Prison Gangs

While researching about gangs and trying to find a video, I came across this YouTube video. It's a Hard Time episode about Prison Gangs.This video shows how gang members act in prison, specifically Ross Correctional Institution. In prison, gang members like to mark their territory. There are 2 sides of this prison, the South and the North. The South side is the medium side, level 2, where rules aren't as strict and they get more privileges than the North. On the North side, level 3, time is tougher and has closed security. Throughout the video, different stories are told by the prisoners and stories that have happened throughout the jail are talked about as well.

This video gives us such an insight on how gang members act outside of jail and inside of jail. While I was watching this, most of the prisoners don't seem upset about being in prison because as the narrator said, "they've got nothing to lose." In this video, there is not one person who does not have a tattoo on him. Most of them have their whole bodies covered in them. One of the prisoners, "Bulldog", had his gang member group initial tattooed on his arm, like many of the others. The security guards talk about why people join gangs: money, power, and protection. The video is 46 minutes long, but I was not bored during any of it. If you are really interested in gangs, this will give you a really clear insight on how and why people are a part of a gang.

Reasons for why people join gangs

Many of us, including myself, sometimes wonder why people would ever join gangs? The answer for that is for various reasons. A lot of people join gangs for the desire of power, respect, money, and protection. This especially attracts the youth to join. In some cases, kids are unfortunately grown up in or around areas where most kids are a part of a gang. 

Many times, people are experiencing low levels of these various factors, such as the ones I listed above, which is why they seek out to join a gang. Kids feel that joining a gang is the only way to obtain status and success. 

They also join gangs to gain a feeling of belonging and identity. This is a huge influence on people of all ages; every human being likes to feel like they belong, and to some people- gangs can give them just that. Gang members feel that sense of identity and belonging by getting numerous tattoos that represent their gang group. Other than tattoos, they have certain colors, symbols, hand-signals, and clothing that correspond to which gang group they are members of as well.

I posted a link to a YouTube video below about a truly remarkable story. It's 11 minutes long, but trust me it is worth every single second. It's about a man, Marlin Henderson, who was in a gang during his younger years. He tells his story about how and why he joined a gang, his life during his gang years, and how he turned his life around. 

This video on Marlin Henderson is really inspiring, and it opened my eyes as to how fortunate we are. I am extremely blessed for the family I have been brought up with, and the area I live around. If you have the time, please watch this. This video really spoke out to me.

Facebook Friends Boasted of Gang War

Members of the two gangs in East New York, The Very Crispy Gangsters & The Rockstarz, became Facebook friends boasting about how many murders each gang had. They would keep score and taunted each other endlessly. Because they bragged non stop, investigators were able to draw a virtual map of their activities and bring them to justice. This "war" has been going on for 3 years now, and 2 members of the Very Crispy Gangsters, and 1 from the Rockstarz are dead. After each murder one of the two gangs had done, they would post a picture and write, for example, Rockstarz are 3-0. This Wednesday, the city's police commissioners made an announcement of the indictment of the 49 members of the two gangs. The charges include murder, attempted murder and conspiracy.

I feel actually pretty disturbed after reading this article. Both these gangs were murdering people, and then bragging about it? I find it quite disgusting, and don't really get, how these guys can just murder someone and then boast about it to another gang. The keeping score of each of the gangs murders, too, really put me over the top, and got me extremely angry and sad by the actions these gangs did, and probably still do.

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Interest in Gangs

I have never had a real interest in Gangs, until this summer. I read a book, Perfect Chemistry, and it really opened my eyes. It is a drama/romantic book, and the main guy character, Alex, is part of a gang called the Latino Blood. Alex has to wear a red and white bandanna, has tattoos, and has to be loyal to the Latino Blood. I was so intrigued by this book that I had to take the opportunity to research more about gangs. I am really interested in how people come about in joining into these gangs, and why they do.