Content provided in partnership with
The gangs behind bars
Insight on the News, Sept 28, 1998 by Tiffany Danitz
The Texas inmate describes a system in which gangs often recruit like fraternities, targeting short-term inmates because they can help the gang--pay them back, so to speak--when they leave prison for the free world. Most of the groups thrive on lifelong membership, according to the Florida DC, with "blood in, blood out" oaths extending leadership and membership beyond the prison into the lucrative drug trade, extortion and pressure rackets.
Prison gangs operating in Texas and Florida include Neta, the Texas Syndicate, the Aztecs, the Mexican Mafia, the New Black Panthers, the Black Guerrilla Family, Mandingo Warriors, Aryan Brotherhood, La Nuestra Familia, the Aryan Circle and the White Knights. Some of these gangs have alliances, and some are mortal enemies. Many on this list originated in California over the decades, some of them (such as the Texas Syndicate) to protect members from the other gangs. In addition, street gangs such as the Crips and Bloods and traditional racial-hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also operate in the prisons.
What prisoners may not realize is that because the gangs are monitored by prison authorities the law-enforcement community is becoming very sophisticated about the gangs. "Sixty percent of what we learn about what is going on in the city streets of Florida" is garnered in prison and not from observing the streets, says Godwin.
Prison officials say they concentrate on inmate behavior to identify gang members. They do not single out gang leaders to strike any deals because acknowledging the gang as anything other than a "security-threat group" gives them too much credibility. This has been a particular problem in Puerto Rico with the native and political Neta gang. Recognizing groups during the 1970s, in a system in which prisoners have the right to vote, has led to a tendency among politicians to award clemency to some inmates.
Officials in Texas have reacted most stringently to gang members. They isolate and place them in lockdown status to discourage membership. Buentello says this approach has produced a dramatic decrease in violence. In 1984, 53 inmates were killed due to gang violence. After the new policy was implemented in 1985, homicides dropped to five and then continued to decline.
Godwin says Florida uses a closed-management system that only locks up prisoners for 23 hours, with further enforcement based on inmate behavior.
"The reality is they are going to be able to get away with doing things when we have only a handful of prison staff," Godwin cautions, adding that the system needs to increase the professionalism of the staff with pay raises and training. Many employees are recruited out of the same neighborhoods as the prisoners, he explains.
Linda Washburn of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, a much smaller system than Texas or Florida, says her state handles prisoner gangs just like Florida. According to her, size doesn't matter when it comes to prison-gang problems because no one is immune to it. "This issue crosses so many lines in society and in the prisons that it requires us in law enforcement and criminal justice to unite and confront the issue together... as a team with one voice."
