Осуђеничке банде у Сједињеним Америчким Државама
Prison Gangs in the United States

Summary/Abstract: Relying on Johnson’s typology aimed at measuring the inmates’ adjustment to prison life, the authors explore the phenomenon of prison gangs and how their behavior is shaped by the prison setting. The authors note that the basic reasons for the emergence of prison gangs are the prisoners’ personality, their way of adapting to the prison conditions (“prisonization”), their resistance to adapt to prison life as well as their reliance on the prison routines. Given the fact that there is no universal definition of prison gangs, each penologist provides his/her own definition and highlights the essential elements reflecting the gang members’ behavior. The first prison gangs emerged within the prison walls in the 1950's and 1960's. A vast majority of prison gangs include convicts of the same race and ethnicity while the gang “membership” is exclusively limited to men. In this paper, we will explore the most violent gangs of convicts,such as: Gypsy Jokers, Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood, Black Guerrilla Family, etc. Prison gangs are characterized by a specific structure and organizational hierarchy, which largely follows the same pattern in a vast majority of gangs. The head of the gang is the leader (commander-in-chief), who is in the hierarchical chain of command followed by his inferiors: the deputy (second-in-command), regional generals, lieutenants,sergeants and soldiers. In prison, gang members use different forms of communication, the most common of which are coded messages. Some researchers believe that prison gang members also communicate by means of tattoos and graffiti. Prison gangs are the major “generators” of violence in prisons. Race and ethnicity are the main causes of attacks on rival gang members. Thus, street violence flows into prisons and “overflows” penal institutions. In that context, the authors elaborate on the nexus(correlation) between prison gangs and street gangs.

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