Would you join a racist prison gang for survival?

[KeepTalking]

What you do is on your first day in the yard you pick the second* biggest meanest toughest looking guy and go up to him and kick his ass into a bloody pulp.

Then they will leave you alone.

*The biggest meanest toughest looking guy will be expecting it

...or, you become someone's bitch.

That completes the Office Space advice for the soon to be incarcerated. The problem is, it's bad advice.

Even if you win that fight you picked (and that's a big IF), you are still likely to be in a considerable amount of trouble with the guards and the parole board. If you picked a fight with the wrong guy, you're not just fighting him, you're fighting all of his buddies (or his gang). If you picked the fight with the other wrong guy, he's not going to let it go, you will be fighting him over and over for years. Incarcerated felons are not known for their ability to let things go.

Join a gang (racist or otherwise)? Good luck with that. You just don't approach someone you don't know in prison, and say "Can I join your gang?" Most prison gangs are affiliated with gangs outside of the prison, and if you weren't in the gang when you entered the system, you aren't likely to be able to just join that gang. You can hang out with people of the same race as you, some of whom may be in gangs, and maybe you will gain some protection, but that doesn't mean you're in their gang. You likely don't want to be in, or affiliated with, their gang anyway. You make yourself a target that way, and the last thing you want to be in prison is a target.

Barring suicide, you keep your head down, you keep out of trouble so the guards have no reason to turn their backs on you, you try to make friends that will hopefully have your back, and you will probably get raped anyway.

So, my answer to the OP is, no. I would not join a racist gang in prison for survival, because that is the most unlikely way to survive being in prison.

 

[dismal]

And if #2 was in a gang, that gang beats you up the next day.

No, they have to leave you alone. It's how prisons work. Like using cigarettes for money.

 

[ksen]

And if #2 was in a gang, that gang beats you up the next day.

No, they have to leave you alone. It's how prisons work. Like using cigarettes for money.

I can vouch for dismal on this one. I saw a documentary once about Sean Penn going to prison and beating the shit out of someone with a pillowcase full of full soda cans. He was left alone after that.

 

[dismal]

No, they have to leave you alone. It's how prisons work. Like using cigarettes for money.

I can vouch for dismal on this one. I saw a documentary once about Sean Penn going to prison and beating the shit out of someone with a pillowcase full of full soda cans. He was left alone after that.

Sure. Though you probably can't get soda cans in prison any more because obesity.

 

[ksen]

Full bottles of iced chai tea would probably work just as well.

 

[fromderinside]

I can vouch for dismal on this one. I saw a documentary once about Sean Penn going to prison and beating the shit out of someone with a pillowcase full of full soda cans. He was left alone after that.

Sure. Though you probably can't get soda cans in prison any more because obesity.

Doncha just love movies showing how initiative really works everywhere. In reality, the rule in prison is do what others want you to do, give them what they want from you and keep your fucking trap shut. If you're to be the block bitch get used to it. The guy who runs things is gonna die soon so just wait.

 

[tantric]

i speak with experience on this. look up the national geographic bit on Smith State Prison in Ga - there's people i know in the video. when they first put me in the thunderdorm/genpop, i was assigned to a room occupied by two gansta's disciples. so my only choice was to ask the guards to put me in solitary, or beg somebody for a room...but i didn't have to. this guy, who was trying to get out of the gangs, put me up in his room. only thing he asked from me was my lock (to make a tattoo needle out of the spring), and the lock was useless anyway, cause that shit was broken. i lived with him for two weeks and nobody messed with me. then the screws came in and moved everybody to their right rooms, and somehow i ended up with a black guy and a spanish guy who were jailhouse lawyers. they didn't like that, but when i showed 'em i could translate written spanish into english legalize, i was all right. later on while being marched to breakfast, we walked through a puddle of mud and blood i later learned belong to man who first put me up. shit's hard.

now understand that i'm gay, coming straight from gradschool, not at all in shape and have skin the color of the sandy loams of the midwest. i didn't come out as gay except to those i absolutely trusted, and i didn't go after dick 'cause as much i like it up the butt from time to time, i ain't studyin' being nobody's bitch.

when i got in the work dorm/slave housing (we made the green and white street signs you see on every corner), i joined the DnD clique. yes, no joke. DnD people happen to include some stone cold MF's. i'd stay in solitary before i'd join the hitler-humpers, but i did have a roommate with a swastika on his chest, but he'd long since repented from that shit, so we were the down white boys who could move between worlds. fuck, y'all - in county, i could only get religious material to read, so at last i got a bilingual koran. later down the road, i went up the Nation of Islam table and asked them to help me with some of the letters i didn't know. they asked if i were a muslim, i said, 'no, i'm buddhist, my religion regards faith itself as a miracle'. boom, they help me. i ain't afraid of those people, the thugs that make people install security systems in their macmansion - i'm afraid of whitebread middle america - they're the ones that tortured me for kicks.

i survived a max sec prison by being a righteous man who lives by a code of honor. people in prison don't fuck with you if you walk the path of the lord, even if it is the lord buddha. here's my journal/blog, confessions of a weirdness magnet, where i talk about that shit, mostly in 3 and 4 but throughout. ask away, i'm here to elucidate.

