How Gangs Took Over Prisons

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/how-gangs-took-over-prisons/379330

by dodders • 12 years ago

171 171 12 years ago

theatlantic.com

angersock• 12 years ago

One wonders what sort of prison and judicial reform could ever happen in a system like the US has?

The entire thing is so deeply entrenched at so many levels I doubt it could be done cleanly if at all.

joe_the_user3• 12 years ago

I agree that prison reform seems unlikely but I would put this in terms of the entrenched interest of guards, law enforcement and all the beneficiaries of the War On Drugs. Prison gangs are subordinate players in this game but certainly they are the monsters that the Drug War overall has successfully conjured up.

rayiner9• 12 years ago

It's also illustrative to ask what reforms are possible in a society like the U.S. has: http://www.explainingprogress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03.... The U.S. homicide rate has been 5-7x higher than in England for more than a century. You can't blame it on the drug war or on Prohibition: it was 7x higher in 1900-1920, before Prohibition, before the expansion of federal criminal law, before for-profit prisons and before prison guard lobbies.

For some reason, the U.S. is just an incredibly violent society. Our justice system has evolved in light of that.

bronbron3• 12 years ago

Our justice system has evolved in light of that.

I don't know that I'd say 'evolved'. You said it yourself: the homicide rate has been 5-7x higher than in England for more than a century.

We're not really doing anything different than what we used to do - a punitive justice system, sometimes morally dubious punishment, and total 'othering' of convicted criminals. I don't know that we can really be shocked when nothing changes.

joesmo4• 12 years ago

Homicide is a very small percentage of all crimes. I think it's obvious that our justice and penal systems have evolved to incarcerate the "unwanted," mainly people of color. They are both racist institutions that, especially in the last 60-70 years have been trying to "make up" for the advancements in the civil rights of minorities.

As far as what reforms are possible, how about releasing everyone who has committed victimless crimes (drugs, prostitution, etc.)? The "justice" system in this country has lost all credibility because such crimes are mainly used to target minorities and the poor. Treating inmates humanely would also help. Removing the profit incentives of prisons would go a long way towards this as well. Not sending people to jail because they can't pay $100 fine would also be a huge step. There are many things society can do to keep a lot of the "low-level" offenders from ever getting into prison and becoming hardened criminals. For most people, once they're in prison, it's too late.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

I'd suggest that murder rates are correlated mostly with a nation's experience of colonization. That's why they're uniformly higher in Africa and the Americas than in other parts of the world. Actually in that subset the USA does better than all but a few nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

joe_the_user3• 12 years ago

"The inmates interact like volatile chemicals..."

Language like this seems to me to dehumanize the inmates. Given that the author fails in getting into a conversation with the inmates, I find it irksome he feels called to pontificate on the situation, especially when other author have succeeded in having discussions with both gang members and alleged-but-not-actual gang members.

I suspect the inmates were wise in not talking to him. Since gang membership is a means that the California Prison System can use to discipline an inmate with little evidence, it's in the system's interest to describe everyone as a gang member (with Pelican Bay being the punishment zone for anyone so accused). Naturally, extreme insecurity makes banding logical as well - however the questionable part of the discussion is whether the prison is trying to control gang membership (in the same fashion that its questionable whether the war drugs is an honest effort to control drug use).

bglazer• 12 years ago

The article was interesting for its history of prison gangs.

However, if you're going to write about anything, then you owe it to both the readers and the subjects to interview the people involved.

You're not going to get an interview by walking once down a cell block asking to talk about gangs. No shit. The people who create shows like "Jail" or "Lockup" manage to get hundreds of hours of interviews with gang members. However, they establish mutual respect and rapport.

I suppose I can't judge too harshly as it's certainly a difficult assignment, but it seems like the author put a very minimal amount of effort into interviewing, and instead pontificated from on high about gang members.

cwyers• 12 years ago

It seems like there's a lot that could be done to curtail the use of cell phones in prisons that wouldn't require invasive body-cavity searches. Couldn't you just jam common cell phone transmission frequencies? That'd curtail guard use of cell phones, too, but that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff.

r00fus• 12 years ago

No need to jam - simply put in fake cell towers. I think that idea isn't new and is already proposed [1].

