8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangs

by Gini Sikes

Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to or gofers for male gangs, girl gang members are in fact often as emotionally closed off and dangerous as their male counterparts. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets for defense, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car jackings, stomp outsiders who stumble onto or dare to enter the neighborhood, viciously retaliate against other gangs and ferociously guard their home turf.

But Sikes also captures the differences that distinguish girl gangs-abortion, teen pregnancy and teen motherhood, endless beatings and the humiliation of being forced to have sex with a lineup of male gangbangers during initiation, haphazardly raising kids in a household of drugs and guns with a part-time boyfriend off gangbanging himself. Veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following the lives of several key gang members in South Central Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. In 8 Ball Chicks , we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Sociology, Gender Studies, Journalism, Biography

276 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1996

About the author

Gini Sikes is an author, producer, television writer and a print and broadcast journalist. Keenly focused on issues of youth, violence and the criminal justice system, Sikes has covered stories from homeless teenagers in the U.S. to genital mutilation in Africa for the Village Voice, Vibe, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar and others. She has investigated the impact of draconian drug laws on poor women, and explored the road to recovery for teen victims of school violence.

Sikes’ book, 8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World Of Girl
Gangsters (Doubleday/Anchor), chronicles a year she spent
with female gang members -- Latino, Black, White --in South Central Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. Readers discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the Catch-22 of their existence. Though non-fiction, the book reads as fast and furiously as fiction.
In television, she produced and wrote several episodes of True Life, MTV’s documentary series. For a program on ecstasy (a co-production with 48 Hours), Sikes followed a girl who so abused the drug that doctors compared the damage to that of a 60-year-old stroke victim. For another show, she shadowed a 21-year-old prostitute and mother of three as she started her new job at a tiny legal brothel in Nevada. Sikes was nominated for a News Emmy for Where Were You At 22? which, through interviews and archival footage, looked at the lives of the 2000 presidential candidates when they were the age of MTV's viewers. She’s also created programming for Court TV, VH1, PBS, Discovery Health, and TLC.
Well versed in a variety of media, Sikes helped create and to launch executionchronicles.org, a website that is monitoring a prisoner’s time on Texas’ death row. She was a senior editor at Mademoiselle and Metropolis magazines, and a radio journalist for Voice of America, reporting such stories as how war has changed life for young Iraqi women. She recently worked on Jesus Politics, a 90-minute feature documentary that explores the sometimes rocky relationship between faith and politics during the 2008 presidential primaries.

Sikes has been recognized for her work with several honors, including receiving a 2000-01 Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most Latino girls their entry into womanhood is with the pouffy dresses of their quinceanara. For these girls it is when their mother gives them a gun.

There are many different styles of parenting, most are neither universally praised or condemned, but in this book, the one detailed can only be describe as the most fucked-up parenting ever. This is talking about Latino girls in gangs in LA. For her daughter's 16th birthday, the mother gave her a gun. But this Catholic mother also threw her other daughter out for using the birth control pill. Is shooting people not a mortal sin too?

Apparently not, not even to the police if its a female gang member that does it, and not especially to the young girls who get guns for presents and think that gang-banging is just a phase, and they won't be doing it forever. No, they won't but the people they've killed are dead forever when they have moved on to more conventional lives.

This book is primarily about Latina gangs and African-American ones with scarcely a mention of a couple of fucked-up white girls. No matter their bravado and their feeling of being as bad, as down, as their men, girls are adjuncts. They are girls after boys, girls wanting to belong, girls who want to be with the cool set, or just because that's what all of them do in their neighbourhood. Unlike boys, the attraction of crime and violence for their own sake, is not a lure. Teenage girls are the same the world over when it comes to the reasons for belonging to groups, it's just that these ones are murderously dangerous.

The book is excellent; it's not a sociological survey as Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. The differences in style are that the author of 8 Ball does not identify with the girls she interviews and the sociologist very much does even though he pretends to be objective. This is more reportage and analysis, Venkatesh is more into the gonzo style and you can see quite clearly he admires their macho culture.

