Category: Crime

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Denise Turner, 34 and her niece, Delenna Williams, and nephew, Derrick Williams. The two children were disfigured in a fire that killed their mother. Four years later, Delenna was shot in the chest, wrist and forehead while she and her aunt were searching for a new apartment to live in. Photo by John Sundlof

Getting Caught Up: Families Pay The Price

CHICAGO–“Oh, he’s a nice-looking young man,” Rose Doyle said softly, of the tall, muscular 24-year-old in jail togs who was being escorted into the courtroom by a sheriff’s deputy. The man was Deron Jones. On the night of March 4, 1993, he pumped several bullets

Boggan found that exercising his right to a jury tial resulted in years more imprisonment than most of his fellow inmates who committed crimes where victims were injured or killed. He is scheduled to remain in Illinois prisons until 2025. Photo by John Sundlof

Using Your Rights Means Extra Years in Prison

Vincent Boggan is among the few inmates in the Pontiac Correctional Center–a maximum-security prison in Pontiac, Illinois–who avail themselves of the free classes offered. He has already earned an “Associate of Applied Science”–a vocational degree–and now is working on an “Associate in General Studies”–a college-level

Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago's Cook County jail await a court appearance. Photo by John Sundlof

Pushing Treatment For Prisoners

CHICAGO–A tale of two junkies: Dwight Walker sat in his cell in the Cook County Jail last September, aching, cramping, and spitting up, and worrying about how much time he’d get for his robberies. Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago’s Cook County jail

Chivo, an East Los Angeles gang member, teaches his daughter how to hold a 32-caliber pistol. Her mother, Yvonne, looks on.

Gang Life In Los Angeles: The East Side Story

Photos and article by Joseph Rodriguez I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is like an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own rules. Chivo,

A metal detector is used in Mather High School in Chicago to find weapons that students carry. © 1993, John Sundlof, all right reserved.

Jailing Juveniles

A spirit of optimism about children created the nation’s first juvenile court, in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. Kids who got in trouble were still kids, the prevailing thinking went, and the focus ought to be on reforming instead of punishing them. A metal detector