While gang leaders have on the one hand adopted a “justificatory vocabulary,” they have not abandoned their primary commitment to the organizational success of their own gangs. The few Black Panthers at Stateville have remained very much aloof from the gangs. They view gangs as counterrevolutionary and are viewed by the gangs as johnny-come-latelies to the problems of the black communities in which the gangs have grown up. An administrator once told me, “Fred Hampton was very out of place here; he used to talk to me for hours; he just couldn’t identify with the gangs.”
Even independent inmate observers have found it remarkable that gangs which have been killing each other for years on the street are able to communicate and cooperate smoothly behind Stateville’s walls. GL, leader of the Disciples, for example, has told me that the man who stabbed his mother to death is reportedly at Stateville but that he does not want to learn his identity or he would be required to take action, which would be disastrous for him and the organization under the present circumstance of total confinement. During the summer of 1972, when I was carrying out my fieldwork with inmates, there was an absolute consensus among the leadership that inter-gang war must be avoided at all costs because the winner in such an event would only be the security staff, who were said to be anxiously awaiting an opportunity “to drag out their heavy artillery.”
Any fight between members of rival gangs can have explosive consequences. Consequently, the leaders have developed a list of “international” rules to which all gangs have pledged to abide. The rules include the following:
1) There will be no rip-offs between organization members.
2) Each organization must stay out of the other organizations’ affairs.
a) In a dispute between members of two organizations, members of the third are to stand clear.
3) No organization will muscle in on a dealer already paying off to another organization.
4) Organizations will discipline their own members in the offended party’s presence.
5) The organizations cannot claim to protect non-members as friends.
The Disciples, during the summer of 1972, did not feel that the international rules had been equally upheld. In two cases, the Disciple chiefs claimed to have disciplined members who were wrongfully involved in disputes with members of another organization. But when the situation was reversed, the Stones did not discipline their man and, as a consequence, the rules now seem to have ambiguous authority.
Most of the disputes within the prison occur between the Stones and the Disciples. The Latin Kings almost never become embroiled in any conflicts. When there is a fight between a Disciple and a Stone, the leadership is usually able to work out a solution, often by giving up their member for a head-to-head fight. During such negotiations the chief of the Vice Lords (recently described to me as Stateville’s Henry Kissinger) is often placed in a mediating role. He may go to both sides and discuss the situation, stressing the importance of cooling things down and discouraging the indians from “jumping off.” Many informants have described incidents which they were sure had ignited tensions to the breaking point, which were later quelled by negotiation among the leaders.
That a major riot, despite all predictions to the contrary, did not occur at Stateville during the summer of 1972 cannot be explained in terms of an accommodation between the formal and the informal organizations. It was the near universal opinion of “off brand” informants and some administrators as well that the absence of a riot was due to Project ABLE (to be discussed later in this chapter) and to the gang leaders. Time and again examples were cited of leaders stepping in to break up a fight or to cool imminent conflict.
The gang leaders explained their restraining activities by noting their fear that an Attica-type situation or an even worse slaughtering of “their people” would occur at Stateville if something “jumped off.” They constantly reiterated the futility of any direct hostile confrontation with staff. Thus, the status quo has been guaranteed not by interests vested in an elaborate accommodation system but by a more calculated, strategic, and utilitarian analysis of the benefits and losses anticipated in a full-scale conflict.
The emergence of the four supergangs as the predominant inmate force at Stateville has had a profound impact on the inmate social system. First, the norms which once held the allegiance of a large majority of inmates have become less compelling. Prisoners at Stateville no longer identify themselves primarily in terms of their inmate status but according to their organizational allegiance. This has severely undermined whatever unifying effect the inmate code may once have had and balkanized the inmate social system. Inmate interests are often at odds with fractional interests. In many cases, the fractional interests prevail, as evidenced by the fact that the concept of serving group time now enjoys wider acceptance than doing one’s own time.34
Many informants have pointed out that up to 1968 it was rare for inmates to steal from one another at Stateville. While a member of the Italian clique from Taylor Street in the 1950s might order another inmate to do his work for him or even order him to give him something, there was no widespread thieving or strong-arming like that which now pervades the prison.
Gang members simply see nothing wrong with “ripping off” independents. The fact that they occupy adjoining cells does not seem to offer a basis for solidarity. While the leaders are more likely to urge definitions of inmate solidarity on the indians, they are differentially committed to this definition of the situation among themselves and ineffective in operationalizing the commitment when it does exist.
While at one time inmates may have endorsed the principle of “doing your own time,” the gangs endorse the morality of “doing gang time.” Both chiefs and indians assert the leaders’ responsibility to intercede on behalf of their people. Leaders want to inquire why an indian is being disciplined or why some off brand is giving a gang member a hard time.
Status and power within the prison prior to 1968 depended upon status within the formal organization. Inmates competed for good jobs. Those inmates who held the clerk jobs were in key positions to “lose” disciplinary tickets, arrange cell transfers, and collect daily parlay (gambling) slips. Runners had mobility to arrange homosexual liaisons and to relay parlay slips. Certain inmates under the Ragen and Pate regimes accumulated great influence and power.