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/17/local/la-me-0417-pri...

vonmoltke2• 12 years ago

Prison personnel are already prohibited from having two-way communication devices except their radios. The problem with jammers is the FCC. They are paranoid about allowing the operation of any devices intended to screw up communications, and rightfully so.

qq66• 12 years ago

It might be expensive, but you could make the entire prison a Faraday cage (although not sure how that would work if people are allowed to go outdoors).

pbhjpbhj2• 12 years ago

Surely the reason such tech isn't already in place is because such communications are being recorded/monitored?

Couldn't you easily locate devices using triangulation and hand-held receivers? Indeed you could probably just have a device at the door of each cell, and in other places, that told you when a communication on the right frequency was being made.

kansface2• 12 years ago

I highly doubt this. Apathy and inertia are far more likely.

bluedino• 12 years ago

How about stopping corrupt guards and service workers from sneaking paraphernalia and drugs into the prisons?

ams6110• 12 years ago

I guess if it were easy to do that it would have been done.

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

In the federal system, a carton of cigarettes smuggled in will result in a $1000 deposit to an account.

Been there, seen it.

roel_v• 12 years ago

That's already being tried and doesn't work (enough). So the problem becomes 'what else can we do'. What you're saying is 'well we have so many teen pregnancies, why don't teens just stop having sex?'

redwood• 12 years ago

It's probably fair to assume that phones and other contraband are a part of the balance of power between the authorities and the gangs they need for stability.

Spooky233• 12 years ago

Jamming radio signals is a crime.

Keep in mind that prison administrators trust the guards less than they trust the inmates. Phones and drugs don't arrive in the mail -- the COs are often complicit.

harlowja• 12 years ago

Don't rapiscans offer the same kind of non-invasive body-cavity searches? Why not just move the ones that are used in airports to prisons... Seems odd to need to do any invasive body-cavity search when u can just use the same thing that is used in an airport...

RickHull• 12 years ago

When invasive body cavity searches aren't feasible,

When you're minimizing travel anxiety and humiliation,

Remember Rapey-scan(tm). Ask for it by name!

fillskills3• 12 years ago

Correct me if I am wrong, I am no expert on this matter, but it seems like prisoners get stuck in a loop - Make one mistake, you are in prison. Once you are tagged a prisoner, you rarely get any jobs outside. When you are in prison you get caught up in the whole gang thing and your best friends are now other criminals/gang members.

What is being done to help prisoners rehabilitate and break out of this loop?

nacs• 12 years ago

With the privatized prison system in the US, it's more commercially viable to have people stay in that loop than not.

I'm not sure that there is any incentive to help people out of that loop with so much profit for everyone in the chain (police departments, lawyers, judges and most of all, the private company that runs the prison). The only net loss in this loop are the taxpayers who pay for all of it.

swartkrans• 12 years ago

Everything you have said is false. Private prisons are not colluding to keep prisoners in prison or lobbying the state or doing any kind of action to increase the number of people that become imprisoned nor increase their length of stay. There is no evidence for anything you have claimed, you simply use "privatized" as if it were a dirty word and we should knowingly nod our heads in assent.

I'm not sure

The way to resolve an information need is to engage in an objective search of facts, not speculate endlessly and make unsubstantiated claims of criminal behavior of others without some kind of evidence to base it on.

If you want people to spend less time in prison, you'll want the laws changed because that's where all this come from. Some of the laws in California are the result of ballots.

dustcoin• 12 years ago

It is misleading to refer to the US prison system as privatized, when the percentage of the total inmates that are in private prisons is only around 3% [1].

Privatized prisons do create a huge moral hazard, but currently the pro-prison groups with the biggest scope and influence are probably police/guard unions [2] and the "tough on crime" crowd.

[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit...

[2] http://www.economist.com/node/15580530

rayiner9• 12 years ago

The percentage of private prisoners is single digits. The policies that lead to high incarceration rates today, namely long drug sentences and three strikes laws, were promulgated in the 1980's and early 1990's, when the industry was essentially nonexistent.

grkvlt• 12 years ago

Are you actually insane enough to believe that the (tiny number, 3% quoted below) of privately run prisons are managed by companies who are somehow colluding to ensure that the prisoners all re-offend once they finish their sentences? Because there isn't enough crime to keep them in profit currently?

wwweston• 12 years ago

Not to mention the gangs that profit or get their own employment from keeping prisoners in this loop...

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

Spot on, and not very much. For instance, only 32% of inmates have a high school education or higher. Getting a job with both a prison record and almost no education is nearly impossible. What option do a lot of former inmates have that won't lead to recidivism?

