OCEAN PARK It didn’t take long for Joe Aleman to size up the students bent on the same destructive path he was on before getting sent to prison.
Aleman walked into a criminal justice class at Olympic High School on Monday morning, surveying the room and the students who sat chatting and snickering at their desks while they waited for the former gang member to tell his life story.
The first thing that came out of his mouth after briefly introducing himself — a gang member-turned community service supervisor — was that by looking around he could tell which students in the class were looking for trouble.
It was then that most students sat straight up, hanging on Aleman’s every word for the next hour as he talked about his experiences with child molestation, issues with trust, life as a gang member, losing his child to gang violence and, finally, spending more than a decade behind bars.
A considerable portion of students at Olympic High School — the continuation high school in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District — are considered to be at risk, whether it’s being in danger of not graduating from high school or succumbing to the gang lifestyle.
“They are at risk because they are exposed to it,” said Marcia Gecht, a teacher at Olympic High School.“They are at risk of going in the wrong direction.”
For those reasons, Gecht invited Aleman, a community service supervisor for Homeboy Industries, to speak to the juniors and seniors in her criminal justice class.
The goal of the presentation was to show students that change is possible and that Aleman is a living example of that fact.
Founded by Father Greg Boyle, Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries helps former gang members and at risk juveniles transition out of a tough life by providing them with counseling and employment opportunities through various ventures within the organization, such as Homeboy Silkscreen, Homeboy Bakery and Homeboy Maintenance.
Born in Mexico and raised in Hollywood, Aleman grew up with a single mother who split from his father after both had separate affairs. He didn’t experience a hard life growing up, but it definitely was not the type of fun childhood on which one would fondly reflect, Aleman said.
He was kicked out of his house at the age of 7 and spent the next few years staying with his babysitter, who lived down the street. It was there that he was exposed to a less-than-stellar lifestyle.
A few years later, Aleman started hanging out with a newspaper deliveryman, who subsequently molested the youth.
“He exposed me to something that was not cool at all,” Aleman said. “He used to touch me at night.”
The child molestation incident made Aleman question those who were closest to him, and started associating homosexuality with molestation. He confessed to the class that he spent years “gay bashing,” but now understands that there is no connection.
The problem was that Aleman lacked a role model, a strong figure, to teach him from right and wrong, he said. At the age of 12, he was introduced to a gang. “Gangs were pretty much an excuse for me to release everything,” Aleman said.
The students in the class started gasping, some staring intently at Aleman, as he told the teenagers that he started drinking at the age of 13, started using guns by 17, and was the father of a 4-year-old boy at the age of 19.
“I used to pray to God to forgive me,” said Aleman, who now lives in South Los Angeles. “I used to feel bad for the people that I hurt.”
One day, a local television news crew came out to his “hood” to do an exposé on gangs. While all the gang members in his crew scattered away in hiding, Aleman gave an interview to the reporter, who asked him where he saw himself in five to 10 years.
Aleman pointed down to the end of the street, telling the reporter he would be at the end of the neighborhood in 10 years. He knew that life would be limited to the neighborhood for as long as he continued his life as a gang member.
Aleman’s tone eventually grew darker, as he talked about the day when he was sitting outside with his son and pregnant girlfriend. A drive-by shooting left his son dead and his girlfriend shot in the stomach, killing their unborn child.
After calling the police, Aleman was arrested on outstanding warrants and spent the next two months in jail. By the time he was released, it was time for payback.
“I wanted to pull a Third World country on them and chop off their heads with a machete,” he said.
But things didn’t go his way. A few months later, Aleman was face down on the ground, as a police draped a body bag over him. He’d been shot in the head with four.38 caliber bullets.
Still, the miracle of his survival wasn’t enough to make Aleman change.
By the age of 20, a possible death penalty hung over his head after being arrested for murder and robbery. Instead, he was sentenced to serve 20 years in jail and released 14 years later in April 2004. In 2001,at the age of 31,Aleman finally realized he had a problem.He underwent a 12-step program with Criminal and Gang Members Anonymous and met Boyle, who offered Aleman a job upon his release from prison.
At the end of his story, Aleman told the students that change is possible, concluding his speech with “I believe in you guys, man.”
“It’s hard for some people to change once they get in jail,” said Quiana O’Guinn, a senior at Olympic High School. “It’s cool that he was able to come out of jail a changed man.”
When Aleman announced that he could tell students in the class were headed in the same destructive path, it struck a chord with junior Sonalia Goldsby, who said she knows several gang members.
“I have friends in that lifestyle,” she said. “Maybe I can help them and hopefully set them on the right path.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.