Essay about CJ130-03: Introduction to Corrections Unit 9 Final

In Policing Gangs in America, Charles Katz and Vincent Webb describes every issue in American Gangs today. The ultimate goal of this book is how the gang officers work and the different kind of atmosphere they work in. Their job isn’t like other law enforcement jobs. It’s one of the more dangerous occupation in the Criminal Justice system. These gang officers focus on how they react to public gang issues.

This paper will serve as a profile of a prison gang of your choice. You will research this gang, its origins, growth, culture and newsworthy incidents. This paper should include the influence gang membership has on inmates, their progress in their sentences, rehabilitation and recidivism.

In our prison systems today, many different gangs pose a threat to our correctional staff and other inmates. In the United States, gangs exist in forty of the fifty states. These gangs bring violence, drug trafficking and racial unrest to our correctional system.

The Aryan brotherhood was originally started in the San Quentin prison in California in 1967. “Members display many white supremacist, neo-nazi characteristics and ideology, but often but often state their goals as simply “getting high and getting over,” or making their stay in prison as comfortable as possibly” (Florida Department of Corrections). Being that the Aryan Brotherhood is made up of white people, who show that neo-nazi mentality, some of the enemies of this gang include Black Guerilla Family, Crips, Bloods, and El Rukns, because these gangs are made up of mostly black members. The Aryan Brotherhood will use black associates to sell drugs within the prisons to other black prisoners, this will eliminate the exposure they have with rival gangs. They do maintain a working type of relationship with the Mexican Mafia, and are known to work alongside biker groups. It is said many of them were once part of these biker groups.

A gang is an organized group with a recognized leader whose activities are either criminal or, at the very least, threatening to the community. (Walker, 2011) Throughout history there have been some infamous gangs that have gotten media attention and others that have gone under the radar. One of the more underground gang structures are prison gangs. The Nuestra Familia may not be in the news as much anymore compared to other gangs, but they are nothing to be taken lightly. Prison gangs have been around since the late 20th century and only seem to be getting stronger if nothing is going to be done to prevent them. Gangs in prison have members in and out of prison. One of the more popular gangs that has been gaining steam recently is

“Gangs have morphed from social organizations into full-fledged criminal enterprises” (Thomas, 2009, para 5). Gangs are highly sophisticated and more dangerous then ever. The number one reason to join a gang is money; and 95 percent of gangs profit comes from drug dealing

Gangs pose a threat to the safety of United States prisons by performing illegal activities and the encouraging violence. It is important to develop strategies to reduce gang recruitment, limit their influence, and sanction their misconduct in order to create a safe environment for all prisoners. With this, inmates that are involved in gangs should be put under twenty four-hour lockdown. By isolating these members, prisons will be able to limit their influence.

The United States criminal justice system has many flaws. Some can be fixed, but others have left officials of the criminal justice system dumbfounded and searching for answers. Prison gangs seem to be one of the latter. While prison gangs were first recorded in the 1950’s, they did not become a massive problem until the 1970’s (Davis). Prison gangs have contributed to violence throughout nearly every prison in the country.

The article presented on this paper reveals the problem of gangs and gang related violence in our nation’s institutions. Corrections Canada has seen a 44 per cent jump in gang members in federal prisons in the last five years, to 2,040 in 2012 from 1,421 in 2007, according to the documents obtained under access to information. The correctional service constructed a strategic framework for dealing with gangs in 2006, and implemented its gang management strategy in 2008, aiming to convince inmates to drop their affiliation and limit security risks. Gang numbers have continued to rise, according to one correctional service management document. It raises a number of

Prison gangs are flourishing in modern prisons throughout the U.S. every day. Every gang has its own way to distinguish themselves from other gangs. Colors, symbols, hand signs, race, and tattoos are some of the characteristics gangs use to identify which gang each member belongs to. The increase in gang activity has been a growing concern to correctional facilities because prison gangs ultimately put staff and non-members safety at risk. Gangs, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican

The Black Guerrilla Family was started in the year 1966 by W.L. Nolen, Lester Jackson, James Carr and other racist who were black in the San Quentin state prison in California. The founders adopted the militia structure and ideology of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The gangs were started so as to unite the black prisoners and get rid of a violent uprising. This uprising was believed to be from a racist prison administration that was white. The gang attracted thousands black American offenders, and was listed for a number of staff assaults and the murder of Marin County judge in 1970. Its territory is in California and some selected areas in the United States. It also has a paramilitary kind of structure. It has around 50,000 members. If one wants to join the gang, one has to be black and must be nominated by an existing member. They have a symbol of a dragon that is attacking a gun tower of a prison. This gang is still growing in most of the American prisons with some of its members outside the confinement.

“Sponsorship is mandatory, and only after acceptance may an inmate identify himself with a tattoo or patch” (Ralph, 1997, p.185). Most gangs utilize a “blood in, blood out basis for gang membership: A would-be member must stab a gang’s enemy in order to be admitted, and once in cannot drop out without endangering his own life” (Clear and Cole, 2000, p.260). Besides killing a rival there are other ways to enter the gang and receive acceptance. Those ways include, but are not limited to, assaulting an officer, doing drug deals, or “catching a cell” which means to go into a cell with members of the gang for which the recruit is trying to enter and fighting against them to determine if the prospective member can “hold his own”. These methods of entrance are what contribute to a large majority of the prison violence. The past prison experience relied on “the order and stability provided by the old inmate subculture (which) has been replaced by an atmosphere of conflict and tension, in which inmates align themselves into competing gangs and other inmate organizations” (Bohm and Haley, 1999, p. 351). The gang culture is also based on loyalty and trust of fellow members, such as a “united as one” attitude. This attitude has brought up confidence in offenders, but helped to diminish the effectiveness of the authority of the correctional officers. With the problem of gangs in hand, many states have

Over the years, prisons have relied on a series of deterrent methods. One popular method used is transferring known gang members to different prisons. When gang members are transferred it is usually in “higher security institutions” (Viano, n.d, p.176). The goal is to break down gangs by removing and separating key members. In a study of “the top methods” used in gang deterrence, inmate transfers were utilized “82.1” percent of the time (Viano, n.d, p. 175). Another, frequently used tool is “mail” and “phone monitoring” (Viano, n.d, p. 175). Which, has been a consistent feature for tracking gang activity thus far. For this reason, mail monitoring measures are used “81.5” percent by prisons and phone monitoring is used “72.8” percent (Viano, n.d, p.175). The other stats are as follows; “(72.8%) case dealings, (72.3%) segregation, and (64.1%) displacing members to different facilities, interrupting communications, and isolating leaders in high security facilities” (Viano, n.d, p.175).

There are many supervisory and management challenges facing corrections, due to the proliferation of the gang problem, presently within our prisons today. It is critically important for upper management, in the correctional field, to be held as responsible stewards, of the all resources available to them to combat this problem. (Saint Leo University, 2016). These actions are necessary, to deter the increasing glut of criminal activities, which gang behavior inevitably brings to prisons like a spreading cancer in the system. The gang problem is a dominate force within the correctional system, and steps to minimize its impact upon the daily lives of both prisoners and staff alike must be continually addressed. Swanson and Taylor touched on this trend in the correctional setting, when they discussed that much of this problem is contributable due to the boom in worldwide communication, resulting from the use of newer technology. This form of contraband, is in the form of cellphones, smartphones, and their subsequent ability for the inmate to control gang enterprises by tapping into the internet. Increased technology results in smaller sizes of smartphones each year, and this outside benefit makes detection increasingly more difficult for officers within prison who utilize more of a community policing model to curtail criminal actions (Swanson, C., Territo, L., & Taylor, R, 2012).

For over 50 years prison officials have dealt with the problem of gangs within the cell block walls and over the years it has evolved and shaping due to changing times, “but all jurisdictions today continue to utilize variants of two philosophies: suppression and intervention.” (Carlson, Peter M., Jan 2001).