When the gangs emerged at Stateville in 1969, they placed the old con power structure in physical and financial jeopardy. For the first time those convicts with good jobs were not necessarily protected in their dealings, legitimate or illegitimate. Seeing strength in numbers, the gang members attempted to take what they wanted by force. They seemed unconcerned about doing fifteen days in the hole (the limit imposed by the courts). When they went to the hole they were thrown in a cell with five or six fellow gang members. For the first time in history the old cons who “knew how to do time” found their lives disrupted and in danger. Gang members moved in to take over the “rackets.” One informant described an instance where a half dozen “gang bangers” simultaneously put knives to his throat. Rather than cut the gangs in, many of the dealers went out of business.
The importance of the gangs on the prison community was not lost on some old cons. In one way or another, after 1969 they had to adjust to the new situation. Certain cons became “spokesmen” or “front men” for the gangs. BT of the Disciples and LB of the Stones both served as advisers to the leadership. LG helped Stone members with legal problems and was in turn granted a degree of respect by the organization leaders. However, these “old con” advisers have no standing or authority over the younger inmate gang members. Nor would they be able to claim a position of rank in the organization on the street.
It is true that no off brand remains unaffected by the gangs’ presence. Those blacks, usually “old cons,” who are not in the nations are victims of assault, theft, and extortion. Much depends upon the old con’s ability to stand up for himself and to manipulate his environment. In numerous cases old cons have jo
ined the gangs in “advisory capacities” rather than attempting to carve out a precarious independent role. A tough, young, and aggressive black inmate who is unaffiliated explained that “you must respect what the hierarchy says. If they ask for a work stoppage, for example, you’d have to stop work or be badly beaten.”
Off brands generally remain unorganized, but there have been several attempts to create independent organizations as a counterforce. There are at least three cases where off brand black inmates were able to form not-for-profit inmate betterment corporations dedicated to helping inmates and achieving prison reforms. At its peak, the most successful of these organizations, the Kings New Breed, claimed two hundred members and was given recognition by the administration which allowed them a time and place to meet. The organization has far fewer members today because its founders have left Stateville.
The situation at Stateville is by far the most precarious for white inmates, who bear the brunt of the minority inmates’ racial animosities. Among the white inmates no organizational structures existed in 1972, but one could distinguish secure and vulnerable cliques. Members of the former were secure because of fighting ability, gangland ties, legal skills, or alliance with staff members. Whites within vulnerable cliques were exposed to physical assault, rape, extortion, and constant harassment. By the fall of 1974, there were indications of the beginning of formal white organizations. The Ku Klux Klan and the House of the Golden Dragon began to develop at Menard, which has an approximately 50 percent white population. These racist organizations soon spread to the “northern” institutions, but the much smaller number of whites (10–15 percent) attenuates their effectiveness in providing protection. It is only the Spanish inmates, whether gang members or not, who seem not to be directly threatened by the gangs in the prison. Perhaps their security can be accounted for by the widely shared belief that “the Spanish stick together, if you fight one you fight them all,” and by the often repeated phase, “the Spanish don’t cut, they kill.”
Thus, the old inmate social system characterized by its stratification system according to offense has been replaced by a balkanized social system where inmates relate to one another in blocks. To be unaligned in such a situation is to place oneself in a highly vulnerable position. Despite such organizations as the (black) Kings New Breed and the (white) House of the Golden Dragon, between 30 and 50 percent of the Stateville population remains independent. Where an inmate’s influence was once rooted in his ability to manipulate the system through his position in the formal organization, today influence is based on organizational rank carried over from the street. The changing basis of power in the inmate social system means that there are fewer grounds for accommodation between inmates and staff.
A Crisis in Control
According to nearly all Illinois prison officials, the “new inmates” of the 1970s are impossible to control and are responsible for the crisis in control that has prevailed at Stateville and at the other Illinois prisons since 1970. But one has to exercise care in speaking of the “new inmates.” There is reason to believe that each generation of prison officials looks back nostalgically to the “good old inmates” of previous decades. In fact, according to age, type of offense, and county of residence (but not race), the inmate population that swelled the penitentiaries after 1969 was little different from its predecessor generations (see tables 13–16).
Despite the strongly held belief of prison officials that today’s inmates are younger and more aggressive, there is little indication that this is the case. In 1950, 40.9 percent of the inmates admitted to the Joliet Diagnostic Depot were under the age of twenty-five, compared with 25 percent in the early 1970s. (Some of this reduction of the younger age groups is perhaps accounted for by the expansion of the juvenile division.) Likewise, 31.7 percent of the inmates admitted to the penitentiary in 1953 had been convicted of robbery; of these 65.7 percent had committed armed robbery. In 1973, 26.4 percent were admitted for robbery, of which almost the same percentage, 65.5 percent, were in for armed robbery. It should also be pointed out that the percentage of Stateville/Joliet inmates from Cook County in 1955 was 81, and in 1973 almost the same—86.6.
