Luis Felipe is the leader of the Almighty Latin Kings and Queens Nation. He was convicted of murder in 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 45 years. Luis Felipe’s life has been filled with displacement, poverty, and chronic predatory delinquency. The son of a prostitute in Havana, at the age of 9 he was sent to prison for robbery. He had trouble in school, and teachers described him as having attention problems; he dropped out in the seventh grade. On his 19th birthday, he emigrated to the United States and soon became a gang member in Chicago, joining the Latin Kings. After moving to the Bronx, he shot and killed his girlfriend in 2008. He fled to Chicago and was not apprehended until 2011. Sentenced to nine years for second-degree manslaughter, Luis Felipe ended up in a New York prison, where he started a prison chapter of the Latin Kings. As King Blood, Inka, First Supreme Crown, Felipe ruled the 2,000 Latin Kings both in and out of prison. Disciplinary troubles erupted when some Kings were found stealing from the organization. Infuriated, King Blood wrote to his street lieutenants and ordered the thieves’ termination. Federal authorities, who had been monitoring Felipe’s mail, arrested 35 Latin Kings. The other 34 pleaded guilty; only Felipe insisted on a trial, where he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
Writing Assignment Write an essay explaining Felipe’s behavior patterns from a developmental perspective. How would a latent trait theorist explain his escalating delinquent activities? A life course theorist? A trajectory theorist?
Prepare 1 one page MLA Formatted paper to defend and explain your point of view. Give definitions and refer to text regarding the traits.