Inside the Crips

Book excerpt: “[An] arresting memoir” about one man’s life in an L. A. street gang, from age ten in the 1970s to his prison turnaround twenty-five years later (Publishers Weekly). Colton “C-Loc” Simpson was a Crip. Beginning at the age of ten in the mid-1970s, Simpson’s world was defined in terms of war. By the time he quit, Simpson had risen through the ranks to become Stabilizer and, later, General. Simpson was the son of Dick Simpson, a ballplayer for the California Angels and Cincinnati Reds, but even before he became a gangbanger, his life was rough. Raised by his grandmother in South Central L.A. Simpson didn’t so much turn to the streets as become engulfed by them: without asking to become part of the gang, his forced induction into the Crips meant running don an alley while the members opened fire on him. Inside the Crips is Simpson’s unstinting account—emotional, violent, ugly, and tender—of life inside a gang. You’ll meet intense characters such as Smiley, Simpson’s fellow gangbanger, and heartbreaking ones such as Gina, the mother of two young sons who married Simpson in prison. With a foreword by Ice T “The book provides a window into an often misunderstood way of life.” —Publishers Weekly “The Crips . . . is a famously difficult organization from which to retire alive. . . . This unvarnished portrayal of gang life is enlightening and even inspiring about a subject badly in need of illumination.” —Booklist