First another one of my famous disclaimers: Because the tools I write this with and the method through which I send this out is surveilled and recorded I have to say that the details in this story may or may not be true and some details may have been changed to protect from incriminating those involved. Translation: I’m in prison and I have to watch what I say.
From Junkies to Gang Bangers: How Americas war on drugs is supplying the countries most dangerous street gangs a steady stream of fresh recruits:
For as long as I can remember I’ve had a knack for noticing the things that most people don’t pick up on.
After spending years in prison I’ve been witness to a wide variety of experiences. I need not waste your time with the predictable happenings of prison culture. The movies have already been made, the books well written, and the stories told.
However, with the unique perspective, afforded me by my incarceration and the distance that time provides, to watch patterns unfold, I’ve noticed something. Something unique.
Research has already been done, and attention drawn, to the negative affects of both, mass incarceration as well as the war on drugs. The two come together, to form a two headed beast of misguided justice, in our society’s preferred method of dealing with addiction: The criminalization of addiction and the incarceration of addicts.
A quick statistic: America has only five percent of the earths population yet is responsible for one-fourth of the worlds prison population. 25% of all the prisoners on this entire planet are in American prisons, many of them for drug offenses.
The existing research points to a failure in our attempts to deal with this epidemic. An attempt born and reinforced for years, from J. Edgar Hoover, to the Reagan era ‘Just say No’ campaign, through the Clinton’s tough on crime years, up to the present attorney general’s focus on severe sentences in the prosecution of drug cases.
Statistics like; criminal recidivism rate, drug relapse, and the dissolution of the family unit, point to the shortcomings of these methods.
These are all valid reasons to highlight the need for a change in our approach, but for those not affected by addiction, either personally or through a loved one, these consequences are often compartmentalized as something not affecting their everyday lives. Which, allows them to maintain the delusion that we aren’t interconnected members of society as a whole, and that what affects one, doesn’t affect all. An out of sight out of mind mentality.
Since coming to prison I’ve been witness to a pattern that makes the delusion of isolation from the effects of addiction harder to maintain. Though it is unintended by the police, the prosecutors, the judges, and the prison system, it has become an inevitable consequence nonetheless. Something that threatens to touch all corners of society.
I’ve seen how America’s war on drugs is supplying the countries most dangerous gangs with a steady supply of willing, able, and competent soldiers. Soldiers who would otherwise never be exposed to such a culture. Soldiers from suburbs, small towns, and from intact family units.
The influx of addicts into the state prisons has flooded the system with a mass of new inmates. They range in age, demeanor, intelligence, and capability, but the one common denominator is that they are all newly sober, some for the first time in their lives.
This group, thrust into a new and harsh reality, fresh thinking and relatively clear headed for the first time in years, attempts to navigate this new environment using nothing but their instincts and abilities.
Anyone who knows addicts already knows that there are many who, if it wasn’t for their addiction, are incredible people. Intelligent, capable, hard working, courageous, and competent people. People that could be especially productive and successful members of society if only they could shake their dependence on drugs.
Behind prison walls, many of these freshly sober addicts, begin to realize their capabilities and potential. Attributes, that have remained dormant under the weight of their disease for years, are suddenly revealed. A sort of blossoming takes place in the first year of prison sobriety. Unfortunately their growth and discovery takes place in a harsh unforgiving place. And it isn’t just a self-realization, others take notice of these same qualities, and like everything in prison, it is weighed on the scale of an exploitation.
The social dynamic in prison makes these capable addicts the most highly recruited group of new inmates into the prison gang culture. They are an untapped resource, full of potential, and ready to be put to work.
The vulnerability of the newly sober inmates psyche cannot be overstated. I know this from personal experience.
Your every action is under a microscope. How you walk, how you talk, who you gravitate to, your posture, your body language, even the duration of your eye contact, all analyzed and stored for later use. And this is all within the first twenty-four hours. Everyone watches, everything, all the time.