Sikes' book is the most readable. There are plenty of characters, some really hard and some just pathetic, but all are dangerous. They commit their crimes amid appalling violence but there is still hope for them all. They don't have the dedication of the males to either the gang unit or the idea of a gang being an organised way of making money. Venkatesh sees the gangs as alternative business units run by men who, outside of their violence, are as varied in character and personality as businessmen everywhere. You see not much hope for the men, and there really isn't is there? Black and Latino gang members understand that prison and a shortened lifespan are an integral part of the gang life they've chosen. It is hard for a man to leave a gang when he comes to his senses and understands his own mortality; he may never get out alive or at least with brutal wounding and consequent scarring. It is easier for a girl.

In the warped moral code of the gangs, a mother should be home looking after her children, cooking for her man and hiding his drugs and weapons from the law. She shouldn't be out on the street gangbanging. And these girls are mothers so young, most will not use birth control as they are Catholics, although some do have abortions. When they do realise that there is the possibility of life, not death, and even of becoming someone in the real world, even the dream of college for a few, there is a way out. A girl leaving a gang because of a child is praiseworthy.

So gangbanging to these Latino and Black girls is seen as just a phase, something adolescents do and isn't, unlike the men, a lifetime commitment. Some of the girls have successful lives once they leave the gangs. Others, dragged down by too many children, too much poverty and the easy access to drugs never will.

Some of them may even grow up to buy their daughters their special sweet-16 gift of a gun of their very own.

I also read a book about male gangs, Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book just blew me away. Or maybe that's a poor choice of words for a book about gang violence. These poor lost girls that Sikes wrote about-sometimes I just wanted to shout at them, "Stop doing stupid things! Straighten out your life! Be good!" Then I just wanted to hug them and take care of them. The stories of violence, abuse by males, rape, murder, drugs, oblivious parents, were enough to make my blood run cold. It's a little over ten years since this book was written and I would love to know how the women turned out, and how the gang situation is in the cities now, especially since I live in a suburb of Milwaukee. Where are they now? Are they even alive? Best part of the book: when Jade and Wanda's mother goes off on them and their loser boyfriends and tells them there is a better way, and they can change. Wanted to cheer for her.

[Sally the Salamander · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of anecdotes about following girl gang members around. It's mostly teen and pre-teen girls telling Sikes about rape, assaults, theft, drug peddling, and child neglect with no way to verify if many of these stories are true or not. Laid out in a very disorganized manner. I would have liked more hard data on what causes young girls to join gangs, but at the same time I understand that not much study had been done on the topic when Sikes wrote this close to 30 years ago.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 3 out of 5]

Need to be reviewed.

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look into the world of girl gangs in a few cities. The book focuses on a handful of girls from LA, San Antonio, and Wisconsin (Milwaukee, maybe?). Mostly based on interviews of girls and their families, friends, and compatriots, the book reveals first-hand accounts of the survival of girls in violent situations.

I wasn't particularly impressed by anything the author says, but it is a wonderful vehicle to the thoughts and motivations of the girls themselves. As a voice for these young women who are often completely disenfranchised it is often heartbreakingly effective.

Its distressing to realize how few choices these girls think they have, and to see how locked into the violent and anti-female belief system they are. Even those women who proclaim themselves strong can only do so by measuring up to the boys, and even then are treated like second class citizens by the men they live up to be.

Worth reading for its unique subject and non-academic coverage of a subculture I didn't know much about.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author embeds with female gang members and their larger gang and non-gang associates to go as far as she can (short of being present at crimes) to report on the activities, motivation and challenges of female gang members in LA, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. In LA it is a world matured since 60s zoot suit riot days, etc. while at stages of unacknowledged maturity in Milwaukee and a latent, emergent threat to the community in San Antonio. Gini gets very closes, as in friendship close, to some of her subjects and her close reportage with little fact checking or big picture makes for compelling, personalized reading (these miscreants and survivors are real people) obviously suggests issues of the impact of researcher involvement. Are they just talking and acting big because a journalist is in the room? What if they did not know they were being observed?

[Meridith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sikes writes about the time she spent doing non-participant observation research with female gang members in three areas of the US. Some might find the jumping from place to place a bit confusing when trying to keep the "characters" straight. Having worked with female gang members during a similar time frame to Sike's research, I can say from experience that she does a great job portraying the difficult situations in which these young women find themselves. Her ability to convey the gang subculture to the readerin a way they can understand is excellent.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about different girls in gangs ; the author "Gini Sikes" is interviewing different girls about there expiriences in gangs life and how do they feel being in one and what did they do most of them did really bad things to other people and there enemie. Most of your the girls "Gini" was interviewing was o.g's(Old Gangsters) what were in gangs.

