Life after prison, but what life?

INTERVIEW / John Hagedorn

Tremendous fiscal pressure has led the United States, a nation with an incarceration rate of 753 per 100,000 people, seven times higher than the average for other rich countries, to rethink its corrections policy. California, known for its strong gang presence in prisons and communities is leading the way, enacting bill 18x3 on parole reform, a first step towards easing the way out of jail for those prisoners not considered a ‘threat to society’.

Comunidad Segura spoke to John Hagedorn, professor of Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois, Chicago, asking him the all important question: How does a gang specialist see the trend to release more convicts from the prison system? He counters with his own: “What are we releasing them to?”

Author of A World of Gangs, and co-editor the pioneering Female Gangs in America, Hagedorn is currently studying the influence gangs have in communities affected by the economic slump. “Gangs have control of the prisons, and they are now stronger in the communities too reversing the previous trend that went from communities to prison,” said Hagedorn, he believes that even if gang members are released early, ex convicts will have little opportunity to find regular jobs that are scarce for those without a criminal history. He notes the extra difficulties faced by adult convicts who come out of long prison sentences much older and with significant drug use issues. “Drug use in jails continues unabated”.

Reentry, thus, risks becoming “rejoining”. Gangs today, in Hagedorn's view, are becoming more powerful in communities, taking over smaller street gangs through control of the drug market. “In my view, as an individual, you are better off not returning to the community you are from.”

Hagedorn is concerned that the positive role gangs had promoting community life is also gone: “They have lost what they used to give to the communities 40 years ago: grass roots organization and an alternative code of ethics”, now the perspective is bleak, “gangs are about drugs and violence, and young kids have no idea of the history of the gangs they belong to.”

How do the new proposals to reduce the size of prisons affect gangs and gang members?

In California the gangs have run the prison system for decades, and that is unlikely to change with the kinds of proposals that have been introduced so far.

There has been some change, that in one way is sad, that gangs like the Mexican Mafia have spread out into the communities, it is the a change in direction in how they exert their influence, the opposite of what used to happen, when community gangs spread into prisons.

They not only dominate the prisons but they are now dominant forces in the community and the drug trade. Street gangs are either being taken over or having alliances with the various prison gangs…so gangs are still a very powerful force in prisons, and these kinds of changes being made in corrections policy, I don’t think they will affect those gangs at all.

Prison officials have enforced strict lock down measures in corrections facilities over the past few years,  with less freedom behind bars, haven't gangs been controlled?
 
Correctional officials will tell you they have. But, if you ask inmates, you get a different picture. I am going to tell you a story from Chicago, I was walking in a prison on lock down for 9 months, and the warden was telling me that guards control the prison now. 

 
Prisoners told me, “You ask the warden this, if he runs the prison, when a new inmate comes in, why is it they have to buy their cell from the gangs?” The gangs control the cell blocks in California, if you are not part of a gang, and have to chose where you go, it costs you.
I don’t see lock downs and other security measures as going to break the hold gangs have on prisons.

What happens when new inmates are not affiliated with a gang?

For many years now, for those incoming inmates not affiliated with a gang the choices are either a gang controlled cell block or solitary confinement, called "protective custody." All "neutrons" have to purchase their cell from one of the major gang alliances. Once accepted, they can be recipients of the "poor box" and other benefits of gang membership. But they have got to choose or they are at serious risk.

This continues today, although the top gang leadership is now insulated from day to day involvement in the prison or street gang through incarceration in "super-max" prisons where they are locked down 23 hours a day and denied regular outside communication. It still is possible, however, to contact and get direction and advice from top leaders like Jeff Fort, Larry Hoover, and Gino Colon, although they are in the federal supermax in Colorado. Occasionally, a report comes out or an ambitious bureaucrat tries to "reform" the system and mixes gang members on the floors. This almost always ends after a time, usually with much less fuss, since it is simply rational to allow the gangs to police themselves. Gangs still hold the key to order.

