Gangs In Prison Essay

1458 Words3 Pages

Gang culture in prisons Prison gangs were created by inmates as a way to protect themselves from other inmates. Each prison gang has their reasons for existing. There are five prison gangs in the United States. These gangs are as follow: The Aryan Brotherhood, The Black Guerilla Family, Texas Syndicate, Mexican Mafia, and Lanuestra Familia. They all have similar beliefs, meanings of their tattoos, how gangs impact their lives and society, and the challenges they bring the prison system in order to decrease gang population. 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 …show more content…

Established in the 1960s by a former Black Panther member in a California prison. By far The Black Guerrilla Family is the most politically oriented gang prison. They formed to dissipate racism while maintain their dignity, and overthrow the government. They are a very strict gang if you have broken their pledge you will be killed on-site. A symbol to show how you are part of their gang is a BGF initial tattoo. They are different from other gangs because they aren’t concerned about money, drugs, and power. With their anti-government and anti-official beliefs being their main concern they have become a huge threat to the prison system and staff. Because they want to overthrow the system and take control of prisons in

Show More
Related

  • Nicole Hogue World's Most Dangerous Gang

    1913 Words  | 4 Pages

    The MS13 is a perfect example of a counterculture. They are a world within themselves. The gang is very organized and structured; there is hierarchy with the gang. There is a significant amount of money flow within the gang. A few ways the gang obtains money is by drug dealing, illegal weapons, vendors pay the gang to work in their territories and for their protection, and drug dealers also pay the gang to earn the right to sell drugs in their territories. There are laws and rules that a gang member must abide by. One very strict rule for a gang member is silence. If a gang member becomes informant and it is found out that they are, it will more than likely result in death for the informant. The breaking of laws and rules are punishable, even by death. They have a law system and law enforcement of their own. Check courting is a punishment served by the gang to gang members who break the laws of the gang. There are initiations one must endure to become a member of the gang. Jumping in is one of the initiations, a brutal thirteen second beating by multiple people at the same time. (World’s Most Dangerous Gang) There is a communication system within the gang. They use stacking to communicate, tattoos, graffiti, and an overall dialect that is unique to the gang. This counterculture exists internationally inside and outside of prison walls. Within the gang there are individual cliques, but when threatened they will come together and fight alongside one another. It is instilled in a gang member to kill to maintain territory and to acquire new territories. T...

    Read More

  • The Two Towns of Jasper

    385 Words  | 1 Pages

    The clan markings and tattoos these men had tells me that they belong to a “gang” or group dedicated to racial hatred. I guarantee you that these men as children had no idea what racism was until someone taught it to them, from there it branched off into their individual view of who is superior and who is not.

    Read More

  • The Cause and Effect of Joining a Gang with reference to Mara Salvatrucha 13

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), a gang is defined as, “a group of criminals that work together.” Gangs are a powerful force that is a constant threat against society. As of 2011, the National Gang Center (n.d.) estimates there to be 782,500 gang members in the United States alone. Mara Salvatrucha 13, also known as MS-13, is one of the biggest and most threatening gangs. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) (n.d.) believes Mara Salvatrucha 13 to have an estimated 10,000 members in the United States and several thousand other members in Central America. Joining a gang is justified by the need for protection, money, and promoting a self image. Joining an established gang, such as Mara Salvatrucha 13, results in a lifestyle change including a harmful induction, following a strict code, carrying out assignments, and a lifetime of loyalty.

    Read More

  • Gang Violence In Prison

    481 Words  | 1 Pages

    Control will always be a gang’s main goal, even though they were taken off the streets they still have that need of “being in charge” and marking “their” territory; Just like a dog pees on a fire hydrant, marking everything theirs and growling at anyone who steps into their territory. Most gangs are based on racial ethnicity, for an example: Aryan Brotherhood is interested only white inmates; Neta is interested in puerto rican inmates; Black Guerrilla Family is interested in african american male inmates; Mexican Mafia, would usually have

    Read More

  • Prison Gang Research Paper

    257 Words  | 1 Pages

    Once the prisoners make it out to the streets they are no longer from the Nuestra Familia they are now called Nortenos. They are the NF’s street soldiers. Nortenos take orders from NF members, they need their approval in order to be able to make a move or take a hit on someone. The highest-ranking NF gang members are in prison. They stepped up their recruitment techniques and efforts on the streets. Despite incarceration, prison gang members influence and direct some criminal street gang activities including assault, weapons and drug trafficking, extortion, intimidation, and murder. Once they are in the system they tend to get more involved in gangs. In 1989 gang violence led them to build Pelican Bay which eventually became the headquarters

