Mortal Doubt

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Anthony W. Fontes. Mortal Doubt

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ATELIER: ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Kevin Lewis O’Neill, Series Editor

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Given how precarious the situation could be, and because informants and opportunities to enter prisons or mara-dominated zones could arise and disappear very quickly, I had to jump down every rabbit hole I found. Such was my “research plan.” Slowly, my network of friends and contacts grew beyond gangsters to include police, prosecutors, human rights activists, prison directors, social workers, taxi drivers, church pastors, journalists, and many others. Over the years I have done my best to keep in touch with this network, though many of my gang-involved contacts and friends have disappeared. There are few avenues by which to escape the violence of gang life. In their desperation to find a different way to live, some became protected witnesses in high-profile murder cases, evangelical converts, antiviolence activists, freelance hitmen, or drug addicts. Some still survive in prison or eke out a living on the street, while others have been killed by the police, their rivals, or their old gangs. It may be true that they were once perpetrators of the violence to which they fell victim. But as you will see, the violence for which the maras speak, or are made to speak, has a way of conscripting into its ranks all sorts of unexpected accomplices, erstwhile and otherwise.

“Were the others around when you were doing it?”

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