Classifications of Prison Gangs - Coursework Example

Race, and gender impact prison gangs. Gangs in prisons are self segregated by race. Whites, blacks, Latinos, and even Muslim prisoners join gangs along race lines. The Aryan Nation to the Black Guerillas prison gangs come in every size and shape, the only qualification being a member of a particular race. Most prison gang members are from a poorer class. Gender is also a factor in prison gangs. Men are more likely to form gangs in prison than their women counterparts. While women are active gang members outside prison walls, the formation of gangs in prison are rare. The violence might be the cause of this gender based bias. Men tend to be more violent in prison than women. The need to join a gang for protection becomes a necessity in a male prison due to the excessive violence. In the end, prison gangs are dictated by race, class, and gender. Gangs emerged on the street during the sixties and seventies. At first gangs were like formed like the Guardian Angels in New York City. Gangs developed out of the Civil Rights Movement ironically. Black Panthers and other minority groups formed gangs to patrol their neighborhoods against corrupt officers that would lynch and kill in the aftermath of the African American’s victory of the Civil Rights Movement. White bikers formed clubs (gangs) after returning from the Vietnam War, they wanted to get together drink and forget the war. When the drug trade was introduced in the late seventies and early eighties, gangs became the gun toting, drug dealing and violent criminals that are known today. Despite law enforcements gang unit and suppression measures, gangs are still a major problem across the United States. One problem of trying to suppress gangs is the availability of new recruits. One scholarly paper suggests: Another consequence of suppression efforts is that such efforts may promote substitution effects, whereby the removed gang member is simply replaced by another gang associate or recruit. Still yet, the use of suppression efforts may lead to an over-reliance on these measures and may mask other appropriate but less intensive alternatives to deal with gang members. (Trulson, Marquart, and Kawucha 2008) Gang units arrest gang members, normally resulting in long prison terms. The gang members taken off the street continue to live the gang lifestyle in prison. Thus law enforcement has to have strategies on the streets and behind prison walls. Race is the number one factor in male prison gangs. Gang membership is considered on a race basis. The Aryan Brotherhood accepts white members, the Mexican Mafia accepts Latino members, African Americans tend to group with the gang they were affiliated with on the outside, and so forth. Prison gangs recruit members for two different reasons. The first is to continue gang activities that landed them into jail in the first place. Violence, contraband, homemade weapons, and other violations are committed daily by various prison gangs. An example is the Nuestra Familia gang operating in California’s Pelican State Bay: Nuestra Familia members, housed in the secure housing unit, were able to order and carry out death hits and drug deals, and run extortion rackets by communicating to the outside world through notes embossed on the inside of legal envelopes and by using upcoming parolees to transport to the street notes buried in the prisons recreation yard. (Trulson, Marquart, and Kawucha 2008) This leads to the second reason a prisoner joins a gang; protection from other gangs. If gangs are committing violence against anyone not in their gang, inmates are vulnerable without gang protection. Although racial gangs are well known in the United States prisons, prisoners in England have started joining gangs for protections. For example: Prisoners told Dame Anne during her inspection that offenders at the jail are converting to Islam because they want the protection of belonging to a big Muslim group. One inmate quoted in the report said: ’Yes, there is a gang culture here which is becoming an issue. A lot of people are becoming Muslim just because it a bigger group.’ (Ford 2009) The United States prison gang mentality is spreading worldwide due to the large numbers of prisoners being incarcerated rising every year. This is due to the rising incarceration rates among women, all classes, and the mentally ill. “Incarceration rates rose faster for women (364% increase) and minorities (184% for African Americans and 235% for Hispanics) than for men (195%) and non-Hispanic whites (164%)”(Trammell 2006). Male prisoners feel that joining a gang is the only way to have protection while serving their time. Religion does affect gang members. Muslims form their own groups that are not defined as gangs due to the Constitution’s freedom of religion. As a result, American citizens that are Muslims, have rights to practice their religion. Gitmo is a different story, because the constitution does not apply for war criminals. Christians, Jews, and Muslims use their religion in order to gain advantages in prison. However, like the biker gangs being called ‘biker clubs’, religious groups cannot be called gangs, despite having similar behaviors at times. Correctional officers try to break the gangs up by solitary confinement and separation, but once again the Civil Rights Movement has deterred law enforcement. Segregation was found constitutionally to be illegal. Thus prisoners must be integrated among each other. Gang on gang violence in prison could be solved by segregation, but that would set the Civil Rights Movement advancement back to the days when Jim Crow laws were in existence. The Supreme Court ruled that prison segregation was unconstitutional. One source reports: Gangs and security threat groups are primarily aligned along race and ethnicity. The racial and ethnic divide endorsed by most prison and street gangs means that race has been and continues to be one of the most dominant influences on inmate behavior, perhaps only second to gang membership. The importance of race and gang membership cannot be understated in light of the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case of Johnson v. California. In this case, the Supreme Court struck down the racial segregation of inmates unless segregation was the only way that the safety and security of staff, inmates and institutions could be maintained. Even then, racial segregation must only be a temporary expedient, not a long-term blanket policy affecting all inmates. (Trulson, Marquart, and Kawucha 2008) If segregation was allowed in prisons, then law enforcement could use the same strategy with schools, churches, and every other area where crime occurs. Racial tensions would rise. Prison gang violence is a small price to pay for equal Civil Rights among the law abiding citizens in the United States. Other way correctional officers can identify prisoners is through gang tattoos. For example the Aryan Brotherhood