 

[noble brown]

It's funny how some people speak with authority on the subject yet have never been there. In reality it depends on the state you're in and whether it's just county jail, state prison or the feds. Some states like pa you can easily survive just by keeping your head down and minding your own. Only a small percentage of the population is gang related. Cali on the other hand is a different story. 99% is gang affiliated. The few who aren't are the ones who've earned a reputation for being ones to take absolutely no shit, especially if you're white. A lot depends on race too. Whites are a minority and they don't generally belong to street gangs prior to serving time so unless they aggressively seek membership they all become potential victims. Ca prisons are extremely predatory in comparison. Potential victim means likely victim. White boys in prison are also, by necessity, very violent cats. They also rigorously enforce membership, meaning when you get there you will be aggressively pursued. Two choices, agree to join our be their property. Think your one of the one percent to manage to stay away and stay alive? Maybe. Do something extremely violent and survive multiple attempts on your life because it's never as simple as just beating up number one or two, and then maybe.
We all think we are very principled and would never do anything reprehensible based on those principles but in the right place and the right time, situational forces greatly alter and determine behavior.
Keep your head up tantric

 

[KeepTalking]

It's funny how some people speak with authority on the subject yet have never been there. In reality it depends on the state you're in and whether it's just county jail, state prison or the feds.

So true. My experiences are from city and county jails in Illinois and Texas. I was fortunate enough to avoid time in the state and federal systems, though I came close to entering the Texas DOC, and was provided with advice from a close friend who had done hard time there. I would not have been in maximum security anyway with only a non-violent drug conviction. Even county jails were vastly different from state to state for me. In Illinois I was either in a cell by myself with access to common space, or with one other person in a cell. In Brazos County, Texas I was in a large, overcrowded general population cell, and the first weekend I spent there I had to sleep on the floor. They kept those who were bound for the state DOC segregated from the rest of us, but we did have a couple of former state inmates mixed in. The population was about 3/4 black, the rest were mostly white, but with a few hispanics, which I found odd as the Bryan City, Texas jail I had been in previously was mostly hispanic. I only spent 3 days in the City jail, but since I speak a decent amount of Spanish, I got along fine with the 5 hispanics I shared a cell with.

In Brazos County I hung with the white guys mostly, but also got along with a couple of the blacks. The back guys mostly stayed up all night talking and occasionally fighting, while the whites tried to get some sleep. We watched TV during the day (when the guards let us), and played cards, while they tried to sleep. There were a couple of fights between groups in the afternoon and evening when we were all awake, and I got into one verbal confrontation that nearly turned into a fight, but we both backed down, not wanting to spend any more time in the county than necessary. As it was, the assholes held me for an extra day because even though I got there on a Friday afternoon, they didn't finish processing me for 12 hours and I didn't officially start my time until Saturday.

The advice I was given before I knew if I had to go into the system was to stay away from the gangs, as they would cause nothing but trouble, and to try to make friends with the unaffiliated hispanics, as they would likely be the second largest racial group in Texas DOC, but by all means avoid fighting anyone unless cornered. Of course the guy who gave me that advice, my best friend whom I was arrested with, was from Peru so he may have been biased. He had been to the DOC before, and due to having a felony record and a not so great lawyer, he spent another year there after we were arrested, while I only did 3 weeks in the county on the same charge.

 

[tantric]

okay, i'm editing this to ad in a disclaimer. understand that my prison experience restored my faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity - it was consumer hell america that eroded it away. it's just that now i'm *very* aware of which side i'm on. that's NOT the normal experience - but wtf you gonna be? a victim? a nonvoting subcitizen? a lumpenprole preying on your own people? fuck that. there's only one way through, and that's to stand the fuck up, no matter what it takes.

now what sir brown said is true - GA isn't anything like cali. we had the gansters' disciples, the good fellas, the bloods and the crips for black gangs. not sure about spanish, but at one point, being the hapless idiot i am, i noticed a guy with mayan numerals tattooed on his forehead in blue and just naturally walked over to talk to him about our shared love of mayan culture....and i added them up to 13 and some vague sense of self-preservation kicked in. still, he was cool - fuck, i do have DreamingJaguar muy sauve tattooed on my leg. 'cool' as in didn't kill me and let me keep my skin, cause MS-13 ain't no joke.

then again, wtf? you got skillz or what, mf? it took me two weeks to get moved from genpop to the worker's dorm. the first damn thing you do is get you a hookup for the jobs. in the 'sorting' prison, i ran into this guy i did a real solid for in county, he was on work detail there. the day after he saw me, a guy came up to my cell with a bag of food and salt and pepper and shit....just karma. if i have to go back someday (statistically almost certain), and they put me in genpop, i'll live. i know how now, what skillz i have and how to use them, how to present myself. simply put, i follow the path. i get some store, but not much. i touch base with the other righteous guys, be they christian or nation of islam or whatever - let people know you're a part of that. don't smoke or get high, except when you chip into a group thing just to be social, but don't be an addict, that's death. being smart is a huge asset, if you don't come off as superior or smug - instead use it to help people and don't ask anything in return. being able to turn spoken calo/spanish into good legalese english is a huge asset. but you live with discipline and you walk the path - don't fuck people over, no greed, be honest and speak from your heart, and most important, find a way to make it known that you're stone cold revolutionary, you don't give an INCH to the fuckers keepin you locked in a cage, i don't care if its Mao Zedong or MLK, but you fuckin fight the power every day of your life (yeah, you gotta take their shit most of the time, but NEVER pass up a chance to fuck with the poepoe).

when i was in grad school, i ran computer simulations of the Hawk-Dove game. in prison i applied it - the more violent and damaging the confrontations between hawks, the more room there is for doves. i saw networks of reciprocal altruism competing against each other, not gangs. i have a gift for understanding complex systems intuitively, and it worked for me.

your mileage may vary, and don't come to me lookin for a refund....