 
Exposure to prison is associated with more crime, if the new measures reduce the numbers of people in prison, it may help reduce crime, correct? 

When the people affected by new measures are not hard core gang members it is a good thing, the fewer the people in prison the better, we have way too many people in prison, any of these rules to downsize the prisons, to release people early, for example, will come as a benefit.

On the other hand, to release someone early, where are we releasing them to? When you have massive unemployment and you are going to go into a community like White Fence in Los Angeles? White Fence used to have its own independent gang, but it is now run by the Mexican Mafia, if you want work you, will go to them as well, because the area is out of jobs and the Mexican Mafia run the drug trade. Given the conditions of this country, its difficult to see where the gangs are going to be affected by early release, it’s a matter of where you join I think.

So reentry needs to be about connecting early release programs to job finding programs...

And of course the jobs aren’t there.  One of the issues in my research, it’s not a reasonable policy prescription, but on an individual basis, it is clear that if you don’t go back to your community, you tend to do better.

Just think about it a little, if you are part of a gang and you go to prison, when you come back and there aren’t jobs, then networks you belonged to are there, but if you go somewhere else you aren’t part of those networks, it’s more difficult to break in; you are likely to look for something else. It was very clear in the early studies I did that gang members who came back from prison if they went somewhere else they were less likely to get caught up in another case. It is not something I'd recommend as policy, but as an individual I would consider this.
Reentry would not be based on identity, where you are from; it would be about a new life…
You’d have a different kind of identity, more defined maybe by your work, your church. Rather than going back where you have multiple identities but one of those is the gang. The network of people that are doing it, the gangs are always hiring, they may not be paying well, but there is always something to do, they will hook up

What is your current research about?

A bit of it is tracking what happens to guys when they leave. In Chicago much more than Milwaukee the networks are very strong. If you leave prison and go back to Lansdale, you can find other things, break away from the fellows, but they are still there.

If you are a former gang member and go back you to the old street corners, you will find the guys hanging out, getting high. If you have nothing else to do, eventually they will hook you up because they are friends. While if you go somewhere else, you have to keep looking, those easy answers aren’t there.
 
With long prison sentences, reentry means older people, in their 30s, 40s and more going back to their communities. How do things change if you are older?

Yeah, there is particularly the issue of drug use as they come out. Drugs are rampant in prison and you don’t need to break with drugs while you are in. But when you come out and there is no work and you are older, it’s depressing. There is a large set of people, from their 40s to their 70s, in west side Chicago, home of the Vice Lords. You see it now you cry, there used to be beautiful businesses, drop in centers, shops selling African clothing. Now it’s economically depressed and what you have is 30 or 40 guys hanging in a corner, most of them former Vice Lords and they have been scarred by prison, there is nothing for them, they have given up on life. They just do drugs. It is one of the results of such long prison sentences.

Is drug treatment offered for former convicts on reentry?

There are some programs offering drug treatment but not many. It seems to me that the answers are in the streets, not in the institutions. When you look back in history when gangs were part of powerful social movements, when they provided jobs not only as contracts with the state but also provided an alternative morality, a code of ethics. People would help each other. There was hope, this sense that people could rely on one another that people could stay straight, now that hope has broken down.

The issue to me is trying to instill a sense of community life, (and that is why reentry programs that tend to be bureaucratic are not effective), but where you get a sense of demand from the streets for treatment and people will take responsibility for themselves. There are not a lot of signs of that.

What do you mean about instilling a sense of community life?

It fundamentally is about social movements and whether they will include the streets. If it means creating jobs or organizing against police brutality and gentrification. But the fact is that it is not something that can be handed down from above. It really has to come from the streets. 

Has the Obama administration played any role?

The political situation is not good either, any kinds of public manifestation demanding support for the communities are strongly opposed by the Black communities, they do not want to challenge the Obama administration. Latinos have fewer problems in this sense, they have demonstrated against immigration laws and they have even associated themselves with white politicians.

Read Further:

Gang Research A website maintained by John Hagedorn