, a lot of violence happens from time to time.

We can either allow our youth to shoot baskets or watch them shoot people.

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

The violence in the schools of today will inevitably graduate to the streets, offices, cities, and borders of tomorrow.

I live in a dangerous part of Los Angeles. It's called... Los Angeles.

I go to the favelas in Brazil. It's the same in the South Side of Chicago. It's the same, or just more violent. We're trying to get them to stop selling dope. You see kids with AK-47s, and nine-year-olds with nine millimeters. You know, they don't play. They make us look like nuns.

I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer's lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there's a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair.

Oxford is the most dangerous place to which a young man can be sent.

We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang.

Thug Life to me is dead.

In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after-school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront.