Essay on Indentifying Prison Gangs: Their Bonds and Their Ink

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.

Prison gangs are flourishing across the country. Organized, stealthy and deadly, they are reaching out from their cells to organize and control crime in America's streets. Law enforcement personal began to systematically monitor gang activities in the 1970's. Working together, their initial attempts were to identify only gangs which had some semblance of formal structure, a constitution, bylaws, mission statement, or some identifiable tenets guiding their activities. However, with experience, staff began to realize that even less well-organized groups could still pose significant threats to the security and orderly running of an institution. Many of these smaller groups

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.

There are many problems with gangs in prison. These gangs cause problems and threaten the well-being of others who don’t fit into their mindset or beliefs. This problem has been going on for a long time, and has cost the prison system a lot of money throughout the country.

As the years pass, the rate of gang affiliated crimes in the Unites States has progressed extensively, accumulating more inmates into our major prisons doubling the maximum occupancy that the jails can hold. In the U.S there are currently 33,000 active violent street, motorcycle, and prison gangs with a recorded 1.4 million members combined. The registered number of police officers is a mere 683,396; which is not even half of our countries gang population. Incredibly enough, even with their small numbers these officers do the impossible to control, learn, and manipulate the ways of the inmates; taking all of the precautions necessary to stop and protect the normal citizens on the streets and the

On June 7, 1998, 49-year-old James Byrd Jr. of Texas accepted a ride from three white men, who then beat him severely, urinated on him, chained him by his ankles to the back of their pick-up truck, dragged him for three miles into the countryside, and dumped his corpse in front of an African-American cemetery (Graczyk). A little over a year later, a jury sentenced ring leader John King to death by lethal injection (“Man Executed for Dragging Death of James Byrd”). While this particular case may give the appearance that perpetrators of hate crimes receive appropriate punishment, almost a decade later, one particular case demonstrates the inequity in the application of hate crime punishments: In 2007, Sean Kennedy of Charleston, South

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

These connections are how they are able to import the contraband and perform illegal activities within the prison. Being a member of a gang promotes a criminal lifestyle with a lifetime commitment. Since the violent lifestyle of a gang member is not likely to change, prisons must address the issue by protecting other inmates from their influence so that the problem can be controlled. By isolating gang members in a separate prison under twenty four-hour lockdown, correctional officers will be able to easily monitor what is coming in and out of the prison and keep illegal activities under control and

Gang members in institutions recruit heavily and forge alliances to strengthen their power base and influence within the prison.

Groups of criminals usually based on the same racial or ethnic lines that function together in correctional facilities throughout America are called gangs. Prison gangs consists of many offenders in prisons that work together to defend and protect each other while also committing crimes and producing a profit for the greater good of the specific gang. These gangs, since they are most often based on race or ethnicity have many enemies and some allies which contribute to prison violence. Although these prison gangs originated within the disciplinary system, they often continue their criminal maneuvers outside of those restrictions once they are free. These prison gangs tend to organize a system of hierarchy and establish a code of conduct or

Prison gangs are originally formed by inmates as a way of protecting themselves from the other inmates. These gangs have turned out to be violent and thus posing a threat to security. This paper will have a look at the different gangs in prisons, their history, beliefs and missions, and the differences and similarities in these gangs.

“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

The reality of prison gangs cannot be over look. Many inmates join gangs for safety and protection during their incarceration. “Prison gangs is an organization which operates within prison systems as a self-perpetuating entity, consisting a group of inmates who establishes and organize chain of commands” (Pyrooz & Mitchell). They also are governed by an established prison code. Research has shown that prison gangs have effects on non-gang members and the prison system. I will examine ten articles that explore the effects of prison gangs.

This is one area seen as unavoidable as the gangs who run the jails persist and continue to promote violence at times signaling out inmates whose only wish is to serve their time and move on, often forcing them into joining a gang further ruining their chances of rehabilitation.