Defining Prison Gangs, Describing Their Organizational Structures, and Understanding Their Behaviors

While there is abundant research on gangs, most of it focuses on youth and street gangs with only a small proportion of it focusing on prison gangs (Maxson, 2012). Within carceral settings, some research also focuses on street gangs with a presence in prison, rather than gangs that were established within prison. This distinction is one of genesis, evolution, and organizational objectives. Notably, there are many youth and street gangs represented by inmates (Pyrooz, Gartner, & Smith, 2017). Although these gangs are not prison gangs in terms of establishment, history, power, and behavior, some authors argue that youth and street gang members import their gangs’ structures and values into carceral settings (DeLisi, Berg, & Hochstetler, 2004; Jacobs, 1974; Knox & Tromanhauser, 1991; Mears, Stewart, Siennick, & Simons, 2013). Accordingly, the existing literature has periodically evaluated these street gangs in the context of prison since the mid-1970s (Brotherton & Barrios, 2004; Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003; Jacobs, 1977; Moore & Williams, 2011; Pyrooz et al., 2011; Wood, Alleyne, Mozova, & James, 2014). While some street gangs seek to sustain basic protection and solidarity for their members, others have clearly transformed within prison. Those gangs that transformed saw their structures and objectives evolve so that they became groups that were better organized, with more efficient protection rackets, and expanded connections, thereby allowing the members of the gang to engage in more serious criminal activities both in and out of prison (Cruz, 2010; Fontes, 2016; Fontes & O’Neill, 2018; Gundur, 2020b; Howell, 2015; Kinnes, 2000; Valenzuela Arce et al., 2007).

It is important to distinguish between street gangs operating in prison and prison gangs that emerged in carceral environments. Prison gangs exist in several state prison systems throughout the United States, and the most significant ones largely developed independently of one another in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Camp & Camp, 1985), even though some interstate migration did occur (Fong & Buentello, 1991). Buentello and colleagues (1991) outlined how prison gangs develop in carceral settings. Prison gangs are a type of inmate group, resulting from an evolution of inmate solidarity groups or cliques. Cliques come into being to provide solidarity to their members. The cliques that persist develop control over their own protection and the capacity to impose protection upon others (Buentello et al., 1991; Fong & Buentello, 1991; Irwin, 1980; Tilly, 1985). In time, cliques become predatory groups and eventually prison gangs, organizations that not only provide solidarity and protection to their members but also create and impose rules on inmates and compete for power within the prison protection marketplace. Gundur (2020b) expanded on this evolution by showing how prison gangs may maintain their prison presence, thus influencing the politics of inmate society, and expand their protection and operations, namely illicit entrepreneurship (Lessing, 2014; Skarbek, 2014; Valdez, 2005), beyond prison walls. Tapia and colleagues (2014) and Gundur (2018) show that, in some cases, new types of prison gangs emerge in response to change in how prison administrators govern prisons; notably, horizontally structured gangs compete with the dominance of the vertical, hierarchically structured organizations that are the most common, having generally developed from the evolution of inmate solidarity groups.

The Prevalence of Prison Gangs

In prison systems where prison gangs exist, it appears that most inmates do not join prison gangs; the few estimates that exist in U.S. prisons are wide ranging and context dependent; reports of prison gang membership from the early 2000s ranged from 0 to 50% of inmates (Mitchell, Fahmy, Pyrooz, & Decker, 2017; Pyrooz & Decker, 2019; Pyrooz et al., 2011). Certainly, inmates use an array of strategies to position themselves within carceral settings. Some use self-reliance to avoid dangerous situations (Ricciardelli, 2014); others find religion to insulate themselves from negative prison behaviors and aggressors (Clear & Sumter, 2002). Others, in search of solidarity (Buentello et al., 1991; Gundur, 2018; Weide, 2020), opt to join inmate groups, which are often organized around ethnicity or place of origin. Finally, some join prison gangs for the capacity prison gangs offer for setting the terms of engagement within prison.