The adept convicts have an amazing ability to read people in a matter of minutes. Like in the free-world a lot of it is based on appearance, though nothing trumps how you carry yourself. It doesn’t matter how big you are or how many tattoos you have on your face. If you’re a lame, then you are treated like one. But initially, appearance does play a role, more for excluding the useless, than including the useful.
First, there are those inmates that are weeded out immediately based on appearance. Within minutes of stepping foot on the compound a predator, either sexual or financial, will inevitably approach them and lay down their play (con). If someone ‘blows down on you’ (which means you are approached as a potential victim) and you don’t immediately fight, or at least check them aggressively, you are dismissed as damaged goods. When it comes to the gangs you are now viewed as a coward, unwilling to stand up for yourself. You let fear dictate your actions and your well being, so you are treated with the respect you demand, which is none. In this category your food, money, or worse will be taken by play or by force. The rest of your time in prison will be a tough experience to say the least, true Hard Time.
Upon seeing this first culling, a lot of new inmates, make the mistake of trying too hard, to look hard. They play the over the top tough guy role. But any of us who have been around for any amount of time know better. We’ve seen these types let their mouths and attitudes get them into precarious situations leading to stabbings or assaults, and nine times out of ten, they do nothing in response.
Some of these all bark no bite guys are recruited, unknown to them, as temporary quasi gang members called 'supporters’. They are used as disposable soldiers, to hold onto weapons or commit violence, but it never works out for anyone involved. The tough guys usually end up locking up (refusing to go to your cell in order to be placed in protective custody, or to be rode out to another facility. Viewed as an incredibly cowardly act, 'locking up’ is nearly as bad as being a rat.), or they end up telling on their cohorts.
Time passes and the remaining inmates are watched and tested. If you carry yourself with quiet confidence, if you have a good head on your shoulders, if you know how to deal with people, talk to people, build relationships with fellow inmates, if you know when to joke and when to be serious, if you are able to stand on your own, if you can watch your surroundings and act strategically, if you control yourself and are responsible, if you are industrious, if you have work ethic and can make money and be disciplined with that money, if you carry yourself as a stand up guy that gives respect and refuses disrespect, if you posses some of these qualities, over time it will show. And when it does, the gang members are there to recruit those who display these qualities.The same attributes that lead to success in the business world often lead to success in the underworld.
You might think: It’s easy, anyone who’s approached by a gang member should just say no. And theoretically, from the chair in front of your computer, or sitting on your couch with your smart phone in hand, it is easy. But take into consideration the vulnerability I mentioned earlier.
I should explain what an organization offers that would be appealing to a newly incarcerated and freshly sober addict. That’s what they’re called: Organizations. It’s marketing, it’s easier to sell an organization than a 'street gang’.
In a place with little to no control, these organizations offer comfort, psychologically speaking, in the form of a chance to exercise some control of your surroundings. As inmates, we have no say when we eat, when we sleep, when we workout, when we can use the phone, what we are allowed to do, where we go, who we live with, and most importantly who we are surrounded by.
That’s what they offer: control in an otherwise uncontrollable world. The members of the organizations are held to a set of standards regarding conduct of every sort, and those same members are held accountable if they fail to live by this set of ethics, or at least that’s the idea.
As the code of conduct is laid out it sounds like a good idea: A set of admirable rules to live by: responsibility, loyalty, honor, honesty, respect, no gambling, no stealing, no lying, no exploitation, etc.
For the new recruit, it makes sense that they would be drawn to the chance for some control, even if it isn’t a conscious deciding factor for joining. To have a say about the people around you, for everybody to be held to the same set of enforceable standards. To vow to watch out for each other against the other, less virtuous, gangs. To support each other without question and regardless of consequence. To stand together and uplift one another.
