Gang Training

School was cancelled last Monday so all the teachers could attend gang training.  “Learn to spot gang signs and tattoos”, the teachers were told.  Gangs are, and will continue to be a major problem in prisons.  Looking at it from the inside there is nothing DOC is doing that is effectively challenging gang influence.  Asking teachers to be on the lookout for gang evidence is no solution.

Gangs exist and their prominence in prisons is a given.  Even at a low level facility like this you can’t help but be walking to chow and see two young guys pat their chests as they pass on the boulevard (three taps on your heart with an open hand signifies blood connection).  You hear expressions, catch phrases, thrown back and forth.  And you wonder, if a 50+ year-old white guy with no exposure to gangs pre-incarceration can spot it, why can’t the officers?

You then realize the prison knows who’s in and who’s not.  The investigators’ office has a “gang board” with pictures of members by rank.  So why is it tolerated?  I’ve written before about the young gang leader “Live”, recently indicted for ordering hits on wayward gang members from inside the facility.  Everyone knew Live was a high-ranked blood.  Once a week he found himself talking to investigators.  And yet, at least monthly, new members were brought in.  What does the facility do about it?  Nothing.  It appears the status quo is easier to deal with than aggressively challenging them.

Things are worse at higher levels.  Extortion, robbery, attacks, these are common place at higher level prisons and the parties responsible are the gangs.  You want drugs, cigarettes, gambling? It’s the gangs who control it.  And for all the talk of “gang intervention” DOC officials spout, they are virtually impotent when confronting it and defeating it.  Gangs are thriving in prisons.

When I was in Virginia’s despicable Powhatan Receiving Unit, I was housed with a high ranking member of the Crips.  In the cell next door, a blood leader.  Both men knew my legal background and asked if I would review their guys’ pending appeals.  Frankly, doing legal research helped pass the time and kept me sane as I struggled daily with 23 hour lockdown and living in filth and despair.

“How much you charge us?” the blood captain asked.  “Nothing,” I said.  “Well we need to show our appreciation,” my Crip cellmate said.  “What kind of food do you like?”  I thought a little bit then said “pretzels and ginger ale” (both items were available on commissary but I hadn’t been to the store yet).  That afternoon, two six packs of ginger ale and three large bags of pretzels showed up on my bunk.

That night, it was my floor’s turn for 30 minutes out of our cells.   I grabbed a ginger ale, my cup and a bag of pretzels and headed down to the first floor to sit by the fans.  After grabbing some ice for my cup, I poured my soda and sipped on it savoring the drink and the salty pretzels.  A guy I’d met on arrival sat down with me.  Ernie was my age.  A white guy back in prison for drug use, he’d been at receiving a month before I arrived.  He was noticeably upset.  “What’s the matter Ernie?” I asked.  “The gang bangers,” he said.  “They came in my cell and took all my commissary.”  Sodas, cereal, snack foods.  Fifty dollars worth taken and there was nothing he could do.  You can’t tell.  Snitch and get beat, or worse.

I realized the ginger ale and pretzels I was enjoying had been stolen from Ernie – and some other “non-affiliated” guys.  I couldn’t prove it, but I knew.  I went back to my cell, got a six pack and bag or pretzels and gave them to Ernie.  Then, I told the two gang leaders I didn’t want anything else from them.

DOC could break the gangs.  But, prison fosters gang life.  All the training in the world for DOC teachers won’t stop gangs from flourishing in here.  Gangs survive because this environment feeds them.  Change prison culture, kill gangs.  Or, keep doing what you’re doing and the cycle continues.

Prison Time

Most inmates will tell you time just passes by when you’re “doin’ your bid.” Each day, a repeat of the prior one. You get up the same time, eat the same time, get rec the same time. Life, you will hear, “just is”. But, there is so much that actually does go on each day in here. Men’s lives are altered dramatically.



Wednesday afternoon Woo was called to the counselor’s office and told to “call home”. His elderly mother has been battling breast cancer for years. As I’ve gotten to know this fierce looking yet gentle man, I knew the prognosis for his mom wasn’t good. He has fourteen months remaining on his sentence. “I just want to get out and sit with her before she passes”, he told me.


His call home was brief. I could tell the news wasn’t good. “They’ve put her in hospice”, he told me with tears in his eyes. All I could say was “I’m sorry” and “I’m here to listen”. I gave him his space. Later, I went back to see him. I told him if he needed to miss English that evening I’d explain to the Professor. “I’m going. Mom’s proud of me for doing this. I can’t miss this class.”


E is still in the hole. They didn’t let him out Tuesday. The earliest he’ll be released is this coming Tuesday, after his hearing. That would be ten days in the hole.


He won’t come back to this building. He’s been thrown out of the college/IT program, suspended from college for ninety days, fired from his job and removed from his HVAC apprenticeship program. He won’t be able to finish his Associates Degree before he goes home. And going home? He’ll probably have some of his good time taken away.


Was it worth the back tattoo of a Chinese dragon in bamboo and orchids? “It would’ve cost me $3000 on the street,” he told one of the housemen who works over by the hole. “So instead you tossed away $20,000 in education? You’re a dumbass.” I love the way guys “keep it real” in here.


E didn’t deserve all the consequences he’s been handed. He’s been made a scapegoat by the prison administration to show they don’t want the college program to succeed (a number of officers have told me that). Why would E deserve a ten day term in the hole, but the tattoo artist, caught with the tattoo gun and ink, only gets a 200 level charge and $10.00 fine? Life isn’t fair and sometimes – as I have personally discovered - the consequences we suffer are significantly worse than the wrongdoing we commit. That becomes clearer every day in here.


Then there was the conversation I overheard by Will and my new bunkmate – IG. IG is a Crips leader. He took E’s bunk the other day; he’s a polite, young black kid working toward his associate’s degree.


Will – early 20’s black kid – was folding his laundry around 11:00 the other night and was talking to IG. I was having a tough time falling asleep and couldn’t help but focus in on what Will said.


“I talked to him tonight. He said ‘hi da da.’ She said she’s happy, but no other guy can love my boy like me.” I heard him choke up as he continued. “I want to be there. I want to raise my son. She doesn’t get the whole reason he’s acting like he likes my boy is to sleep with her.”


I felt for Will. I know what he’s going through. The same thoughts ran through my mind before as I’ve thought about the “boyfriend”; impress my son, score points with mom, make yourself at home.


Will dealt drugs, lots of drugs. He sold drugs to make money to give his high school sweetheart, his wife, a comfortable lifestyle. He bought a house; bought her a car, paid for her college and they had a baby. She told him she loved him. Then, he was arrested and sentenced to prison: three years. In less than a year, the woman who claimed she loved him “in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, forsaking all others” had divorced him. Apparently, those words were just something to say to get the gifts and the cake.


As I said, I felt for Will; as a father, as a husband, as a man. He’s trying to get his life straight, trying to do his sentence, get his education, and go home and make something of himself for his wife and his child. Problem is, his wife gave up on him. He’s trying. He’s working. He’s suffering. He’s praying.


The other day Opie came up to my cut with his CD player. “Listen to this,” he said and handed me his headphones. It was rapper Jim Jones singing “I Know”. It’s a song about guys doing time. Over and over Jones tells about the struggles in the street; the drugs, broken homes, broken dreams, and he says “I know, I know.” Then, real men come on speaking “I gave the penitentiary ten years of my life…and for what?” or “they locked me up in ’89 and I didn’t go home ‘til ’04. I didn’t recognize nothin.”


I understood the song. I understood the pain. I understood the time.

This ain't prison

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