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf

InclinedPlane• 12 years ago

Almost nothing is being done. In the US the model of how our criminal justice system handles the guilty is one of revenge, retribution, and punishment, not of rehabilitation. This works about as well as you'd imagine given that most inmates only spend a few years in prison.

erehweb• 12 years ago

San Francisco has recently passed the Fair Chance ordinance - http://sfgsa.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=12136 - a step towards limiting disclosure of previous convictions.

thatswrong0• 12 years ago

In the U.S.? Not much. Some, such as Loïc Wacquant, don't really see a distinction between being in prison and not for some people:

The 'hyperghetto' constitutes the fourth stage in the development of 'peculiar institutions', following (sequentially) slavery, Jim Crow, and the early ghettos. According to him, the ghetto and the prison are for all practical purposes indistinguishable, reinforcing each other to ensure the exclusion of African-Americans from general society, with governmental encouragement.

There are some attempts at what is called 'restorative justice' in certain situations in certain places, but the idea of prison as being rehabilitative is not on the mind of the public.

gadders• 12 years ago

For those that like anthropology and boxing, this is a good read by Loic Wacquant:

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Body_Soul.html?id=WFWY...

He joins a boxing gym on the south side of Chicago and as well as learning to box, "studies" his fellow gym-goers.

incision• 12 years ago

'What is being done to help prisoners rehabilitate and break out of this loop?'

Not much that I'm aware of. Being "tough on crime" is still pretty popular depending on political affiliation, Joe "Concentration Camp" Arpaio is still a sheriff and GEO is up 15% YTD [1].

However, there's been a fair amount of recent coverage around stepping back from some of the policies that got us here [2] so there's reason to be hopeful.

1: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AGEO&ei=5BgaVMjANtOQ8...

2: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/12/6139819/bill-clinton-violent-cr...

stevewepay• 12 years ago

This is what happened to someone I know. He made a single mistake, hanging around with the wrong crowd, and then even though he was trying to change his life, he kept getting screwed over by "the system". There were lots of issues related to going to halfway houses or going to jail. He got sick and missed an appointment with a parole officer, which caused him to lose his job, which caused him to be thrown back in jail. He was trying his best to follow the rules, but after losing his temper and threatening to attack someone who had been bothering his father, he eventually ended up getting thrown out of the country (he lost his permanent resident). Obviously he made a few bad choices, but if someone is making a concerted effort to change his life, it feels like they should be afforded more of a chance to succeed.

wavefunction• 12 years ago

Not sure about other states but there are small efforts to rehabilitate some of the inmates in Colorado. The programs are unfortunately small but quite successful. I think there are many in prison who could stay out if they just had something to look forward to on the outside.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-dair...

https://www.coloradoci.com/serviceproviders/puppy/index.html...

The connection with another living creature that they're responsible for seems to do these guys a world of good beyond anything else we can offer them.

fillskills3• 12 years ago

After reading the links, seems like they are paid very little (60 cents/day). Also, I feel training them to get higher level jobs could be more beneficial. e.g. Freelance PM/Designer/Dev could earn a lot more while working remotely with little background checks.

gohrt3• 12 years ago

Recidivism is literally in the private prison companies' business plans, as pitched to investors.

https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=last+week+tonight+prison&tbm...

fillskills3• 12 years ago

Wow, that is just sad

Reentry• 12 years ago

@gohrt: Can you provide a reference or cite of this claim?

tedks7• 12 years ago

The solitary confinement practiced in Pelican Bay is a gross affront to humanity. In a hundred years and change, it will be considered the great moral blemish on the early 21st century, and our children's children's children will be disgusted by our complicity in it.

Solitary confinement is literally torture, and can drive people permanently insane. People can be placed into solitary confinement after being "validated" as gang members just for having political writing in their cells: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confine...

This article discusses this only casually, which ultimately makes its author complicit in these crimes against humanity.

Karunamon3• 12 years ago

Writing a news article makes one complicit in crimes against humanity?!

Wow. The standards and actions required for being designated an utter bastard have slipped a long way in my short time in this world..

IkmoIkmo• 12 years ago

Journalists have a public responsibility, for sure. It'd surely lack moral sense to casually report on the mistreatment of Armenians, or not bother to really mention it at all, during the Armenian genocide when covering the plight of the Armenians.