Next, the recruit will be told that the organization is a band of like minded brothers. They’ll extol the recruits virtues, the qualities that drew their attention. Their ego will be stroked, and it’s not in an insincere way. They’re not lying when they tell you the reasons they are interested in you.
For so long, while lost in addiction, you hear only your negative qualities exposed, by others as well as yourself. And now, freshly sober, alone in a cold and harsh environment, as you begin to find your self worth and value, you have someone telling you that they can see your value. And not only that, they want to join forces with you, to offer their unwavering loyalty.
Amidst all these influences the most alluring, for an addict, may be the chance to finally be of service to something. To be needed. To finally, however misguided, find meaning in something bigger than yourself. For some the control, the ego stroke, isn’t the pitch that gets them, it’s the ideal that the organization represents: Meaning.
For the most part, these are not evil people who do the recruiting. To view them as some over the top bad guy from some horror movie is to miss the point and misunderstand the situation. These are some of the same people who came into this place just as confused or vulnerable as those they are trying to recruit.
The difference is that they’ve been hardened by years of unforgiving prison life, they’re deeper in this culture and have either refused, or are unable, to see the underlying hypocrisy, the failings of the organization to live up to its own standards.
Many of these men have invested so much into this life, so much of their identity is derived from it, that they refuse to let it go. Some simply can’t give it up for they no longer know who they are outside of their position in the gang. Not to mention the fear of walking the yard alone, is often reason enough to stay in. It’s exponentially easier to get in than to get out.
If these addicts are indeed recruited, and a large majority are (I’d guess 9 out of 10), their mettle is soon tested. If they remain true to qualities that got them recruited, then they quickly move up the ranks.
A convict I know well, who was an addict, was recruited in this same method when he first came to prison. He had no evil intentions or malicious desires in joining. He bought into the loyalty, the brotherhood, the code of conduct and he held true to the oath he took.
Within two years of joining, two years of putting in work, and two years of proving himself, he moved up to a leadership position. He had the yard at the prison he was incarcerated in, which means that he was the top ranking member there with a chain of command under him.
As the years went by, little by little, he began to notice the hypocrisy involved in the lifestyle. But he held onto a hope that, in a higher position, he could control what happened and pull things in a more righteous direction. A direction more inline with the actual laws and the original purpose for the foundation of the organization. He hoped that now he could make sure that nothing dishonorable would occur within the rules of this environment, under his watch. It was a naive hope.
This man justified his position, and there were things that he was able to prevent and situations he resolved without bloodshed, and so he pragmatically decided that he had to stay. All the while in the back of his mind, he knew that the shine was gone, and that he was quickly outgrowing his circumstances.
He came to realize that gangs were inevitable in a place like this. He spoke to the older inmates and learned that there was a time when there were no real gangs. Eventually, back in the day, a religious group had a large membership and they exercised a level of organization that turned, for all intents and purposes, into a gang. For years, this organization ran the yards of the compounds they were on. What they said went. Who they backed was right, and who they didn’t was wrong, and that’s just the way it was. They ruled, for a moment, with little to no opposition. And like any unchecked power it corrupted them. They used unwarranted violence and exploited the other inmates for their own gains. If you weren’t a member of this group you were a second class convict and treated as such.
In a case like this, the result is all too predictable. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in response to this religious gang, an inmate who was a gang member from Chicago started recruiting, and one gang begot another which begot another, until there were many.
My friend, realized that if there was one gang then there would be many. He said that it was like a gun: if one person is in a room with limited food, and he’s the only one with a gun, some people are going to go hungry. Well, no one wants to starve.
Over time my friend continued to see the hypocrisy of his own organization and the rosy illusion began to disappear. But, still he stayed.
There was something changing in this man. He was different from the majority in one important way. Along with his newfound sobriety, he began an unflinching self exploration and worked to gain an unequaled understanding of himself. He says that he as he peeled back the layers and discovered the reality of what led to most of the decisions through out his life that he saw a pattern of flawed thinking.
