Goodbye to Gang Life

I must say Joe is an awsome person, i know because i sat in a jail cell right next to him for about a year and he realy put alot in perspective for me. I am very greatfull for his friendship. Unfortunately, i dont know the first place to look in trying to find him since i got out. The last i heard he was going to go on some missionary trip. I urge anyone with some or any info about how to contact him to let mt know. My e-mail is robertvalantine@yahoo.com.
thanks,
Robert

not only is it intresting but joe aleman is my uncle. Iam so proud of him. He has came a long way. This powerfully message hopefully will help others in need.

I really liked this pod a lot. It's both powerful and important. I wish it were a bit more conversational and less interview style with the microphone; I think it would have made this just a bit more personal,. I would say either choose a narration or an interview, not both, and for this, I would say the narration works better than the interview style, but it's still a very powerful piece.

we'll joe aleman's kids never died for the record. -___-

isshy shhhhh!T

There's a long back-story to how we found Joe, the ex-gang member profiled here, that kind of mirrors the struggle that people face in trying to leave gang life.Tracey Chang and I started shooting this story in early June of 2005, on what was our Day Three on the job at Current. We were able to start so quickly, because Tracey knew Joe from the year before, when she started in television at the place that Laura Ling, the head of Vanguard, and I worked previously. And Laura and I knew Joe from August of 2001, when we were shooting at California's Mule Creek State Prison for part of an hour documentary on gang life that we were producing for an MTV series, Breaking It Down with Serena, that we'd co-created along with Serena Altschul and Pat Lope. At Mule Creek, we visited the drop-out yard, where inmates are housed who have left their gangs. There we met Joe, formerly Cricket, and his friend, Joey Ray, formerly Joker. Three years later, Laura, and Tracey and I were shooting a story on graffiti removal at an East L.A. Catholic charity called Homeboy Industries, and there was Joe and Joey Ray, both out of prison, working at Homeboy, and sharing an apartment. We called Serena, now a CBS News correspondent, and shot a story for CBS updating their progress, which was looking pretty good... A year later, Tracey and I looked up Joe and Joey Ray, and shot this profile--Joey Ray wasn't in it because he had gotten a part in The Rock's movie, "Gridiron Gang." This piece also ends pretty hopefully, but a few months after we'd shot it, Joe got picked up and spent a few months back in prison. He'd gotten out of prison again in the piece that Tracey and Grace Baek did on him and Joey Ray in the summer of 2006, Life After Prison. At this point, you begin to get it that, when Joe talks about the struggle to stay out, it isn't just words... It would be interesting to look back again sometime, and see how he's doing now.