has swastikas, crosses, white power symbols, and white power sayings. Dead Man Incorporated has the DMI tattoos. Bloods and Crips have gang related tattoos. Each individual gang will have symbols and signs for their gang. Like tagging a wall with graffiti, gang members mark their bodies with their affiliations. Correctional officers look for different tattoos in order to control gangs. If an inmate has a gang tattoo, the prison system can place them in a segregation unit for a certain amount of time, deny the inmate parole, and even using these tattoos as identifying marks for individual inmates. Frequent searches of inmate cells often provide a trove of information for correctional officers. Kites are small notes where gang rules are written. These small pieces of paper sometimes the size of a small paper clip hold all of a gang’s secrets. A gang member will do anything to keep their kites from falling into correctional officer’s hands. Some inmates will hold bowel movements in order to protect a swallowed kite, or one anally inserted. Each individual gang uses kites to initiate, give orders, or pass messages throughout the prison to other gang members. If a correctional officer can get a hold of a kite, the information helps to break up gang activity and convict the prisoner with more charges. Kites are an important part of the prison gang life. Class is another issue in prison gangs. Generally classes emerge in prison. Urban (generally minorities) and rural (generally white) are thrown together in prison (Ek 2005:73). A poor drug dealer could be housed with the rich like Andrew Luster, Madoff, or Phil Spector. Athletes like Plaxico, O.J. Simpson, and Art Schlichter are placed among the other inmates. Movie stars like Tom Sizemore, O.J. Simpson, and Rodney Downey Jr. are also placed into prison. Sometimes class allows for movie stars, the infamous (Charles Manson), and athletes to be placed in segregation units. The poor and middle class rarely get this luxury, unless they are a snitch or pedophile. These classes tend to group up and join gangs accordingly. Once again class is secondary to race when prison gangs are observed. Gender, like race, determines prison gang affiliations. Men join prison gangs. However, women rarely form gangs in prison. Several reasons for this phenomenon: In general, females stay in gangs for a shorter periods than males and are less violent. Younger girls are responsible for more violent action than older gang members. Furthermore, interracial female gangs are not uncommon (United States Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs 2002) and girls make up to 20-46% of all gang members (Esbensen and Huizinga 1993; Esbensen, Huizinga, and Weiher 1993; Esbensen and Winfree 1998). While this research points out gender differences in street gangs, the social setting of prison is different than the urban setting. (Trammett 2006:3) Women form more of a sisterhood that transcends race in most instances. Since most of the incarcerated women are in prison due to a man, women stick together forming a society in prison. Women are needier than a man. Companionship and order tend to rule in women prisons. This is where the sisterhood attitude that comes about. Another reason women do not form gangs in prison is women have a less violent nature. Fear of being physically harmed by the guards keeps most women out of trouble. Fights do exist, but do occur. Women are less likely to use weapons when engaged in a fight. Daily prison life for women differs from daily prison life for men. For one, unlike male inmates, women typically do not present an immediate, violent physical danger to staff members and fellow inmates. In fact, barely any female prisons report any major instances of violence. Violence is usually concentrated only in male prisons. (Saxina 2008) The fights among the women in prison occur for different reasons than their male counterparts in prison. Women tend to fight over relationships, gossip, and other issues that most women fight for. Men tend to fight over turf, business, and reputation. Men want to conquer other men in prison, where women could care less about dominating another woman in most cases. The general makeup of men and women create the gender difference that makes men create prison gangs, while women do not. Men express anger in a more physical way, where as women express anger in a more scheming manner. For example: Women in prison also cope with their problems differently. Unlike men, who direct their anger outward, female prisoners tend to revert to more self-destructive acts in order to deal with the situation. In fact, female inmates are much more likely than male prisoners to mutilate their own bodies and attempt suicide. These activities include simple scratches, carving the name of their boyfriend on their body, and cutting their wrists. (Saxina 2008) The act of hurting themselves is an attention getter for prison lovers, or even family on the outside. Some women are so self loathing the mutilation is done out of self hate. Men and women both do time differently due to their differences. Prison gangs are formed by race, class, and gender. A profile of a gang member in a United States prison would be: Male. Lower or middle class. Gang member before coming to prison. Same race gang affiliation. Tattooed with their gang’s sign or symbol. These traits need to be examined when looking for a gang member in prison. Gang affiliations need to be checked through a city’s gang unit for all males with gang tattoos. Prison gangs are going to exist until Americans realize that segregation is not the same in prison as on the outside. Gang members in prison are well organized. This allows the law to be used by prison gang members. Race, class, and gender have dictated how prison gangs are formed. The American system is set up to favor the criminal. Until law abiding Americans decide to revoke prisoner’s rights, gangs will flourish. Bibliography Ek, A. (2005). Race and Masculinity in Contemporary American Prison Narratives. New York: Routledge. Print. Ford, R. (2009). “Muslim prison gangs on the rise as inmates seek safety in numbers.” 13 Jan. 2009. TimesOnline. 2 Dec. 2009 from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5509740.ece Online. Trammell, R. W. (2006). "A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Connection between Race, Gender and Prison Violence" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Online . 2 Dec. 2009 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p103246_index.html Online. Chad R. Trulson, C. R., J. W. Marquart, and S. K. Kawucha. (2008). “Gang suppression and institutional control.” CorrectionsOne. 2 Dec. 2009 from http://www.correctionsone.com/prison-gangs/articles/1842642-Gang-suppression-and-institutional-control/ Saxina, V. (2008). “Female Prison Life.” AC. 2 Dec. 2009 from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1052698/female_prison_life.html Online. Read More