Prison Gangs Essay

In our prison environments, there are many kinds of threats to inmate and officer safety daily. The correctional system in our country contains many gangs within the walls and connected to our streets. These groups, known as Security Threat Groups, are usually operated by race, and are active in our Federal Bureau of Prisons and in at least 40 state correctional systems. Inmates are pretty much forced to join their racial group or gang to ensure their personal safety while in prison. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, inmates were more racially twisted than ever before, and each race in a facility had a leader if not more than one. Inmates isolate themselves from other racial groups. While this was producing more racial tension in the environment, it was also producing Security Threat Group’s that were getting more organized and skilled at running the drug trade and social environments within the walls of the correctional facilities. Some of these gangs are more organized than others are, and produce the most followers. Because of organizational factors and growing numbers of members, the Aryan Brotherhood, Ku Klux Klan, the and MS-13 have emerged as our biggest security group threats in the American corrections system. The Aryan Brotherhood originated in San Quentin in the mid-sixties and was founded by Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham. This group is one of the best known gangs with many crews in our correctional facilities. The Aryan Brotherhood started to protect white inmates from black inmates during the time that the prisons were integrated. The Aryan Brotherhood is primarily located in the southwest and pacific areas of the country and is weakest in the northeastern areas where blacks are the strongest. The creed of the Brotherhood is, â€Å"I will stand by my brother. My brother will come before all others. My life is forfeited should I fail my brother. I will honor my brother in peace and war. † Members of the Brotherhood are lifetime members who commit to a blood in, blood out oath. This basically means that in order to get in you must kill an enemy and the only way to get out is to be killed. Most members support the white nationalist model, but crime is the real motivator and support for the group. The group, divided into two crews, operates both in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and at the state level. They operate in a fashion consistent with organized crime. Beginning as a local prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood have grown into one of the most dangerous gangs in our prisons today, with ties to the Mexican Mafia, and Asian gangs originating in Thailand. These gang ties help fuel their growing narcotics trade. Members are expected to carry out these crimes within the walls and to continue the activities to further the interests of the group upon release. It would also seem that the Aryan Brotherhood has close ties to the non-prison security threat group the Ku Klux Klan due to the doctrinal similarities. The Ku Klux Klan was established by some ex-confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866. The groups name came from the Greek word kuklos, meaning â€Å"group or band,† and took the third as a variant of the word clan. The Klan started as a large recreational group and soon turned to intimidating the newly freed African Americans. While riding around at night, the Klan terrorized and sometimes murdered the ones that they were against. The members started to wear a hooded white costume, a disguise that represented the ghosts of the dead Confederates, to avoid being identified and to scare people during their raids. The Klan is the strongest in the South and in the Midwest. Today the KKK has been greatly weakened as their views have become more and more radical. They consider themselves a Christian organization and base their doctrines upon their own reading of the Bible. Their theology is strongly influenced by Christian Reconstructions – they hope to â€Å"reconstruct† the United States along biblical lines and to establish a white-dominated theocracy. While MS-13 is one of our newer gang problems in the United States with MS 13 forming in the Los Angeles area in the mid 1980’s this security threat group is one of the biggest problems we face in our communities and correctional facilities today. They grew out of El Salvadorian immigrants that came together forming MS to protect themselves from other Latin gangs already present in Los Angeles. Later they aligned with the Mexican Mafia, La Eme, adding the 13 to note the allegiance to them. This gang operates out of 42 states, along with the District of Columbia. In the 1990’s, MS-13 came to law enforcements attention as they were targeting violent areas in Hispanic neighborhoods. When law enforcement deported the violent gang members, they took their gang to their home countries such as El Salvador, while spreading their ways into other Central American countries, Mexico, and furthering their following in the United States. Today they are known for their excessive use of violence and are considered to be the worst of the worst security threat group’s known for their adaptability where law enforcement operations are concerned. The hierarchy is based on status, which is based upon how many acts have been committed for the gang. There is no national leaders recognized, instead leadership is based on local leaders. Originally, all members were El Salvadoran nationality; however, they currently accept any Hispanic heritage in their ranks. Among the crimes these gangs have been charged with are murder, robbery, stabbings, drive by shootings, assault, sexual assault, rape, and extortion. They have also, been charged with witness tampering and intimidation crimes. One of the biggest concerns of law enforcement is that this is one of the fastest growing gangs today. Because of organizational factors and growing numbers of members, the Aryan Brotherhood, Ku Klux Klan, and MS13 have emerged as our biggest security group threats in the American corrections system. These groups have different ideologies and methods of operations, but they all have some similarities. These can be the fact that they are all either directly or indirectly affiliated with violence and drug trafficking, or that all believe that their way is the only right way. Law enforcement agencies have their work cut out for them, considering the rate of growth of some security threat group’s is large enough in some areas to cause the FBI to raise their threat assessment levels higher, as in the case of MS13.