    Read More

  • Propensity To Support Prison Gangs Summary

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the researchers take into account the complexities of defining gangs and gang membership, they do not clearly define the construct. As such, the prisoners’ ability to identify themselves as being a gang member was up to their interpretation whether it related to a more social definition or one of a legal nature (p. 802). Indeed, only 10% (n=39) of the prisoners noted agree or strongly agree with the item “ I consider myself to be part of a prison gang” (p. 807). Since the results were based on this single measure, the findings may be an indication of an inflation or underestimation of gang membership. In fact, the self-reports were not consistent with official documented figures of each establishment, which placed prison gang membership between 19% and 28% (p. 813). If the researchers had they used a better and accurate measure of gang membership, which included official prison data, or different representations of gang memberships, their results may have been a more accurate depiction of the realities. As a result possibly representing a stronger relationship between gang membership and other

    Read More

  • Gangs In Prison Research Paper

    233 Words  | 1 Pages

    The most problematic issue that the institutional correctional facilities are facing is gangs. The most dangerous gangs in the U.S is Black Guerilla Family, Nuestra Family, Nazi Lowriders, Aryan Brotherhood, and Mexican Mafia. The reason why this is problematic is because most of the gang members who are sent to prison are already gang members before they got incarcerated. Some of the people who go to prison have no affiliation with a gang, but when they get in there they join one of the prison gangs. The reason why so many people join gangs in prison is because they want to be protected. Gangs can be very dangerous when they are at rival with each other. If the Black Guerilla Family is in the same prison as the Nazi Lowrider, a murder will

    Read More

  • Aryan Brotherhood Essay

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Aryan Brotherhood is a massive, widespread gang of criminals, former inmates, and racists. They have a rough total of twenty thousand members across the United States. They, being racist aside being criminals, have enemies, like the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), Crips, Bloods, El Rukns. Many of these groups are black or mexican, as their names may have stated. To join, all you had to do was kill a black

    Read More

  • Mexican Prison Gang Essay

    455 Words  | 1 Pages

    For African Americans/Blacks, their corresponding prison gangs that are most apparent in corrections are “The Bloods and the Crips” (Noll, 2012) which are also a major street gang in the communities but the earliest African American/Black prison gang which was founded by a “Black Panther George Jackson united black groups such as the Black Liberation Army, Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Weatherman Underground Organization to form one large organization, the Black Guerilla Family, which emerged in San Quentin in 1966” (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). For the Caucasian/Whites are the “The Aryan Brotherhood, the Nazi Low-Riders, the Skinheads, and the Pecker-heads, also known as the Woods” (Noll,

    Read More

  • Issues in Corrections

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fleisher, M. S., & Decker, S. H. (2001). An Overview of the Challenge of Prison Gangs. Corrections Management Quarterly, 5(1), 1.

    Read More

  • Prison Gangs In Prison

    1797 Words  | 4 Pages

    Neta is the name of an Hispanic gang that was formed in the late 70s at Oso Blanco prison. In the late 80s, the gang branched out to the east coast of the United States, where they now have over 8,000 members. The gang claims that much of the work done by their faithful members involves teaching Hispanic culture and education, some of which includes experiences from inside prison, and many members claim they are strictly part of an inmate-rights group. However, this is thought of as just a front, as the gang’s main source of income is retail distribution of powder and crack cocaine, heroin, marijuana and, to a lesser extent, LSD, MDMA, methamphetamine and PCP. Neta members commit assault, auto theft, burglary, drive-by shootings, extortion, home invasion, money laundering, robbery, weapons and explosives trafficking, and witness intimidation, just to name a few. They use the facade of a cultural organization and see themselves as oppressed people who are unwilling to be governed by the United

    Read More

  • Teenage Gangs Research Paper

    61 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the world, approximately 32,000 teenage girls and 360,00 boys are apart of gangs. Whereas 48,000 adult women and 560,000 men are apart of some gang. These statistics prove that the media is incorrect about constantly exploiting these teenage boys and girls as these horrible gang members whereas adult men and women are more involved in gangs and gang related activities.

    Read More

  • Overcrowding In Prison Case Study

    1612 Words  | 4 Pages

    Skarbek, D. (2012). Prison gangs, norms and organization. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 82(1), 96-109. doi: 10.

    Read More

  • Prisons: The Role Of Gangs In Prison

    157 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the big house, one can alter the big fish, little pond theory into a prison one. In prison first time inmates always a little guppy, in an ocean filled with sharks and barracudas. Correction officers cannot see or control everything, and worst some corrections officers are crooked and corrupted. National Gang Intelligence Center, or NGIC estimates that 230,000 inmates are part of a gang affiliation in both federal and state prisons. A prison gangs main goals are to recruitment, profit, and sometimes protection. The prison gang will typically involve in any crime in prison to further their objectives examples such as murder, assaults, prostitution, drugs, threats to staff, to even gambling (2011

    Read More

  • Solutions to Gang Violence in Society

    2296 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many stereotypes of gangs have been fabricated. The problem is that a majority of gang members do not fit these stereotypes, which, in turn, makes it hard for the to be caught (Klein). Traditionally they organize their group around a specific neighborhood, school or housing projec...

    Read More

More about Gangs In Prison Essay

Open Document