Tina Huang
CRJ 112
Professor Gutierrez
July 6, 2016
Shakur Summary The book “Monster” by Sanyika Shakur also known as Kody Scott, is an autobiography of an L.A. Gang member. It is a story that narrates how he joined a gang, specifically the Eight Tray Gangster Crips and why it seemed appealing to him at the young age of eleven. Some notable themes found in the book include power and violence. In the long thirteen years as a notorious gang member, he lived life by killing friends and shooting enemies (ex. other Crips/Bloods), selling drugs, committing robberies, and frequently experiencing police brutality. As it became a known routine and comfortable cycle, as the years went by, he realized that gang life was not what he wanted…show more content… Although, the social disorganization theory is the most popular and is proven in the autobiography, there are several other theories that align with what Scott recounts in his life. For instance, the routine activities (opportunity) theory is different to that of other macro-level theories because it looks at and focuses on the opportunity aspect of offenders in order to explain and understand why they do what they do, such as victimizing other people or property (Howell & Griffiths, 2015, p. 86). Scott tried to leave the gang life for good – taking him three full years, however, he got sucked back into it because of the intense, gravitational pull and the safe familiarity of the set and the hood; it was a part of him that could not have been necessarily changed at the very end of it. For him to survive through it all, he adopted the “can’t stop, won’t stop” mentality. According to Shakur (1993), “In January of 1991 I was captured by the L.A.P.D. for assault and grand theft auto… Because of my terrible record, I faced a sentence of seventeen years” (p. 379). This expresses how when opportunities are present, there is a tendency, or a habitual process for offenders to be motivated and violent. These opportunities are more likely to consist of suitable targets such as vulnerable people with
