white clients. I constantly ask the state's attorneys—‘No white people sell or use drugs?’  I mean I'm not trying to go into statistics, but how does that play out night after night after night?”

At the cluttered defense table in Room 302, Lohraff sifts through a mountain of folders and finds the next case. “This guy is kind of a quintessential example of what goes on in here every night,” says Lohraff.  “In this city most of the drugs are controlled through street gangs. They're organized in these military hierarchies, and the actual dudes who are on the corner hawking the stuff are the lowest of the low.  They're the disposable throwaway soldiers, the foot soldiers, and that's who this guy is.”

Dwayne Thomas^[5] is an 18-year-old black male who was already on probation for a drug offense when a couple of officers in a squad car saw him walking south on Ashland carrying a paper bag. When he spotted the cops he took off and ducked into the alley. They caught him, checked the alley, found the paper bag, and inside was a handgun. A felon with a gun is a violation of probation.  “He wanted to go to trial,” says Lohraff, “but you're really screwed when it comes to violations of probation. Winning one is next to impossible.” So Lohraff quickly cut a deal. Tonight will be the final act in a script written last week by Lohraff and the state's attorney. If the judge agrees to the terms, the whole show will be wrapped up in about fifteen minutes.

Lohraff looks over the probation officer's pre-sentencing report. It says when Dwayne Thomas was asked if he was a gang member, he answered, “I been in the G.D.s all my life.”

“That's an interesting quote,” says Lohraff. “It wasn't, ‘I been in the gang since I was 11 or 12,’ but, ‘I been in the G.D.s all  my life.’ His mother was an alcoholic, his father had left. The G.D.s were—his family, you know?  I mean the day he walks out of the joint, you know he's gonna be back on the same street doing the exact same thing he's doin' now.”

Dwayne Thomas is led in from the holding cell, and in his sagging Cook County jumpsuit, it’s hard to picture him as a member of the fearsome Gangster Disciples. Short, slightly built,