In the United States and elsewhere, prison gangs influence the social order of the prisons within which they have significant presence by establishing and enforcing rules often referred to as the convict code, a code that extends to inmates regardless of their gang affiliation or status (Mitchell et al., 2017; Skarbek, 2020; Trammell, 2012). Given the impact of prison gangs on the social order of American prison society (Skarbek, 2011, 2012), some research has endeavored to evaluate the prevalence of prison gangs and gang membership among inmates. The first such study was undertaken by Camp and Camp (1985), who surveyed the U.S. state and federal penal systems. Camp and Camp stated that prison gangs first entered the penal system in 1950 with the Gypsy Jokers in Washington State; however, this claim appears to be dubious, since the Gypsy Jokers, who formed in 1956, are an outlaw motorcycle gang. Moreover, there are no records of the Gypsy Jokers being identified as a security threat group or acting as such (Smith, 2016). Thus, California’s Mexican Mafia, founded in 1957, may well be the first true prison gang in the U.S. penal system (Smith, 2016; Weide, 2020).

By the early 1980s, prison gangs were commonplace throughout half of the U.S. state prison systems while having a presence in the federal prison system as well. Camp and Camp estimated that in 1985 about 3% of the inmate population across all prison systems surveyed were gang affiliated. Since Camp and Camp’s study, there have been a few academic studies surveying the prevalence of prison gangs in specific states (Fischer, 2001; Forsythe, 2006) and nationally (Knox, 2005; Ruddell et al., 2006; Wells, Minor, Angel, Carter, & Cox, 2002; Winterdyk & Ruddell, 2010). These studies have found that between 12 and 33% of the inmate population were either associated with prison gangs or under investigation for suspicion of association. These studies also stated that prison gang members are more likely to engage in violence. The grey literature has supplemented the academic outputs, with various U.S. state departments of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) producing periodic gang threat assessments that include prison gang profiles; however, these assessments are not consistently produced nor are they produced in ways that are easily comparable across prison systems.

Prison Gangs’ Influence on In-Prison Misconduct/Violence and Reoffending

As a result of prison gangs’ violent reputations, researchers have asked questions related to prison gangs’ influence on violence within prison and whether prison gang membership increases the likelihood of recidivism. Most research on behavior within prison, however, has not focused solely on prison gangs. Instead, it has evaluated behaviors of members of various gangs, including street gangs and other criminal groupings. Early research into the role gang membership plays in inmates’ actions found that gang members were less likely to participate in pro-social activities in prison and more likely to engage in violent and unlawful behavior within prison (Ekland-Olson, 1986; Marquart & Crouch, 1985; Shelden, 1991; Smithey, 1990). Subsequent studies have found varying degrees of correlation between prison gang membership and violent activity, from slight (DeLisi et al., 2004; Worrall & Morris, 2012) to more pronounced (Gaes et al., 2002; Griffin & Hepburn, 2006; Tasca, Griffin, & Rodriguez, 2010) to variable, depending on the group (Ruddell & Gottschall, 2011). One study showed that core prison gang members, that is, those members who are comparatively more invested in the group and its affairs, demonstrated a decidedly increased likelihood of engaging in violent behavior while incarcerated (Gaes et al., 2002). Another study showed that gang membership predicted violent behavior particularly in the early years of an inmate’s incarceration (Griffin & Hepburn, 2006), which is consistent with recruitment practices that cause prospects to “put in work” or show their dedication to the gang. Weide (2020) provided a critical view on the violent reputations of prison gang members. He argues that prison gangs are not pathologically violent as maintained in much of the literature; instead, prison gangs’ actions are responses to the provocations of the prison administration and the prison staff.

Given the increased ties prison gang members typically have with their gangs relative to street gang members (Fong, Vogel, & Buentello, 1993), understanding how that membership influences desistence from offending is also a concern. One study of Illinois prison gang members determined that gang members were 6% more likely to recidivate compared to unaffiliated prisoners (Dooley, Seals, & Skarbek, 2014). Another study argued that prison gang membership and a lack of community access impeded an ex-prisoner’s reintegration into society (Fleisher, Decker, & Curry, 2001). Prison gang members especially experience difficulty in ceasing to identify as gang members and in severing the social ties that keep them in a gang, which in turn keeps them from engaging in pro-social behavior (Fleisher et al., 2001). These findings suggest that dissolving a prison gang member’s identity as member of a gang and decreasing his social ties to that group and its members are key to having gang members become more likely to reintegrate into society.