Yes ofcourse i like this book ; i didn't like to read but this is an interesting book and it could help me by making the right choices and thinking before I do something i will regret the rest of my life.

[Lauren (strangled) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I was hoping for... I wanted to read more about the bigger picture of girls in gangs, the unique issues faced by women and the social constructs that create them. Instead, it was full of individual shock stories, which tell you all the gory details of how fucked up, violent, and painful gang life can be - especially for females - but without relating these stories to the bigger picture of what it means to be a woman, or how to resolve the problems these girls faced.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was raw, unflinching, terribly sad, jaw dropping and gut wrenching. This is the story of female gang members of all ages in a few cities around the country. It was a book of contradictions - women protected babies and discouraged birth control even though they assumed a life of poverty but placed no value on the life of a 10-year-old who could be initiated into the gang. It was a world I totally don't relate to, but was fascinated from start to finish.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, I found it interesting that Sikes coul get tese girls to talk to her about their gang activity. I would like to read an updated version of this book, and see if girls roles in gangs has changed at all. I also have more questions about intervention and support for young girls. I would recommend this book for anyone who works with youth.

[Jenn "JR" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one MANY years ago... it was pretty good (hey, I was a sociology/latin american studies student!). May still have my copy somewhere...

[Antoni Savander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Los Angelesin jengimeininki on kiinnostanut nuoresta pojasta saakka, itse asiassa siitä saakka, kun pikkupoikana luin Nicky Cruzin "Juokse poika juokse" -kirjan. Siitä seuraavana tulivat New Yorkin puertoricolaisnuorten tilalle hiphop, NWA ja Colors-leffa. Sitä jatkoi Boyz N' the Hood ja Friday ja kaikki muut aiheeseen liittyvät elokuvat, erityisesti Samaa verta eli Blood in, Blood Out. Kirjoja aiheesta en ole lukenut juurikaan, muutama vuosi sitten sain vihdoin aikaiseksi lukea Ryan Gattisin kaksi suomennettua teosta, toisessa käytiin läpi 1992 Los Angelesin mellakoita ja toisessa samaan paikkaan sijoittuvia rikosjuttuja. Mutta siinä pääpiirteissään kaikki.

Näin sitten telkkarissa talvella kasvon, jonka tiesin tuntevani. Lopputeksteissä selvisi, että kyseessä on Yasir Gaily, ensimmäinen tv-chatjuontaja TVTV-kanavalta. Netistä tsekkasin, mitä Yasir on vuosien aikana tehnyt, ja selvisi, että hän on suomentanut vaikka kuinka monta kirjaa.

Kirjastosta löytyi tämä 8 Ball Chicks, ikävä kyllä ei Gailyn suomentamaa Crips-jengin perustajan kirjaa. Innolla kuitenkin aloin lukea tätä, koska halusin tietää myös miten teinijengien ympärillä pyörineet tytöt ja nuoret naiset siellä pärjäsivät. Alku olikin ihan mielenkiintoista, mutta lopulta huomasin, etten enää lähes 50-vuotiaana tahdokaan lukea siitä kurjasta olotilasta, missä nämä tytöt ovat olleet 30 vuotta sitten. Liekö enää kukaan heistä hengissä? Ainakaan eivät ole päässeet elämässään juurikaan eteenpäin, kun kaikilla tuppasi olemaan ainakin yksi lapsi jo ennen kuin täyttivät 18 vuotta. Hankalaa on kotikulmilta lähteä paremman elämän makuun ilman rahaa.

Surkeinta kirjaa lukiessa oli kuitenkin se, että tästäkään historiasta ihmiskunta ei ole juurikaan ottanut opikseen. Kun lukee uutisia siitä, miten Suomessakin nuoriso perustaa tällaisia katujengien tyylisiä ryhmittymiä ja haaveilee isoista rahoista huumeita myymällä, ei voi kuin toivoa, että he pääsisivät siitä nopeasti yli ja eroon.