This has been recognized in history by many, to leave you with two quotes from Einstein and King respectively:

"If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity."

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

I certainly don't want to get sentimental and I'm not one to favor hyperbole, being complicit in these crimes is too strong for my taste. But I agree with the sentiment of his post, which urges journalists to recognize their power and seize the opportunity to report on gross inhumane mistreatment of people, especially when these people are the subject of his writing. Again, I understand his wording was strong, but I wish we'd focus more on the intent of his post than on the semantics.

kjackson2012• 12 years ago

I think we should implement an all-solitary-confinement prison system.

We can make the initial prison terms shorter by an order of magnitude (a few days to a few weeks, depending on the nature of the crime). This should be hard enough time to scare most first-time offenders straight.

If you get repeat offenders, start increasing the length of solitary confinement exponentially.

The benefit is that you need less guards, the guards are better protected, less prison gangs because there would be no intermingling of prisoners, and it would protect the prisoners as well. It would help first-time offenders because they will probably get scared straight faster, and they wouldn't be in jail as long. And if you get a really violent criminal, it would be akin to locking them away and throwing away the key.

Karunamon3• 12 years ago

There is no evidence that suggests increased or harsher sentences serve as a deterrent to crime.

tedks7• 12 years ago

Why not just bring back the lash? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2011/featu...

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

I did 10+ years in prison systems and I actually preferred the peace and quiet of solitary to the chaos and drama of population.

eru9• 12 years ago

How did you end up on both HN and in prison?

yzzxy• 12 years ago

I really enjoyed reading Papillon, as well as seeing the film. Does anyone have recommendations for good fiction / memoirs about modern prisons?

rbcgerard• 12 years ago

A Prophet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235166/?ref_=nv_sr_1

wglb• 12 years ago

In the belly of the beast: Jack Henry Abbot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Belly_of_the_Beast

j1o1h1n• 12 years ago

Ghosts Of The Civil Dead (movie)

spindritf• 12 years ago

“Before prison gangs showed up,” he says, “you survived in prison by following something called ‘the convict code.’ ”

There is a great book by a Polish-American sociologist Marek Kamiński[1] describing the convict code in Polish prisons, Games Prisoners Play[2]. It's based on his personal experience (he ended up in prison as an anticommunist dissident in the 80s) and tries to explain the prison culture from game theory perspective. Which is a fine premise but what makes it a great read is the long, intricate process of initiation he went through as a fresh prisoner.

It's also not nearly as brutal. There are no gangs, there's only this one inner culture. Actually, some of the initiation games were kind of clever.

In one they threw him under the bunk and two of his cell mates where kicking him (or poking with a broom, something like that) while the third was yelling "gear up" or "gear down". He broke a comb he had in his pocket and screamed like it was a bone at which point they stopped but what they were looking for was for him to say "put it in neutral".

[1] http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4931

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Games-Prisoners-Play-Tragicomic-Worlds...

jahmed• 12 years ago

I took Kaminski's Game Theory And Politics class and he lends the material an absolutely fascinating perspective. One of my favorite undergraduate courses and I got an A..

tedks7• 12 years ago

and I got an A..

Congrats!

eru9• 12 years ago

That book is worth a read.

gohrt3• 12 years ago

Whoa, this bit is actually based on real prison culture:

Key & Peele - Fronthand Backhand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGAMbNKcN1U

jonnyscholes2• 12 years ago

Is that first photo [1] "normal" for an cell setup? I'd have thought computer access was similar to phone access (by appointment only).

[1] http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/08/1014_W...

comrh• 12 years ago

Looks like a TV to me. I don't see a mouse or keyboard.

jonnyscholes2• 12 years ago

Ah good point - I thought it was an iMac and the peripherals were somewhere else in that surprisingly organised shelf.

bane• 12 years ago

That looks more like a small tv maybe? Or perhaps it's just a monitor and they have designated hours to use a monitored laptop or something.

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

The author fails to mention one significant factor to the self-segregation of prison populations in the federal prison system. The federal hate crime law makes an assault upon a person of a different color punishable by a mandatory 25 year sentence.

So, if a white had a problem with a hispanic, he had to take it to the white shot-callers (gang bosses) who then went to the hispanic shot-callers. The hispanic bosses would then discipline their member (which could entail forcing him to repay a debt, or assaulting or even murdering him). As long as the violence didn't cross racial bounds, the hate crime doesn't apply.

rattray• 12 years ago

That's fascinating. Can you link to more information / data / anecdotes?

