Prison law and penology - Essay Example

This may lead them to focus more on controlling the inmate population rather than working on their rehabilitation. As previously stated, inmates tend to gather and form groups according to their race (black, Hispanic, Caucasian, etc.) or a race-related reasons (groups such as the neo-Nazis, K.K.K, etc.) and as a result, riots often break due to racial grounds. The real motives behind gangs formation and activity are actually power and wealth, things which they can achieve in various ways, often related to violence and disorder (Summers, 2006).

The gangs are becoming increasingly stronger and more dominant ("Violent Gangs", n.d) and are also wise to draft to their ranks some prison guards and others that assist them in exchange for money, favours and more. 1 Therefore, prison authorities and representatives must always be attentive and prepared to thwart gangs attempts to gain more power and hurt others along the way. This undoubtedly shifts the focus of prison authorities from the desire to rehabilitate prisoners to the need to control and monitor them so that they dont cause more trouble and eruption of violence and havoc.

Also, there are inmates which obviously overwhelming and something which they cannot escape or resist. These people have no place, power or control in the outside world and are therefore making extreme efforts to make their permanent home, the prison, their own kingdom and domain. This leads them to try and take control over it by forceful means and using violence and terrorizing others. They even develop ways to carry out their deeds using technological innovations and creative ways. For instance, it is claimed that a group of prisoners used a 400-year-old binary code system in order to smuggle notes, using guards as deliverers and smugglers of them (Summers, 2006).

This shows the innovation and adaptability of gangs. They are no longer plain and simple, nor do they work in primitive ways. Now, when a