A REVIEW OF THE TOP SECURITY THREATS GROUPS IN PRSIONS

In our prison environments, there are many kinds of threats to inmate and officer safety daily. Bart ollas (2002) notes that order is a “dynamic social equilibrium”, and is the basis for violence or non-violence in the prisons, depending on how well it is maintained. The correctional system in our country contains within the walls, connected to our streets, many gangs. These groups, known as Security Threat Groups (STG’s) are usually operated on a racial bias, and are active in our Federal Bureau of Prisons and in at least 40 state correctional systems. Inmates are often forced to join their racial group or gang rather to ensure their personal safety within the walls. (Bart ollas, 2002 In the 1980,s and 1990’s, inmates were more racially biased than ever before, and each race in a facility had a leader if not more than one. Inmates isolate themselves from other racial groups notes the Anti-defamation League (2009). While this was producing more racial tension in the environment, it was also producing STG’s that were getting more organized and adept at running the drug trade and social environments within the walls of correctional facilities. Some of these gangs are more organized than others are, and produce the most followers. Because of organizational factors and growing numbers of members, the Aryan Brotherhood, Ku Klux Klan, the Folks, the Nation of Islam, and MS13 have emerged as our biggest security group threats in the American corrections system. Aryan Brotherhood Originating in San Quentin in the mid-sixties, founded by Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham (Border, 2006), this group is one of the best-known gangs with many factions in our correctional facilities (Anti-defamation League, 2009). This gang originated to protect white criminals from black prisoners at the time that prisons were desegregating. Malcolm X and the civil rights movement had the black inmates trying to gain power in the prisons. This gang is located primarily in the southwest and pacific

References: Anti-Defamation League (2001). Bigotry Behind