Racism, Nazis and gang Orgy: how to live the American prison
The American prison world — a truly enormous and unknown civilization. Behind bars in the United States are millions of people who are forced to comply with special unwritten laws and put up with discrimination, which will not seen for decades.
“Monkeys don’t wear glasses,” the prison guard Brian Pauper called black John Richard in the courtyard of one of the prisons of the state of new York. Convicted for the murder of Richard was a weak eyesight and a prescription for sunglasses, because he did not remove them. A fight ensued, to help the security guard arrived a few colleagues.
In the result, the prisoner lost not only points to his beat so that he had difficulty walking, and for six months was sent to the Shu.
Officer Pauper escaped with minor injuries, and the official report wrote that Richard attacked him first. Racial insult in the note, was not mentioned.
Racial gangs
“To race here. I mean really, Jerry Metcalf, who was convicted for manslaughter and weapons possession. In the dining room white sit in one corner, black in another. White white Barber cuts black — black. There are still 1950s — in the sense we share is that drinking fountains. […] The only difference is that white behind bars often find themselves in the minority”.
Finding himself, deservedly or not, in the government of the U.S. prison system, the prisoner is faced with a cruel world, whose population — more than 2.2 million people — sometimes guided by the primal laws of survival, strictly separating friend from foe, and is not afraid to resort to violence.
It is known that the number of prisoners the US is significantly ahead of the rest of the state and ranks first in the world in the ratio of prisoners to total number of citizens. In some States, 100 thousand inhabitants, including children, have more than a thousand inhabitants of the prisons.
Of the many reasons for this situation. Among them called overly strict laws and long sentences. Release from prison sometimes have to wait for decades, and people have to adapt. The most obvious solution for many is to join a gang — and eventually every tenth American prisoner is a member of a particular gang.
Almost 40 percent of the population of us prisons are African Americans, despite the fact that in the whole country there are only 13 percent. In 2010, for every 100 thousand of the adult American citizens have 678 white male inmates, blacks 4.3 thousand and 1.7 thousand — Hispanic origin.
Brother brother
Prison criminal groups in the United States separated by color. It is an echo of past oppression — almost all the major gangs were formed in the 60-ies of the last century.
Then the government decided to end segregation in prisons and began to contain prisoners together, regardless of race. But racism, while not gone anywhere.
Prisoners expect from “their” willingness to help in a conflict situation, and those that aid does not lose support and become victims themselves. Racial violence one way or another involved the majority of prisoners.
Divided among themselves, without state aid, the criminals have formed thousands of associations with a rich history of cooperation and hostility — not branches of the gangs operating on the other side of the prison fence, and a fundamentally new structure that affect the lives of its members and outside the prison system. Every prison gang capture areas are labeled with their signs and market share of illegal goods and services. Against this background, between them is a real war with massive clashes and killings. Leaders rightly considered brilliant managers — despite all the efforts of the prison guards, they are able to lead complex processes. As a rule, contact with subordinates they are using encrypted messages on very small pieces of paper.
Journalist for The Atlantic, Graeme wood shared his observation of the impending brawl prisoners: “at First it seems that we see these scary men — tattooed murderers, thieves and drug dealers — randomly walk around the yard. Some stop and search security, whereupon they, adjusted his clothes, continue to breathe fresh air. The first Latino suited to the concrete table, sits down and waits. Black inmate goes to the bar and stares at the visitors. White guy, coming into the yard, immediately goes to the third point, near the basketball courts. Another Latino is another table. Gradually it becomes obvious that they are following tactics: each of them took a seat for his.”
When the three groups in the yard collected several dozen prisoners, the guards also get in a group and depart to the fence. Describing what is happening in the yard, wood writes that criminals “moved so smoothly and orderly, though subject to the instructions of invisible lights”. “In this yard right now, about thirty knives, says a security officer to a journalist. They hide them in the back passages”.
Homemade knives are the primary weapon in the prison wars. Despite the fact that the administration severely punish those who manufacture and store weapons, the convicts continue to do the sharpening.
To apply them is also not afraid, despite the possible extension of the time — a gang member already sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2007, Pelican Bay was a mass slaughter, injuring several dozen people. Thanks to the efforts of protection and physicians, among the wounded survived only one prisoner, and the administration seized 89 pieces of improvised weapons — shivs and clubs.
African-American gangs in prisons, often just a cell “traditional” street organized crime groups, such as the Bloods and SGR, warring among themselves on the basis of old feuds and redistribution of the drug market. But there are exceptions, and they are significant: the prison group called the”Black guerrilla family” (Black Guerilla Family) built primarily on an ideological basis. The members of the gang, founded in 1966 by George Jackson of the Black Panthers, define their ideals as “African-American Marxism-Leninism”, and the purpose, I believe the fight against racism and black revolution in the United States. The symbol of the organization chose the black dragon, clutching in its talons a prison guard in the background of a watch tower.
Of Hispanics, mostly Mexicans in American prisons unite the factions the”Mexican mafia” (also known as “La EME”) and “Nuestra Familia”, which translated from Spanish means “our family”. These gangs, and the African-American, was born in California and identificeret each other for the blue and red garments. They are the longest in U.S. history, criminal war, started by the theft of shoes in one bandit, the other in 1968. While allies the “Nuestra Familia” — the leftist Africans from “Black African family”, and on the side of the “Mexican mafia” white Nazi “Aryan brotherhood”.
Both groups consist mainly of Chicano — Latin American nationalists — and taking into its ranks of white, while other Hispanics more likely to engage in so-called “Texas syndicate”, the more closed to representatives of other ethnic groups.
Ethnicity is certainly important for OPG and white: they are generally United by the idea of racial superiority.
The best-known group called the “Aryan brotherhood” was formed in the same California prison San Quentin, where he founded the “Black guerrilla family” — originally white inmates banded together to protect from black radicals, but soon surpassed them in cruelty. Now the gang is called the most authoritative and violent in America. According to the principle “the blood let the blood produced” to join, the candidate must attack a guard or an inmate of another race, and can go only posthumously.
At the moment, “the Brotherhood” unites more than 20 thousand criminals throughout the country. It is less than 0.1% of all the prisoners, however, according to the FBI, the gang responsible for about a fifth of a murder committed inside the prison system of the United States. Its members identificeret tattoos with Nazi symbols, the Shamrock and the number 666 is, they deny Christianity and mostly profess the Scandinavian neo-paganism.