All this is not to say that the inmate population of the 1970s is no different than the inmate population of previous decades. Quite to the contrary, we have seen that the percentage of black inmates increased from 47 percent in 1953 to 75 percent in 1974 and that the turnover of the inmate population has been greatly accelerated by a reduction in time served. We have also seen in the first section of this chapter that the cultural and political milieu of the inner city, which produces so great a percentage of the Cook County inmates, experienced a profound transition during the 1960s. While previous generations of inner city felons may have belonged to gangs, the forces of the late 1960s served to politicize the gangs of that period and raise their expectations about the type of demands that could be made upon institutions of authority.
My thesis is that while the minority members of the Chicago supergangs in the late 1960s did pose some difficult and unique problems of control for prison administrators, these problems merely exposed weaknesses in the prison’s effort to establish a new system of authority consistent with the rehabilitative ideal, the human relations model of management and the demands of the courts.
One indication of the crisis in control is the high percentage of inmates held in special conditions of confinement. It was noted in chapter 5 that the percentage of inmates in special conditions of confinement increased dramatically after 1969. But the challenges to authority overwhelmed the capacity of the punishment mechanisms available to the staff. In part, the amelioration of conditions in isolation and segregation and the limitations placed upon the amount of time that an inmate could serve may have weakened the efficiency of coercive sanctions. More significantly, the absence of a strategy to maintain control, a general demoralization of the guard force, and a breakdown of any system of expectations about what rules would be enforced led to intensified challenges to authority.
After 1969 (the year the gangs first became prominent), maintaining order became increasingly problematic. Having lived through a period of intense harassment by the Gang Intelligence Unit, the minority gang members entered prison belligerent toward all institutions of authority. Nor were they motivated by the prison reward structure which had ceased to keep pace with the material expectations of the new inmates. While old cons may have continued to be satisfied by sneaking extra coffee and scoring for prison hooch, the young gang members were preoccupied with issues of status and gang rivalry. Inmates simply refused to follow orders, refused to work and refused to follow the rules. When a lieutenant was called to “walk” an inmate, he was often confronted with ten or twelve of the inmate’s fellow gang members surrounding him, challenging his authority. One Stateville guard explained: “The inmate will say, ‘Fuck you Jack, I’m not going.’ Then a group of his gang will gather around him. I’ll have to call a lieutenant. Sometimes one of the leaders will just come over and tell the member to go ahead.” The chief guard on one occasion was confronted by a line of inmates in the F house tunnel while he was escorting a gang leader to isolation. The inmates shouted threats. There were calls to “tear it down.” The chief guard backed off while his captive returned to the cell house and barricaded himself in his cell. One lieutenant explained, “The gangs have made our job a helluva lot tougher. The things that I could do when I was an officer now take a lieutenant because the officers and sergeants don’t get the respect. There is no regard for discipline; no respect for officers; most of them hate us.”
If a gang leader was reported for a disciplinary infraction, the case was handled delicately. GL explained that the last time he had a ticket for “refusal to work,” he was able to discuss it with two captains before he went to the disciplinary court. My own field notes for 11 July 1972 include the following:
Today CE was brought before the disciplinary court. He is probably the highest ranking member to come b
efore the committee when I’ve been there and I was anxious to see what would happen. There were 5 lieutenants in the room. After CE was questioned as to his presence in the vicinity of the disturbance last Sunday he left the room and a discussion about his character ensued. The lieutenants told the disciplinary captain that CE doesn’t lie to them and that in the past he has been helpful in keeping his people in line. Perhaps lieutenant W [who wrote the report] was mistaken? The case was continued.
After the hearing I spoke at length with lieutenant S. He showed me CE’s disciplinary card (one of the longest I’ve ever seen) and explained there was nothing serious here except having beaten one guy and he deserved it.
Accident reports filed by Stateville/Joliet guards between 1966 and 1974 show a substantial increase in inmate attacks upon guards beginning in 1971, indicating deterioration in control and rising violence (see table 17).
While most confrontations between gang members and guards occurred spontaneously, there were many instances of calculated attack and collective action. In 1968, the gang leaders decided to “come up from underground” and “represent.” Insignias, bandanas, posters, and tattoos appeared overnight. Gang members began recognizing one another by esoteric greetings and salutes. In January 1969, the gang leaders, along with several old con “advisers,” coordinated a food strike. Administrators estimated that 75 percent of the inmates, either voluntarily or because of fear of reprisals, went along with the strike. A food strike at the Joliet prison was coordinated at the same time. In neither institution were written demands presented. The strike was generally interpreted as a protest over food and as a show of force by the gangs. The administration responded to the strike by calling a general lockup, which lasted for ten days. About five hundred inmates, including most of the identifiable gang leaders, were segregated in B house. In response to the administration’s action, inmates in F house, led by a Disciple leader, began to burn up the cell house. Carts of clothing were set on fire, and metal springs and other missiles were shot and thrown at the guards who attempted to put out the fire and restore order.
Stateville- the Penitentiary in Mass Society Page 20
