PassageTwo Thegangs behind bars - prison gangs Part1 Prison gangs are flourishing across thecountry. Organized, stealthy and deadly, they are reaching out from their cellsto organize and control crime in America's streets. Prison gangs are flourishing from California to Massachusetts.In 1996, the Federal Bureau of Prisons found that prison disturbances soared byabout 400 percent in the early nineties, which authorities say indicated thatgangs were becoming more active. In states such as Illinois, as much as 60 percent of theprison population belong to gangs, Godwin says. The Florida DC has identified240 street gangs operating in their prisons. Street gangs, as opposed to gangsoriginating in prisons, are emerging as a larger problem on the East Coast. Of the 143,000 inmates Texas houses in state pens, 5,000 have beenidentified as gang members and another 10,000 are under suspicion. Texas prison-gang expertSammy Buentello says the state's prisons are not infested with gangs, but thosethat have set up shop are highly organized. "They have a paramilitary typestructure;' he says. "A majority of the people that come in have hadexperience with street-gang membership and have been brought up in thatenvironment accepting it as the norm. But some join for survival." After James Byrd Jr. was dragged to deathin Jasper last June, rumors spread throughout Texas linking two of the suspectedassailants to racially charged prison gangs. While authorities and inmatesdismiss these rumors, the Jasper murder occurred only weeks after a San Antonio grand jury indicted 16 members of the MexicanMafia, one of the state's largest and most lethal prison gangs, for orderingthe deaths of five people in San Antonio from within prison walls. Part2 Section A As they are being released into thecommunity on parole, these people are becoming involved in actions related toprison-gang business. Consequently, it is no longer just a corrections problem--itis also a community problem. It is a misnomer that when you lock a gang memberup they cease criminal activity. It has only been in the last five years thatlaw enforcement has realized that what happens on the inside can affect whathappens on the outside and vice versa. Section B According to gang investigators, the gangleaders communicate orders through letters. Where mail is monitored they mayuse a code--for instance, making every 12th word of a seemingly benign lettersignificant. They use visits, they put messages into their artwork and in somestates they use the telephone. Section C Of the two kinds of gangs, prison gangs andstreet gangs, the prison gangs are better organized, according to ganginvestigators. They are low-key, discreet--even stealthy. They monitor membersand dictate how they behave and treat each other. A serious violation meansdeath, say investigators. Section D The street gangs are more flagrant."Their members are going into the prisons and realizing that one of the reasonsthey are in prison is that they kept such a high profile" making it easierfor the police to catch them, says Buentello. "So, they are coming outmore sophisticated and more dangerous because they aren't as easily detected.They also network and keep track of who is out and so forth." Section E According to gang investigators andprisoners, the prison gangs were formed for protection against predatoryinmates, but racketeering, black markets and racism became factors. Theydeveloped within the prison system in California,Texas and Illinois in the 1940s. Part3 Godwin says Texas should never have outlawed smoking inthe prisons, adding cigarettes as trade-goods contraband to the prohibitedlist. "If you go back to the Civil War era, to Andersonvilleprison," Godwin says of the prisoner-of-war facility for Union soldiers,"you will see that the first thing that developed was a gang becausesomeone had to control the contraband--that is power. I'm convinced that if youput three people on an island somewhere, two would clique up and becomepredatory against the other at some point." But protection remains an important factor.When a new inmate enters the prison system he is challenged to a fight,according to a Texasstate-pen prisoner. The outcome determines who can fight, who will be extortedfor protection money and who will become a servant to other prisoners. Thosewho can't join a gang or afford to spend $5 a week in commissary items forprotection are destined to be servants. Godwin explains: "The environmentis set up so that when you put that many people with antisocial behavior andcriminal history together, someone is going to be the predator and someone theprey, and that is reality." The Texas inmate describes a system inwhich gangs often recruit like fraternities, targeting short-term inmatesbecause they can help the gang--pay them back, so to speak--when they leaveprison for the free world. Most of the groups thrive on lifelong membership,according to the Florida DC, with "blood in, blood out" oathsextending leadership and membership beyond the prison into the lucrative drugtrade, extortion and pressure rackets. Prison gangs operating in Texasand Floridainclude Neta, the Texas Syndicate, the Aztecs, the Mexican Mafia, the New BlackPanthers, the Black Guerrilla Family, Mandingo Warriors, Aryan Brotherhood, LaNuestra Familia, the Aryan Circleand the White Knights. Some of these gangs have alliances, and some are mortalenemies. Many on this list originated in Californiaover the decades, some of them (such as the Texas Syndicate) to protect membersfrom the other gangs. In addition, street gangs such as the Crips and Bloodsand traditional racial-hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also operate in theprisons. What prisoners may not realize is thatbecause the gangs are monitored by prison authorities the law-enforcementcommunity is becoming very sophisticated about the gangs. "Sixty percentof what we learn about what is going on in the city streets of Florida" isgarnered in prison and not from observing the streets, says Godwin. Prison officials say they concentrate oninmate behavior to identify gang members. They do not single out gang leadersto strike any deals because acknowledging the gang as anything other than a"security-threat group" gives them too much credibility. This hasbeen a particular problem in Puerto Rico withthe native and political Neta gang. Recognizing groups during the 1970s, in asystem in which prisoners have the right to vote, has led to a tendency among politiciansto award clemency to some inmates. ForPart 1, questions 1 – 5, complete each sentence with the correct ending. 1. The rising number of criminal gangs ... 2. Prisoners organized in gangs ... 3. Most prisoners ... 4. Some Texan state prisoners ... 5. The outcome of fights ... A. have been identified as gangsters B. are becoming infested with gangs C. indicate that prisons population hasincreased D. have experience of streetgangs E. determines who does what in prison F. have been manipulating crime frominside prison G. has become evident in prisons H. are organized as if in amartial regime ForPart 2, questions 6 – 10, choose the correct heading for Sections labeled A toE in the passage. 6. Section A A.Secretive leadership from the inside 7. Section B B. Origins of prison gangs 8. Section C C. Violence in prison 9. Section D D. Inter-relationship of prisons and the outside community 10. Section E E. No need of more sophistication F. Skills learnt in prison G. Discretion fails H. Disciplinewithin prison gangs Questions11-15: Read Part 3 of the text and answer the questions. 11 According to Godwin, _____________. A. makingsmoking illegal aided prison management. B. gangsdevelop when there is contraband. C. threepeople on an island would kill each other. D. prohibitionsdo not favour the development of power. 12 He believes _____________________. A. antisocialbehaviour is an innate human feature. B. criminalsin prison decide their own fate. C. theprison environment encourages good behaviour. D. gangsneed protection 13 The prison system in Texas_________. A. measuresmembers of the gangs in terms of friendship. B. helpsdevelop disinterested relationships. C. thriveson the “an-eye-for-an-eye” concept. D. sustainsfriendship with violence and power. 14 Gangs in these prisons ____________. A. havedifferent modus operandi. B. hadtheir origin in California. C. originatedas street gangs. D. areeither friends or foes. 15 Prisoners are unaware that __________. A. themonitoring system has been modified. B. street gangscopy their behaviour. C. theyprovide information which helps fight crime. D. thecommunity knows a lot about their activities.