International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 66

Organized Crime Behind Bars
machine” 190 and “no-one” could understand how they might have gotten into his cell.
With increasing regularity, precision electronic scales for weighing drugs are found in
cells, an extremely useful device in constant use.
In institutions where prison gangs hold sway, they eventually end up governing
all aspects of daily life—what prisoners eat, at what time and in what place they are to
sit in the refectory, who will have the least harsh or the most tedious tasks, who will
have money and luxurious clothes, who will live and who will die. All this and much
more falls under the direct remit of the gangs.
For the US prison officers union, prison governors who grant privileges to the
leaders of prison gangs and turn a blind eye to their activities dangerously discredit
the authority structure and destabilize the entire population of the institution. This is
even more the case when negotiations and long-standing agreements have resulted in
“acquired rights” for prison gangs. To restore order and discipline requires a change of
governance and a total restructuring of the institution. 191
Far, then, from being stabilizing or mediating agencies, prison gangs contribute
enormously to disorder and violence within prisons, through their criminal practices,
the climate they create and the gross human rights violations inflicted upon the great
majority of inmates. While keeping the common title of Prison Gangs, American
experts now rank them in a particular category, to highlight the specific threat they
represent, imposing the term “Disruptive Groups” 192 to better characterize their
destabilizing nature.
Prison staff, as well as prisoners, are threatened by the activity of prison gangs.
Guards may be led to participate in criminal activities, be it voluntarily or otherwise,
or may themselves be victims.
For a guard, voluntary participation is to be guilty of collusion with a group—
providing alibis, facilitating certain activities or certain acts of violence, being paid
for silence or assistance. Involuntary participation involves a guard ignoring some
wrongdoing or being willfully negligent to ensure a peaceful life for himself.
Wherever prison gangs exist, guards are potential victims. They are threatened,
harassed, sometimes sexually abused and even murdered. In the US, the situation has
degenerated so far that 70% of penitentiary institutions now train their staff to manage
the specific hazards associated with the gangs and teach them how to behave with their
members. 193
190
Emergency Response and Research Institute (ERRI), Special Report, 1997.
191
In June 1994, for example, the prison guards union at Pontiac, Illinois, complained that the
directors of the institution had signed agreements with the gangs. They demanded a “zero tolerance”
policy to ensure their security in carrying out their duties.
192
According to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement: “Any group of prisoners which
represents a threat to the physical safety of other inmates as a result of its nature and its activities.”
(www.tcleose.state.tx.us). The term Security Threat Groups is also used, but rather to describe groups
that are not yet fully organized into Prison Gangs.
193
Knox, George W. “A National Assessment of Gangs and Security Threat Groups (STGs) in Adult
Correctional Institutions: Results of the 1999 Adult Corrections Survey.” Journal of Gang Research 7, 3
(2000), 1–4.
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