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime_laws_in_the_United_S...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_and_James_Byrd,...

http://www.alternet.org/story/27726/hate_crimes_in_prison

On one of my con-air flights, I sat by a guy who was being transferred to court for a new charge from the U.S. Supermax at Florence, Colorado. He was, of course, doing life. He joked with me that the only way he got to travel and see the sights and eat some good food was to kill a guard every now and then.

steanne3• 12 years ago

hate crime laws don't apply to every attack upon someone of a different color. they only apply if the attack is BECAUSE of the victim's color. if you're attacking the other guy because he goosed your sister, it's not a hate crime no matter what color he is.

eru9• 12 years ago

Tell that to the judge.

venus2• 12 years ago

Take a second to think about what you're saying. You're basically talking about prison revenge scenarios. Do you seriously think the real reasons are ever going to be admitted?

"Your honour, I didn't shank him because I hate hispanics, it's because he stole my dope!"

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

Well, actually, SIS (Special Investigative Service), the "cops" in the federal system, treats any altercation between different colors as racially motivated.

ChuckFrank• 12 years ago

"“How can you tell what type of cellphone an inmate uses,” he asked, “based on what’s in his cell?” He let me think for about two seconds before cheerily giving me the answer: you examine the bar of soap on the prisoner’s sink. The safest place for an inmate to store anything is in his rectum, and to keep the orifice supple and sized for the (contraband) phone, inmates have been known to whittle their bars of soap and tuck them away as a placeholder while their phones are in use. So a short and stubby bar means a durable old dumbphone; broad and flat means a BlackBerry or an iPhone. Pity the poor guy whose bar of soap is the size and shape of a Samsung Galaxy Note."

This stinks of the standard urban legend trope structure, and with that in mind, I don't think it's true. There's absolutely not reason to keep an ass pocket supple and sized for contraband. And it's absolutely not true that you need a place holder for the contraband, when the contraband in not being hidden there.

Lastly, regularly putting a bar of soap in one's anus would be incredibly uncomfortable, and inmates would quickly stop that process, replacing it - if it was really needed in the first place - with something plastic and chemically inert.

http://drbenkim.com/dont-use-soap-private-parts.htm

How do I know? I live in the Bay Area. Healthy sexuality is discussed over wine by people of all sexual persuasions.

joe_the_user3• 12 years ago

This article might be summarized as "guards told me outrageous things about inmates and I uncritically repeated them 'cause it seemed like a good story"

twelve40• 12 years ago

Well, strictly speaking the dude who shared that particular insight is portrayed to have a bit more cred than the guards' stories, but i guess that's beside the point

vonnik• 12 years ago

that's bullshit. graeme wood has been covering prisons for years, and he's one of the best journalists in america.

WorldWideWayne• 12 years ago

You're not thinking like a prisoner though. How do you know what kind of reasoning is going on inside of a prisoner's head? They don't have the same information that you have.

There is no reason to avoid leaving a hat on a bed, but superstitious people might have a reason, even if it doesn't make any sense to you.

vishnugupta• 12 years ago

A picture caption says thus:

"An inmate doing push-ups in the SHU’s exercise yard, a small concrete room with an overhead skylight where inmates are allowed to spend an hour and a half a day and receive their only exposure to sunlight"

What's the rationale behind curtailing exposure to sunlight?

A prisoner is already under stress, presumably, especially first timers. Won't denying them natural light only worsen their psychological makeup and pull them into negative spiral?

eru9• 12 years ago

Yes. And why only such a limited number of books? Why no (unconnected) computers? Why no exercise equipment?

malka2• 12 years ago

I guess the logic is "they are criminal. They do not deserve any of it"

kbutler• 12 years ago

Limiting hiding places and tools for violence come immediately to mind.

It's easy from the outside to say this rule or that seems cruel or unreasonable, but they are created from experience trying to manage an incredibly creative and incredibly hostile population.

Fjolsvith12• 12 years ago

If an inmate could have a large number of books, searching cells would become quite time consuming.

Unconnected computers can be hacked to an outside line. Again, searching the contents of them would be time consuming.

Exercise equipment makes great weapons.

anvandare• 12 years ago

Pelican Bay is a supermax prison, and the SHU is for the "worst of the worst". It's unlikely they put first timers there.

