Dealing With Sub-Groups and Gangs in a Prison System

Introduction

The course of the study based on the subject “Dealing with sub-groups and gangs in a prison system”. The study will focus on the Prison system in relation with gangs and sub-groups and it will provide a detailed research based analysis on the sub-groups and gang violations. The study will also provide an insight to the security system of the prison system. According to the National Criminal Justice Service, gangs defined as a group of three or more people who plan and engage in criminal activity while also identifying themselves with a common name. Furthermore, incarceration has largely failed to disrupt violent activities by gang-affiliated inmates. The sub-groups and gangs in the prison system reflect the various aspects of a society that enable its members to coexist in the same geographic area in relative harmony.

The defining aspects of any culture that separate one from another include a society's economy and means of sustenance, means of communication, value system, and stratification system. Inmate cultures are not entirely distinct from outside cultures and so are often referred to as subcultures that exist within a broader society. Nonetheless, inmates develop some of their own values and norms to facilitate their adaptation to prison, to reduce conflict with each other, and to insulate themselves from correctional officers and prison administrators. Their language also includes some rather unique terms that reflect the deprivations of their environment. The rarity of currency also leads inmates to rely on a barter economy in order to trade goods with one another. Finally, a stratification system where inmates occupy various niches also develops in order to meet certain needs within the inmate population.

Discussion

A Prison gang or a sub-group is a group of individuals who share a common ideology; it is largely caused by their association.  One of their characteristics is their readiness to use violence against other gangs and to extend it against just about anyone. They engage in criminal activities in nature and intensity variables from this point of view, their representation in the show business industry is quite unrealistic (Espejo 2002, Pp. 19-31). The gangs are also found in prison, where some born and swarm to the outside world.

In the 1980s, the United States witnessed unprecedented prison growth. While the numbers of men under correctional supervision increased dramatically, the rate at which women locked up outpaced men. The reason for these increases was the result of new policies aimed at getting tough on crime. These get-tough policies included harsher prisons sentences, mandatory sentences for certain offenses, and tougher drug laws. The 1980s were ripe for these get-tough policies given the social context of the prior decades; the country seemed out of control to many in the 1960s and 1970s, and laws created to deter people from committing crime. Both men and women offenders targeted with these policies.

These gangs are a sad reality that is present in the cities of American, these gangs immensely powerful and so intractable that the U.S. policies are implacable in front of them. Centered on a territory, a gang is a group of young people enriched by informal and criminal activity in highly lucrative purpose (Johnson 2002, Pp. 112-131). A gang consists of a small number of people, and usually includes a few friends to hundreds of supporters of the people involved in the gang. All gang members are usually young or extremely young from 10-30 years.

Background and History Prison Gangs and Sub-Groups

The phenomenon of a gang began in the nineteenth is in capital cities of the east coast when the children of European immigrants newly arrived ...