Venture into the Heart of L.A.’s Gangland

If Hollywood and Beverly Hills aren’t your style, the next time you’re in Los Angeles, you can get up-close-and-personal with the boys in the ’hood. For $65 per adult, the non-profit group, L.A. Gang Tours is offering a two-hour tour of the city’s most notorious gang-infested neighbourhoods. Proceeds from the tours will go back to inner city neighbourhoods in areas such as job development and providing micro-loans to entrepreneurs.

In a similar vein to “slum tourism” in India, L.A. Gang Tours is designed to put a face to the locals. And similarly to slum tourism, this model of sightseeing has been decried by critics as exploitive and demeaning. This criticism couldn’t be further from the intended purpose of the tours, according to Alfred Lomas, a former South Central gang-member and founder of L.A. Gang Tours.

According to their official website, “[Lomas’s] heart and prayer is that this organization will provide rays of hope into the dark corridors of drugs and gang violence…” Lomas himself is living proof of the potential transformation possible within each person; he is now the director of the Los Angeles Dream Center, an outfit which provides meals for low-income families in L.A.’s inner city.

Each tour will be lead by someone with intimate knowledge of the local gangs. The participating gangs including the Crips and Florencia 13, have established gunfire-free safety zones to allow the tours to pass through their territory at scheduled times.

Organizers have been careful to try to present the history of the area’s gangs and the current residents in a respectful light. Ideas to have children shoot visitors with a water gun and then sell t-shirts which read, “I Got Shot in South Central” were scrapped. Instead associates hope to feature dance-offs between locals and have graffiti taggers involved.

Several heavyweight business executives and community leaders have shown support for L.A. Gang Tours such as Kevin Malone, previously an executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers; Ron Noblet, a gang specialist; and Terry Jensen, principal of a real estate and engineering company called Duninger Corp.

Despite criticism, the first public tours which took place in January and February 2010 were sold out and subsequent tours are selling quickly. This tour would definitely liven up an otherwise ordinary stay in the City of Angels.