Using criminological and sociological theory, this essay will aim to explain how the Aryan Brotherhood, evolved from a self-protection group into a White supremacist prison gang, running a criminal syndicate both in and outside of prison. Understanding the complexities of prison gang development is imperative in order to control and limit the power they have inside and outside of prison.
Robert Merton (1938) argued that members of American society are socialised to want the culturally defined goals such as the ‘American dream’ where success is attributed to material wealth. When they are denied access to the legitimate means, they resort to illegitimate means such as criminality and deviance to attain what they have been taught to want. (Lanier&Henry,1998) It could be argued that America is organised for crime due to its overwhelming significance placed on material success. This may explain why America has the highest rate of imprisonment, in 2000 approximately two million men and women were serving prison sentences. (Fleisher&Decker,2006) Similarly, Toy and Stanko (2008) identify that being part of a society that attributes achievement with material wealth are other factors which may influence becoming gang affiliated. (Harris et al, 2011)
Before the 1960s American penitentiaries were racially segregated, however as opinions on race began to alter the prison system desegregated. As Black and White inmates began to interact with one another, racial conflict instigated. Prisoners began to organize themselves along colour lines for protection. (Roberts, 2014) Indeed, the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) was established by white supremacists of Irish origin, Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham in California’s San Quentin state prison in Bingham in ...
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...s which indicates a life-long social connection or membership. Furthermore, he argued that getting a tattoo meant accepting a voluntary social stigma and disconnecting the self from conventional society. (Sanders, 1988)
Many people would prefer to think that the prisons are occupied by criminals who are isolated from society. However, Prisons are far less isolated from American Society than they would like to think. The Aryan Brotherhood frequently demonstrates the ability to transcend the confines of prison by running a criminal syndicate both in and outside of prison. Evidence suggests that extremists utilize prisons as avenues for recruitment and many inmates become indoctrinated with racist beliefs whilst inside. Understanding the complexities of prison gang development is imperative in order to control and limit the power they have inside and outside of prison.
One of the parallel themes of “American Me” is that prisons are far more than warehouses for society's outcasts and baneful. They are, instead, recruiting stations and training camps for future generations of criminals and gang members. “American Me” reveals how a major portion of the crime syndicate came to be hosted from the “inside,” from within the many prison walls of the U.S. Department of Corrections (Baumgarten, 1992).
Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer...
Relations during this time with the prison and the outside world are discussed, as well as how these relations dominated life inside of a prison and developed new challenges within the prison. After Ragen left, Frank Pate become his successors. Pate faced a problem because he neither sought nor exercised the charismatic authority of Ragen. The Prison remained an imperatively coordinated paramilitary organization, which still required its warden to personify its goals and values. Jacobs goes on to discusses how what Pate did, was not the same direction or ideas that Ragen was doing or had. Jacobs’s counties this discussion with the challenges and issues that prison had during the time of 1961 through 1970. Jacobs blames that the loss of a warden who could command absolute authority, the loss of local autonomy, it heightened race problems among blacks, and the penetration of legal norms exposed severe strains in the authrotitarian system, and says pate cant control
This can be applied to American society, where the society may lean too heavily towards either of these social structures. This can then create stress where stressing over goals mean that any form of achieving them becomes acceptable. Merton was more interested on the overemphasis on goals and how that may have generated antisocial behavior. This behavior arises when the expectation that all members of society should exhibit success but run into restrictions on legitimate means to succeed. He says that the cult of success can create illegitimate means because the violator knows the rules of the game, but the validation of success outweighs the weak imperative to play by the rules. He states, “…Crime… [And] the entire catalogue of proscribed behavior, becomes increasingly common when the emphasis on the culturally induced success-goal becomes divorced from a coordinated institutional emphasis” (Merton 675-676). This is shown in the Crips and Bloods documentary because the individuals in both gangs know what they do is wrong, such as dealing drugs, but they still need to be successful by having money and having good appearance by dressing nicely. It is difficult for them to go by the rules when at one point, the whites did not give them
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
Wacquant, L. (2001) “Deadly Symbiosis When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh”, Journal of Punishment & Society, Vol. 3, No 1, January 2001, pp 95-133.
Miller, Walter B. "Lower Glass Culture and Gang Delinquency." Crime in Society. Edited by L.D. Savitz and N. Johnston. Wiley. New York. 174-185. 1978.
In the 1950’s, Cohen (1955) acquired Merton’s theory of crime further by concentrating on gang delinquency within the working class demographic. Cohen used the dominant knowledge of the anomie theory but narrowed its emphasis on this precise subculture and particularized it in order to clarify the features of gang delinquency. Comparable to Merton and Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) tried to clarify why certain individuals or groups are more likely to involve in criminal activities. They contended that people are strained when they fail to attain financial achievement through legitimate means. Cloward and Ohlin remained in...
One of the largest gangs in prison with all-white male members is The Aryan Brotherhood. Established in the 1960s in California, the brotherhood was created because whites felt that black and Hispanic inmates were taking advantage of them. To be a part of the Aryan Brotherhood inmates is put on a 6 month probationary period. Once initiation, members are required to “making-bones” meaning to kill someone. “The AB traffics in drugs and has a blood in, blood out rule; natural death is the only non-violent way out” (Carlie, Michael). The member are covered in different tattoos to be identified who they are, such as: double lightening bolts, the initials
The Aryan Brotherhood started in 1964 was founded by Tyler Bingham and Barry Mills who were white supremacists and Irish American bikers. It started at the San Quentin state prison. The prison group was created to protect white prisoners from the black inmates. The cause changed into revenue when the group gained power. This gang is the most violent white supremacists group, and over one hundred murders have been attributed to this gang during its existence. The gang has been listed for assaults and brutal murders on police officials. It is one of the largest prison gangs in United States with branches in Nevada, California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Mississippi, Colorado, Kansas, and Ohio. It has formed an alliance with the Mexico Mafia. The Aryan Brothers have around 30,000 members. The prison gang has a structure of presidents, vice presidents, majors, captains and lieutenants. It has a committee of members of a council that govern its branches across the United States. Its official symbol is a three-leaf clover. In order to join the gang one has to assault or kill another prisoner, and if one tries to leave the gang he is killed by the members. This gang is known for extortion, organized crime, drug trafficking, inmate prostitution and murder. They live by the motto ‘in for life and out by death’. They strongly believe ...
Ralph, P.H.(1997). From Self Preservation to Organized Crime: The Evolution of Inmate Gangs. In J.W. Marquart, & J.R. Sorensen (Eds.). Correctional Contexts: Contemporary and Classical Readings (pp. 182-186). Los Angeles: Roxbury
4 Sims, A. Barbara. 1997. "Crime, Punishment, and the American Dream: Toward a Marxist Integration." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34:5-24.
Years after the United States civil rights movement, the removal of formal segregation laws, and implementation of anti-racist policies, the American criminal justice system still fails to display the same reform. As one of the largest superpowers and industrialized nations in the world, the United States has not attained a “post-racial status,” defined as being a society in which race, although it remains a concept, does not influence individuals. The failure of the United States to attain “post-racial status” is exemplified in the criminal justice system by overwhelming evidence of disproportionate levels of crime, arrests, and incarceration that primarily affect minority populations. Past and present patterns of American society dealing with crime and the people involved committing crime show extreme racial disparity in terms of individuals’ predisposed environments that increase ones likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system, the system itself that processes individuals, the encouragement of mass incarceration by mainstream society, and the effects these processes have on society.
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
Fleisher, M. S., & Decker, S. H. (2001). An Overview of the Challenge of Prison Gangs. Corrections Management Quarterly, 5(1), 1.