As for the rationale: since the law prohibits you from actively torturing/executing prisoners, you have to resort to more creative means of inducing suffering (and thus hopefully compliance). Removing and limiting all privileges, personal belongings, and mental stimulation (including a view other than drab gray concrete walls, or sunlight) is a guaranteed way to get people's mental state to deteriorate.

The worsening of the psychological makeup is thus by intent. This is meant for people who are deemed unredeemable, as well as a punishment to threaten prisoners in less severe prisons with: "We have an even worse place for you, should you cause too much trouble."

It's torture, of course, except it's legal.

skrebbel2• 12 years ago

For me, prisons are the ultimate test in civilization. Convicted felons cannot usually expect to be treated better than any other group in society, so if how they are treated sort of draws a lower bound on the "goodness" of society. If you treat your convicted felons as good as you can, it probably means that the rest of the country is treated even better. That's a very good starting point.

In that respect, I'm sad and ashamed that in my country (the Netherlands), just like in the US, things are pretty crappy. For example, we have a single "maximum security prison" where all the bad and criminally insane people go. When it's time for the prisoners to go out and get some air, the guards lock themselves up on the other side of the fence, and it's each inmate for himself. What could possibly go wrong?

We're a bunch of barbarians and I wish this was at all on the political agenda.

galenko• 12 years ago

The first paragraph kind of ignores the homeless and the poor and even Mr Average Joe, who's got a list of medical conditions, which he can't afford to fix, so getting himself locked up for a while, just to get access to healthcare, doesn't sound insane.

Can you imagine that? Remain free and barely be able to put food on the table for your family or go to prison, just to solve a medical problem?

skrebbel2• 12 years ago

Good point. I keep forgetting how bad it really is in the USA.

malka2• 12 years ago

homeless people commiting crime only to get a roof over their head, and food is already a thing. Such a sad society we live in.

furyg3• 12 years ago

While I don't know everything about either the US or NL prison systems, I have lived in both places and do know both a guard at a non-maximum security correctional facility in California, and several psychologists who work at TBS 'clinics' in NL. For non-Dutch, these TBS clinics are where many dangerous criminals can be held for longer terms than are normally associated with the punishment for a given crime, based on the fact that these people are mentally unstable and likely to commit a crime again.

The differences in the criminal systems are huge. I agree that a great way to judge a society is by how it treats it's inmates, and that this could certainly be improved in Holland... but comparing the prison systems in the US to NL is just ridiculous.

Sentences are incredibly short in NL compared to US. There is a focus on re-entry into society, not so in the US. Life-long imprisonment is extremely rare in NL, with most cases being people in TBS clinics under supervision and care of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers. There is no death penalty. The incarceration rate is 8x higher in the US.

Violent criminals in the US are sent here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/11/group-therapy-cage-m...

Violent criminals in NL are sent here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/omroepbrabant/sets/72157624396...

yodsanklai• 12 years ago

And this is an infamous French prison in Marseille.

http://www.europe1.fr/france/la-prison-des-baumettes-ce-cauc...

The sad thing is that many (most?) people don't have problems with this as in their opinion prisoners are there for punishment anyway, and public money is always better spent elsewhere.

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

And that's the main difference between legal systems; NL is about re-education, US is about paying a debt to society (or keeping people off the street).

DanielBMarkham• 12 years ago

So here we have the end of the line for people who want to control others: folks who have broken the rules and need to be isolated. The state can control literally every aspect of their lives: where they live, what they eat, who they associate with, and so on.

Guess what? There's still crime, gangs, an informal government, and an economy. And you either kill them all (as one person in the article said, a bullet to the back of the head does wonders for behavior) or you allow it to happen.

I know there's the usual "America is a police state!" response to this article, and sure enough, we have created a security state, but more fascinating to me was the complex self-governing structures these inmates have set up -- which is exactly why the economist was studying them.

There's a huge academic and political debate that this ties into. For instance, do governments create markets and money? From the data presented in the article, no. They might dictate the terms of markets, to a small degree, but they're just a bit player. Can more laws eliminate crime? No. At some point, even when you have total control over each and every person, crime still happens. I don't know where the curve is, but there is a power curve at work, and you can reach the point of diminishing returns. It made more sense for the corrections officers to allow the gang activity that to continue to try to fight it.

Fascinating stuff, and of course this article is nowhere near authoritative. Still, I'd love to hear more about research in this area.

How Gangs Took Over Prisons

Related Stories