All this time in prison, he continued to work on himself until he reached a point where he could no longer deny the truth of the situation. He could no longer put off what he needed to do. And as much as he actually loved some of his brothers, he finally had to do the harder thing. To stand alone and turn away from those he’d been closest to since coming to prison. He knew that he had to make a decision for himself this time. A decision based on a true understanding of himself and of the situation. A decision without justification, without delusion, without the silencing of his inner compass. He finally had to make a clear headed and completely aware decision, to do right thing.
Towards the beginning of his ascension he remembered an older member of his organization tell him, “Because of the type of man you are, you will always put in more than you get out. You will always be pulling people up instead of being lifted"
He said that he remembers being told by this higher up that, "You should get out now. I can make it so that you can retire, you can keep your status, you don’t have to cover up your tattoos, you don’t have to take your minutes out (being ritually jumped for leaving the organization)” but at the time my friend still held on to the hope of making things better.
He wasn’t able to hear it then, but now he says, that he knows exactly what the older guy meant.
And so, after much denial, after the justifications ran out, and after the procrastination was no longer a good enough excuse, after the pleading and protestations of his brothers, he finally dropped his flag.
With much more heart than it took to join, he took the steps to officially get out. Because of the respect of his fellow brothers he didn’t have to take his minutes out but he did cover up his tattoos and he walked away like he came in: alone.
Though he says it was the toughest decision he’s had to make in prison he doesn’t regret it. In fact on a nearly daily basis he feels grateful for his decision. He tells me that he feels a literal weight has been lifted from his shoulders. An anxiety has evaporated.
In a sense he is alone now, but the same qualities that put him high on the recruitment list, and propelled him in rank, serves him well in this setting. He stands on his own two feet and has respect from his fellow convicts. And for the most part, his former brothers show him a begrudging respect, especially those who’ve been around for a while and have a more complete understanding of the reality of the lifestyle.
I wanted to give an individual example of how this situation can, and does, play out. I also want to make perfectly clear that this example is completely common in every sense, but one: Most, never find the strength to quit. Most never make it out.
And so these vulnerable and capable addicts, who could’ve been anything if they were just able to get help for their disease, are being systematically indoctrinated into a deeply immersive gang culture. They have found meaning, maybe not the best type of meaning, but meaning nonetheless. The lifestyle, while incarcerated, becomes so intertwined with their identity that it’s hard for them to define themselves without the gang. Leaving them almost no chance of getting out.
These people, failed by the system, return to the streets and with this gang mentality they set up the same structure and organizations in the suburbs and small towns that they come from. They’ve traded drugs for gang life and when they are released they will indoctrinate a whole new market of kids and teens, once unreachable by the inner city gangs that they themselves were recruited by.
In this ironic twist, because of our lack of understanding and compassion, in our misguided attempt to deal with the disease of addiction, we have sewn the seeds of our own adversity.
We have to rethink what doesn’t work.
There are many faults to our war on drugs. And the stigma of addiction still hangs heavy. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I am in the position to witness some of the unseen consequences of our failed attempt to deal with this epidemic.
Until we change things like, mass incarceration, and the way we implement the war on drugs, and the way we deal with the addicts in our communities, change will not come fast enough.
Incarceration needs to be seen in its entirety. The distance between the intended purpose of incarceration and the reality of the effects that it has on those incarcerated needs to been understood. We have to find a way to reach those afflicted by addiction before sending them to prison. We have to avoid using incarceration as a treatment for this disease, because not only is it not working, it is turning around on us. Our failings are reaching out to touch the rest of society. We are perpetuating our own suffering.
The people we throw away will eventually be returned by the current, and until we realize that we are all interconnected members of society and that what happens to one of us affects us all, we will continue to reap tomorrow what we sew today.
I humbly hope that this can be another small addition to the case for change and eventually we can alter the direction of the way in which we deal with the disease of addiction facing our brothers and sisters.