This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America's Most Violent Gang [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I picked this up because MS-13 is very active in my area (DC/Maryland/Virginia) and I was curious to learn more about how they operated on a national and international level, what their history is, what their main rackets are, what the structure is, what the command and control is, and so forth. However, this is not a book that's going to give you very much of that. Rather, it is a detailed account of the sad story of Brenda Paz -- a teenage MS-13 member whose 2003 murder was a very high-profile news item in the region.

Investigative reporter Logan uses Brenda's story as a way of writing about MS-13, and the book follows her for about two years, starting roughly from the time she moved to Texas to live with her uncle's family until her murder. Her relatives apparently didn't give her a whole lot of nurturing or attention, and as a result, the otherwise extremely bright and bubbly Brenda drifted into gang life. She quickly made friends with a local MS-13 clique, became the girlfriend of their leader, and was jumped in as a member. She spent a little less than a year with the gang, mainly in Texas and Virginia, before she decided to cooperate with police rather than serve jail time. Her apparent photographic memory made her a treasure trove for the cops, and she gave countless interviews to law enforcement officials from all over the country, culminating in a lengthy video-taped session that was adapted into a training video for police on MS-13. Naturally, a number of MS-13 people began to suspect her of being an informant, and as a result of a series of farcical bureaucratic errors and her own hubris, she was killed.

While this picture from inside the gang is often very vivid and interesting, it's not particularly in-depth. Most of what you learn about MS-13 are the basics that have been covered in any number of magazine, television, and newspaper profiles over the last few years. I guess if you had never heard of MS-13, it provides a very solid overview, but it felt pretty skimpy to me. To be fair, writing about closed gangs is not exactly easy, and it's next to impossible to get a truly in-depth anthropological picture of one. Logan does good work with the material he has, spinning Brenda's story into a compelling tragedy and cautionary tale. Ultimately, however, she comes across as yet another teenager without strong family involvement in her life and exceedingly poor decision-making skills.

Logan uses one stylistic device that I didn't care for, and that's inventing what people are thinking when there is absolutely no way he could know. I understand that this is an established practice in some forms of narrative non-fiction, but it really bothered me when in the midst of his retelling of a murder, we are told what thoughts are running through the victim's mind as he's about to die. It's really unnecessary, and is the kind of sensationalistic device that undermines the credibility of the book.

Speaking of sensationalism, by the end of the book, it's still not clear to me why MS-13 is regarded as dramatically more violent than any other gang with cliques throughout the country (such as the Bloods and Crips). No data is provided in the book to make such a case, and the anecdotal examples, while horrific, don't strike me as dramatically different from those perpetrated by other gangs. On the flip side, I do think MS-13 represents a very different and more serious problem than classic American gangs, if only for their international networks. Details about this international dimension are severely lacking in this book -- such as the exact nature of their partnership with Mexican drug traffickers, a proper investigation of the rumor that they have connections with Al Qaeda, and their influence in Central America (in fact, their most infamous crime -- a mass killing in Honduras -- isn't mentioned in the book). Still, this is a nice narrative introduction to MS-13 in America that fills the need for those with an interest in street gangs.

Anyone doing research or teaching about gangs and delinguency will tell you how difficult it is to encounter relevant teaching material about Latino gangs in the Southwest. The language and cultural divide separates us from full access to the internal "narratives" and subcultural forces that operate within Latino gangs -- especially the most violent versions like the MS-13, the Mara Salvatrucha.

This is an ironic situation for academics, given that the fundamental roots of criminological and delinquent theories describing gangs are strongly rooted in Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin's analysis of gang subcultures in New York -- primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican.

And yet few know much about the Latino gangs concentrated along the southwest border of the USA. Many have a general understanding of MS-13 -- the ritualized elaborate tattoos especially on faces, their roots in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and a reputation for brutal violence etc.

Samuel Logan's book will fill the knowledge gap for anyone teaching delinquency or advanced courses about gangs and street crime. It will be especially useful for people interested in the role of women within violent gangs. The author is a veteran international reporter , and presents a detailed picture of a Mara Salvatrucha gang from the narrative of view of a female chivato -- (informer). Many sociological ideas are nicely illustrated here -- "sexing-in" vs. "jumping-in" etc. The best thing is that most students will love the book because it's tale of abandonment, alienation and teen angst will resonate on a personal level.

Logan's book is an excellent complements to the recent movie, "Sin Nombre" about Mara Salvatrucha gangs and their distorted internal code of "honor" and their relationship to women and family. That movie was written and directed by Cary Fukunagawho rode the rails with migrants from Central America.[...].

This is an incredible story written in a tense and gripping way that leaves you glued to the book. The expression that fact is stranger than fiction certainly holds true in this frightening account of gang life. This is a must-read.