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Terms and Conditions
From: Gang Life
$1.50
The story of Ivan is told in Chapter Ten. He is forty-one years
of age, and he came to Canada as a young boy when his family —
mother, stepfather, and younger brother — fled a civil war in their
Eastern European country. The family was plagued by alcoholism and his stepfather instilled in Ivan the code of the street: don’t rat,
don’t trust the police, and fight for your family honour. To this
day Ivan bears the heavy burden of supporting his mentally ill
mother and his siblings. Ivan played a specialized role in his highprofile
gang — he was responsible for negotiating the “terms and
conditions” of cocaine and gun trafficking with a South American
cartel. Ivan was a higher-up and led his own crew. They not only
trafficked in illicit drugs, but they also imported steroids and
human growth hormones from other countries. He believed in
showing the value of his product to potential customers: no one
in his crew weighed less than 240 pounds of solid muscle.
Contributors
Mark Totten
MARK TOTTEN is a professor of criminal justice at Humber College in Toronto whose research focuses on organized crime, corrections, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, mental health, violence, and gender identity. Over the past decade, he has collaborated with groups in Ontario and Western Canada in the development and evaluation of multi-year gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies.