Niin, mutta kirjahan oli hyvin kirjoitettu ja Gaily lisäsi mukaan hyviä suomhuom-lisäyksiä, joista sai varmistuksen jo aiemmille aavistuksilleen tai tiedoilleen kirjassa olleista asioista. Ja aikamoisen duunin oli itse kirjailija tehnyt, kun oli uskaltautunut jengien keskelle, sellaisten tyyppien joukkoon, joille toisen ihmisen henki ei merkitse juuri mitään, koska ovat vielä niin nuoria ja keskenkasvuisia. Terveisin, kalkkis.

[CosmicDancer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todella vaikuttava kuvaus amerikkalaisesta jengikulttuurista ja tyttöjen asemasta tässä väkivaltaisessa maailmassa. Siinä missä poikien kohtalona on usein kuolla jengien välisissä yhteenotoissa, on tyttöjen osana lähisuhdeväkivalta, teiniraskaudet ja seksuaalinen hyväksikäyttö. Järkyttävintä on tajuta, että jokainen näistä Gini Sikesin haastattelemista nuorista on oikeasti olemassa ja heidän kaltaisiaan on paljon.
Asia, jonka ei olisi pitänyt tulla yllätyksenä, oli se kuinka erityisesti latinojengien syntyhistoriassa rasismilla on ollut keskeinen rooli. 1920-luvulla Kaliforniaan tuli paljon työvoimaa Meksikosta kaivoksiin ja maatiloille. Kun laman jälkeen töitä ei enää ollutkaan samallalailla tarjolla, meksikolaiset haluttiin ajaa takaisin rajan toiselle puolelle. Puolustautuakseen he alkoivat ryhmittäytyä, sillä omasta yhteisöstä oli helpompi saada tukea kuin viranomaisilta.
Vaikka tämän kirjan kirjoittamisesta onkin kulunut jo jonkin aikaa, en usko että tässä olisi kovinkaan paljoa vanhentunutta tietoa. Suosittelenkin tämän lukemista kaikille, jotka haluavat ymmärtää amerikkalaista yhteiskuntaa ja sen rakenteita hieman enemmän, koska maan köyhien elämästä harvoin kirjoitetaan näin romantisoimattomasti.

[Toby Mustill · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 Ball Chicks describes a world not often seen from the outside, even from the criminal justice community. The only reason I gave four stars is the book lacks a refinement in the writing, it has a sensationalist feel of a journalist (which the author is) and fails to look at the content from a academic and neutral standpoint.

However there are many good points. For example, girls are often times overlooked as the girlfriends of members and disregarded in policy and practice. The book provides a bit of a contradiction “...None of the girls I met (writing the book) were killed. They simply do not die at the same rate as the boys. Instead...they are left to pick up the pieces...”.

So while we cannot look at girl members in the same light, they still live in the same world and suffer the same consequences. “We need to get to know these girls...first we have to listen.”

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Wish there was a follow up on Coco.

[Skyla Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super interesting read for anyone interested in juvenile and gang delinquency.

[Sharron Zachry-Withers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great look at the role of girls in gangs.

[Zach Schiff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty great book, even with the wholly unnecessary section on Milwaukee.

[amandita · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Max Hanawalt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This gives a shocking look into female gang members. It felt like something was missing though.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

So depressing and difficult to read. Multi-generational gangbanger girls who kill without seeming to care. Most of them are mothers who say they care for their children's' future, but little is or can be done to change their outcome. The author followed several girls around for a year and learned the devastating truth about Latina and African American gangs in LA.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last night, I finished reading Gini Sikes' 8 Ball Chicks. The book is a study of female gang members in Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, circa the mid-late 1990s. Sikes did a year of research, traveling around and talking to the girls themselves, their families, police, social workers, etc. Her level of involvement is amazing. She obviously cares about her "subjects" and her willingness to go into depth with them, and to examine herself as much as she is examining them, is truly inspirational. I will definitely look for other work she's done (I think she's a journalist and this is her only book, but I'm not certain).

The subject matter of the book is amazing and horrifying. I am totally aware that I grew up white and rural and privledged, but being aware of it in a vague way is different than reading these stories. The things some of these girls lived through before they were even in their late teens were truly worse than I could have imagined. And their cavalier attitudes about it all, the expectation that it wasn't going to go away and that was just the way life was...it chilled me. The common threads in their stories--abusive parents, sexual abuse at a young age, poverty, violent
relationships with boyfriends, pregnancy early and often--are the stuff stereotypes are made of, but when you read about it happening to someone specific, Coco or Alicia or Sad Eyes, it becomes something totally different. I think that speaks really well of Sikes' work.

