Transcript Prison gangs - Canadian Criminal Justice Association

Prison gangs: A review and survey of strategies
by: John Winterdyk
Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB.
& Rick Ruddell, CSC (Director of Research/Eastern Kentucky Un.)
32nd Canadian Congress on Criminal Justice
Oct. 28-31/09
Halifax, NS.
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Overview
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Conceptual overview
Prison/correctional responses to prison gangs
Project methodology
Results
Conclusions-recommendations
Discussion
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• Why here?
• Who involved directly with correctional
facilities?
• Who has gangs members in their institution?
• What are the presenting issues?
• What type of responses re
treatment/management/intervention?
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“Imprison a large batch of others, and a competitive market, and division will
form” – Trulson et al., ‘06
Conceptual overview:
• Gangs proliferating since late ‘70s (Camp ’85)
• 1st NA study ‚83
• 9.4% ‘91 to 24.7% ‘99 (Knox, ‘99)
• STGs (Security Threat Grps)
– Any grp of 3 or more…with recurring threatening or disruptive behavior….
Including but not limited to gang crime or gang violence
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Hype vs. reality?
Trostle ‘96: 80s & 90s “decades of the gangs”
Dearth of studies
Est. 307,000 gang members in the US… 189,000 validated – 10% inmate
pop (1.6M)
• NONE empirically examined different programmatic responses to gang
management
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Oldest house in Calgary circa 1876
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• Pervasive problem
• Little empirical analysis of their impact on gang membership
and prison violence
• Mysterious and unapproachable
• Gangs not limited to NA:
– Mexico – Azteca drug gangs
– South Africa (van Zyl Smit ‘98)
– New Zealand (Hubbard ‘09)
– National but international
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• European scene:
• Dr Peter Neumann (King's College London): governments
across Europe should observe prisons more closely in the
future as they were likely to become "major hubs" for
terrorist recruitment.
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2009 Trio break out of Belgium with helicopter!
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Presenting issues
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Not sign % of inmate pop (3%)
Sign % of institutional violence
Recruitment
Disrupting prison operations
Compromise safety of staff and inmates
– Rene Enriquez - a former leading member of the Mexican Mafia
– Pierre Rondeau – former Hell’s Angels member
• Importation of drugs, contraband… underground economy fuels
violence
• Undermine rehabilitative programs
• Radicalization of inmates (Muslim, Aboriginal, terrorist factions…)
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• !! Since Fredrick M. Thrasher (1892-1970) ’27…. How best to
define/operationalize
– Studied 1313 gangs in Chicago
• Intuitively understand but no standardized response
• No two gangs alike
• ??”collection of people who share the same values and goals
of mainstream society but responding to particular socioeconomic conditions” (Sanchez-Jankowski ‘03)
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Responses to prison gangs
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Inmate informants (Wilkinson & Delgago ‘06)
Segregation units (Fisher ‘02)
Isolating gang leaders (Rivera et al. ‘03)
Locking down (Ward & Werlich ‘03)
Rotating or transferring gang leaders (Crouch & Marquart
‘89)
Converting prisons into gang-free facilities (Rivera et al. ‘03)
!! Knox ‘00: specialized training but very limited
Curry & Decker ‘03: no published eval on efficacy of these
suppressions
Grekul & LeBoucane-Benson ‘08: steps w/o evidence!
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Project Methodology
• 2 parts:
– Extensive lit review
– Survey 53 US prison systems (fed, state and corp)
– Emailed surveys to prison Directors
– Preceded with phone contact to notify and
secure cooperation
– Semi-structures questionnaire
• Six primary areas
– Response rate 70% (N=37) - 70+% gang inmates
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Results
• Section I: gang membership
– 2% to 50% estimated STG mean 18.04% STG
– Validated STG members 0-39% mean 10.9%
– 58.9% noted an increase since 2004
• 6.1% from more sophisticated organizations
– 22.2% “hard core”
• Intervention strategies
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36.1% increase in litigations or grievances… undermine
51.9% join after admission!
STG resp 66.7% of inst. violence
!staff understanding of STG & genuine threat
Historical fact: Wash S. 1950, CA 1957, Ill 1969…
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• Section II: STG Management strategies
• 34% institutions have ‘special’ sanction
• Segregation; restrictions on privileges; loss of good
time credits, etc.
• Segregation 69.2% “very effective”
• Limit visitations 57.1%
• Control release destination 25%
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• Section III: Strategies for reducing STG
recruitment
• 1/3 of institutions offered type of educational
program/intervention – incoming
– Only 27% claimed actually effective!
– 15% relied on debriefing sessions
– ! 48.7% become affiliated once ‘inside’
– Thwarting is a challenge!!
– Why affiliate: protection, social status, ‘friends’
– ! A need for safer institutions
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• Section IV: Reducing STG influences
• Historically target gang leaders
• 50+% still target
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36.8% isolate
31.5% criminal prosecution
16.7% investigator’s time (poor)
82.9% intelligence sharing effective
• ! Almost no formal risk assessment
tools used… <10% used a threat assess
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• Section V: STG – gang renunciation (GR) and
treatment
• Fortsythe ‘06: few programs, older gang members, & small
grps
• 35% institutions have some type of GR program
• Majority “somewhat” to “not” effective!
• Few formal treatment intervention
– Reliance on case management activities of counselors, casework
specialists…
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• Section VI: STG – gang investigation
• Over 90% collect ind. and facility info
– !!search STG member’s mail
– Analysis of phone records
Monitor STG affiliated persons in the community
• Less than 20% use computerized system
• <20% conduct evaluations
• Info shared with:
– Internal (78%); law enforcement (64%), other jurisdictions (53%)
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Summary
• Objective to gain a richer understanding of initiatives and
strategies
• Diverse range of strategies
• Proactive – remove trouble makers, segregations...
• Very limited systematic research on gang control
• Increasing
• Lack formalization and lack of evaluations
– Practices (promising) but not ‘evidence-based’
• Limited cooperation
• Reduction of resources to combat/research!
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• Containment and sanctions effective at managing
– Isolate but delay community transition
• Importance of intelligence sharing
• Internal screening
• Over 50% NOT affiliated before entering
– How recruited ??
– Pathways to STG??
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Recommendations
“oppressive measures…when not used in concert with meaningful social interventions…may well..facilitate the growth if
prison gangs” Grififn ‘07:228
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CJS cooperation….Camp ’85!
National and international analysis
More closely examine law enforcement efforts
Models for management need to be tested for effectiveness
Understand the „push“ and „pulls“
Explore alternatives to suppression
Understand how/why 50+% STG enter unaffiliated
Learn what motivates prison gang/STG participation before further
action
• [email protected]
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