I remember getting chills every time I came up against gang members or their leaders. It was pretty much only guys who joined the gangs. Sometimes you saw a girl who was in one, and everyone knew why she was there. Girl gang members shared more or less the same background: no parents, no family, no money, and nowhere to live. It was incredibly hard to protect yourself against boys and men if you didn’t have an adult or a gang looking out for you. Being raped, over and over, by men who didn’t care what kind of violence they used was significantly more dangerous than letting some of the guys in
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