Texas Latino gangs and large urban jails: Intergenerational conflicts and issues in management

Abstract

This is a qualitative exploration of the impact of newly emerging gang structures on the correctional setting. A purposive sample of detention and classification officers was obtained from four large urban jails in Texas. In-depth interviews were conducted about gang population characteristics and the facility management issues that they pose. Officers report recent, significant changes in Latino gang structures primarily, attributing the shifts to intergenerational conflict. At each of the four sites, this development has exacerbated many of the typical correctional challenges identified in the literature on jails and gangs. Despite the changing norms among occurring throughout Latino gang hierarchies statewide, with few exceptions, the jail management responses reported here have remained relatively stagnant over the past several decades. The paper addresses the evolving nature of jail-based gang activity as a neglected issue in correctional management policy and proposes a framework for continued investigation of the issues.

Keywords::

• jails
• gangs
• race/ethnicity
• management

Notes

^1. See, for example, a report on Managing Increasing Hispanic/Latino Populations in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (2008). http://www.doc.state.ok.us/adminservices/ea/Hispanic%20Inmate%20Paper.pdf

^2. The modern correctional term used for prison and street gangs in secure facilities.

^3. Large jails (1500 beds or larger) were oversampled.

^4. A rare and notable exception from California is Theodore Davidson's (1974) anthropological work in San Quentin Prison. It is a particularly insightful foray into Chicano prison gang structure, subculture, and its relation to street gangs. This work was conducted during a formative stage of the now notorious Mexican Mafia. Over time, such research endeavors grew nearly impossible to undertake due to the group's increasingly restrictive and secretive nature in California and in Texas.

^5. Akin to the younger ‘Gunsel’ class of street-to-prison inmates that Davidson (1974) identified in California and that Valdez and Enriquez (2011) seem to identify as the rung the Sureño-13 street gang currently occupies in the California Mexican Mafia hierarchy.

^6. As evidenced in recent jail and prison gang documentaries and as informally expressed to the author by police and gang member sources.

^7. No detention officers from Travis County (Austin) were recruited, only classification.

^8. Nearly 40 unique gang names were actually provided, but this larger number reflects certain common usages or abbreviations (e.g. ‘Aryans’ for ‘Aryan Brotherhood’ or ‘Eme’ for the Mexican Mafia). Some names that were collapsed reflect the sub-set structure of many gangs (e.g. ‘Rollin-20's Crips’ collapsed into the larger ‘Crips’ category). Still, others reflected the tendency of more seasoned officers to use local, slightly outmoded terms to refer to a group (e.g. ‘Houstones’ for ‘Tango Blast’).

^9. This high number and to a lesser degree, that of the Mexican Mafia, is a function of the oversampling of Bexar County officers in this study. While in follow-up telephone interviews with subjects, Tango Orejon is acknowledged statewide, these descriptive data reflect the groups the officers themselves offered as gangs they regularly see come through the jail in their part of the state.

^10. See the Appendix for a complete listing of the groups identified.

^11. The range of years offered since the shift began was ‘from the past 2–3 years’ (Officer #07, #09) to ‘the past decade’ (Officer #02, #14).

^12. The conflict is replete in these data, but also captured by National Geographic Channel's Lockdown Series in 2010 and most recently, in a news story about a large riot between the groups on Friday 24 March 2012, wherein a significant reassignment of inmate housing including transfers of gang leaders out of the facility was required (CBS News Local Affiliate 2012).

^13. Approximately half of all inmates are held in about 10% of US jails.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mike Tapia

Mike Tapia's research interests include street and prison gangs, corrections, and race-ethnicity. His work has been published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Youth and Society and Crime & Delinquency. His latest work on Texas prison gangs is forthcoming in The Prison Journal.