You mention that you challenge the ideas about ties to the Mafia, by which I assume we're talking about the Italian Mob. By the 1990s, how powerful was the mob within Chicago? And of course dependent on your answer to that, what was the interplay with the Spanish gangs at the time? Was their direct competition, cooperation, or mostly ambivalence?

Also, how strong was the (Italian) Mafia influence on the Latino gangs as they worked to create their own mafia? Was their conscious effort to mimic the Italian's organization, and of course, were they following in the footsteps of the actual Mob, or more influenced by the pop culture image, e.g. The Godfather and its kind?

For everyone joining us, John Hagedorn is Professor of Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He's written extensively on the history of gangs and gang violence, including such books as People & Folks, Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City, which re-framed the study of gangs in the United States by focusing on the impact of deindustrialization. He is co-editor of Female Gangs in America: Essays on Girls, Gangs, and Gender, the only edited volume ever published in the U.S. on female gangs.

His newest book is The In$ane Chicago Way, about the daring attempt by Chicago gangs in the 1990s to create a Spanish mafia.

Professor Hagedorn, I'm curious about how you go about writing such a book. How do you reconcile sources who may or may not have their own agenda with documents that may or may not be telling the whole story?

Another question: How do you think the SGD fits in to the history of gangs as a whole in Chicago? Was it an abberation, or was it a pattern similar to what's been seen before?

An admittedly broad question - What can you say about gang cards? When the emerged, how they were used, how prevalent were they?

I met a gentlement on the El one time who was a collector and had a few with them and they fascinated me at the time.

Great question. The book traces the attempts by the Outfit, the name of the Chicago mob, to steer Spanish Growth & Development, a prison based coaltion of Latin Folks gangs into a mafia commission format. They failed and SGD collapsed in a pool of blood.

While social scientists claim the Outfit is dead, my key informant, Sal, an Outfit soldier, explains how the Outfit thrives today through hundreds of "associates," non-Italian criminals, largely drawn from the gangs. Sal quotes an old movie that the "greatest trick the devil has pulled is convincing people he doesn't exist." Organized crime is alive in Chicago, and if not exactly well, still going strong

In your studies, what have you observed regarding police corruption? Does it commonly originate in the higher ranks, or in the lower ranks?

How important was the CPD's dissolution of its gang crime units in creating an environment where gangs could communicate freely and discuss the possibility of a large scale organization?

Another question, if I am not barred from having two.

I lived in Wicker Park and Humboldt Park previously. Anything notable about the Latin Kings, those areas, and so on?