I don't know where I am really going with this...I haven't gathered my thoughts about the book enough to write anything resembling an actual critique of it. I guess I just wanted to recommend it (with a huge trigger warning, because it is HARD to read). It's making me think a little bit differently about feminism this week.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! Gini Sikes, a journalist, spent a year travelling the US getting to know young girls who are involved in gangs. The stories can be quite heartbreaking and you wonder how the outcome will be but there are many instances of triumph, even though the triumph's may not be big in a 'regular' person's view.

She reveals the inner workings of girl gangs and the roles they play next to their male counterparts. Many end up becoming pregnant and leave the gangs that way and many 'weaker' girls who choose not to be jumped in and want the connection to a gang become sex toys for the male members and often are used in various other ways so the males can get what they need.

She also brings a humanness to the girls by sharing their stories and revealing their vulnerabilities and their struggles to stay tough when things come crashing down. Over time some of the girls can move on from their gang days as they leave teenage years behind, however this comes at a cost, low pay, poor housing and no help with their parenting as the fathers are either gone, in jail or dead.

The biggest reminder at the end is that when we judge people by what they look like we lose the opportunity to help and to get to know people underneath the layers of clothes, attitude and circumstances.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book but for some reason it took me awhile to finish it. Excellent portal to the life of girls with real problems. I have a new sadness in my heart for these girls and boys alike. The environment these kids grow up in is what they become. However you want to look at it, they all want parents and someone to tell them the word "No". Just to show that they care. There are so many kids in the world today that just want someone to trust them and to show them love and to hug them and tell them everything will be alright. I can only imagine the nightmares these children have. If you want to check out the life of kids in gangs this book is a good one to read.

[Margaret]

This book was gripping and disturbing at the same time. I really wasn't surprised at anything I read though - I lived in L.A. for 25 yrs and used to work on 104th St near the LAX airport - not too far at all from 110th St - Lennox territory. So for me, the L.A. section was the most interesting. I liked the fact that the author did a follow-up on L.A. also since I was curious about the future for Coco, TJ and Shygirl. It was sad that Coco wanted to make her life better but ended up being homeless. I think the author was truly courageous to take this project on and in some of the situations she was in I was a little worried for her safety. A unique and interesting book

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very powerful, and riveting, this book examines a world most of us will never see. It is about her interviews with girls in gangs and her observations, and was written in the late 90s. I can't help but wonder if things are the same now, better, or worse. There were times I was filled with a sense of despair, times when I felt sad for these kids, times when I found it hard to sympathize, and times when I was happy for those who managed to escape the life on the streets. Very sad and eye-opening, this story helps you understand what life is like in the inner city. it is a whole different world.

[Racheltd · Rating 4 out of 5]

i learned that gangs are stupid. and girl gangs are full of rape and a need to belong. women are stupid...especially those in poverty.
i enjoyed the book. i think gini sikes did a good job in making the book interesting...i was never bored. i walked away hating the 90s...and what the gangs did to america. a lot of drama. a lot of cholas.
i wish these women would stand up for themselves and for women and not allow these men to rule their lives. its not okay to have kids at 13. its not okay to shoot people. its not okay to be raped.

[Noora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todella kiinnostava kuvaus oikeiden jengityttöjen elämästä. Ei kovinkaan rauhoittava kirja näin joulun alla luettavaksi, mutta todella mielenkiintoinen. Suomalaisen näkökulmasta asioita on aika vaikea kuvitella tosiksi, mutta se on samalla myös tietynlainen itsepuolustuskeino. Jos kaikki kauheudet pystyisi kuvittelemaan ja näkemään tosina, voisi pian olla mielenterveysongelmissa... Eniten sääliksi käyvät lapset, jotka mitä todennäköisimmin päätyvät itsekin jenginuoriksi ilman vaihtoehtoja. Kiinnostava kirja kaikesta huolimatta.

[Marina Derosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. Since I am from the south, I am use to and aware of gangs and gang violence, but this book gives you such an insight on their lives throughout the gang-banging and hold-ups. These people seem almost as if they don't have any emotions. They do, but they have to hide those away in order to be accepted and survive. If not, you're the next one dead at the end of the street. I recommend this book to many people. It has so much information about gangs and violence, it's definitely a new perspective.