Jeb Maynard is a patrolman guarding the U.S.-Mexican border, whose partner and buddy Scooter has just been murdered. Maynard knows that a smuggler of illegal aliens is responsible for Scooter's death, but the feds insist that drug dealers committed the crime.

Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influence of narcotics alter their lives. Miklo is incarcerated and sent to San Quentin, where he makes a "home" for himself. Cruz becomes an exceptional artist, but a heroin addiction overcomes him with tragic results. Paco becomes a cop and an enemy to his "carnal", Miklo.

Based on true story of teens Richard and Deborah Jahnke charged in Wyoming for the killing of their abusive father.

Jane Morgan gives birth to her baby at the hospital. When she wakes up the next morning, the hospital tells her, that her son died at birth. However from ultrasound reading she had before, she knew she was having a girl. Now the hospital is stone-walling her, saying she is just in denial, due to her loss. Now she is trying to fight the system, to find evidence of the apparent mistake by the hospital. Only it wasn't the hospital's mistake. Nurse Rita Donohue is the one who made the switch. She faked a pregnancy to hang on to her roving boyfriend. But she grabbed the wrong baby, her boyfriend wants a son, so now she's faking a second pregnancy, and making plans to get another baby.

New Yorkers Skip Donahue and Harry Monroe have no jobs and no prospects, so they decide to flee the city and find work elsewhere, landing jobs wearing woodpecker costumes to promote the opening of a bank. When their feathery costumes are stolen and used in a bank robbery, they no longer have to worry about employment — they're sent to prison.

Blaise Dietz (Patty Duke Astin) plays the wife of police officer Blaise Dietz (Frederic Forrest), who wants to join a special investigative unit. Forrest is denied this position on the basis of information concerning his wife. The information, which reveals a dicey extramarital affair, was culled from a department surveillance file that was supposed to have been destroyed by court order. Blaise battles through legal channels to expose the police force's illegal actions, even as she and her husband suffer the innuendoes and cold shoulders from his fellow officers.

A white female detective is partnered with a black male detective to find the person who is committing a series of particularly vicious murders. During the course of the investigation the two begin to develop an attraction to each other, but the situation is complicated by the fact that he is married.

Martian Garcia announces to his parents that not only is he proud to have converted to Atheism, but he intends to tell his whole family on Christmas. His parents then disown him on the spot, and they turn to his Aunt Patrica, who turns the rest of his family against him, and she's determined to either bring him back to the fold or kill him trying.

A serial rapist gets acquitted of his crimes due to a police mishandling of the investigation. His victims decide to turn the tables on him and begin stalking him.

Bumper Morgan is a veteran Los Angeles Police Department street cop. He is due to retire after 20 years on the job, but is not letting up on the criminal element on his beat.