Controlling Prison Gangs

Prison gangs exist, at least in part, to contest the authority of the prison administration (Irwin, 1980; Jacobs, 1977; Lindegaard & Gear, 2014) and, in some contexts, the state (Lessing, 2017a; Manwaring, 2007). Thus, the final major line of inquiry regarding prison gangs is how to control them, that is, how to restrict them and their influence in inmate society, from a prison administration point of view. The most common administrative response to prison gangs is suppression, which includes placing general population in lockdowns; locking up prison gang members, especially core members and leadership, in administrative segregation (solitary confinement); or transferring prison gang leadership to other prisons in the state system or to federal prisons (Fleisher & Decker, 2001; Forsythe, 2006; Knox & Tromanhauser, 1991; Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2019; Winterdyk & Ruddell, 2010). Other responses include gang renouncement programs, which seek to get prison gang members to cease their gang association so that they can have a better chance at reintegration into their communities, and psychological treatment, which seeks to address other underlying factors of offending (Forsythe, 2006).

The research suggests that prison intervention strategies are not consistently deployed across prison systems (Knox, 2005; Winterdyk & Ruddell, 2010). Moreover, the research suggests that prison systems do not measure the effectiveness of their intervention programs (Winterdyk et al., 2009). However, the literature argues that suppression strategies alone are insufficient in countering prison gangs over time; reintegration programs that facilitate desistence and community reentry, as well as ongoing evaluation of best practice, are needed to improve prison capacity to curb the influence and power of prison gangs (Fleisher & Decker, 2001; Forsythe, 2006).

Limitations in the Literature and Some Outstanding Questions

Since only a modest amount of literature on prison gangs has been produced, several gaps exist. For instance, most of the literature focuses on Hispanic or black prison gangs. Little is known about the workings of white prison gangs, such as the ways in which members operate in the free world, the extent to which racist ideology is entrenched in broader membership (Hamm, 2008), and whether entrepreneurship differs outside prison relative to Hispanic or black prison gangs. Additionally, most prison gang research focuses on large prison systems; little is known about how contemporary prison gangs operate in smaller prison systems or in prison systems with more racially homogenous populations. Other key issues that the literature does not adequately consider include the impact that curbing prison gangs in prison may have on the inmate social order and how that, in turn, influences how violence is tolerated and regulated in the criminal underground outside prison. To that end, there is little research on the impact of different prison administration configurations as to understanding what might stunt or stimulate the formation, expansion, and persistence of prison gangs.

Protection and Control

Protection and control influence governance and social order both vis-à-vis the general public and inmates. Protection, the ability to provide or impose security (Tilly, 1985), and control, the ability to establish and enforce rules (Thomson, 1995), work in tandem to organize space and what occurs within that space. No entity—state or nonstate—ever has a perfect monopoly over either protection or control, in or out of prison. However, the extent to which a nonstate entity can provide protection or exert control is dependent on the extent to which the state manages each.

Protection is a double-edged concept that indicates, on one hand, the sheltering against danger or threat and, on the other, the capacity to impose danger or a credible threat (Tilly, 1985). Protection is a concept that nearly all people are subjected to in their daily lives, whether they are incarcerated or not. The difference in how people experience protection is predicated on who or what provides protection and how.

Protection takes several forms. Individuals seek to establish or maintain personal protection daily, making choices to ensure that they are safe, healthy, and secure. In many quotidian contexts, people are responsible for protecting themselves and their dependents in terms of their day-to-day encounters. This behavior is embedded in daily routines.

However, there are certain threats that go beyond what an individual can reasonably protect against. In those cases, individuals may rely on protection from a more powerful entity—perhaps by belonging to a group, which provides security via its collective capacity; a private security company that is employed to provide security for or against a specific actor, threat, or scenario; or the state, which recognizes threats that it must protect its denizens against, for they are unable do so on their own.

In liberal democracies, protection provided by the state to its denizens is typically a function of what philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2002) termed “the social contract.” The social contract is an arrangement in which the state’s denizens acquiesce to the state’s authority, obeying its rules, in exchange for protection against foreign threats and significant domestic threats to person or property. This protection may not be efficiently achievable if one is alone or in a small group. While the state is not infallible in terms of providing this protection, and sometimes violates this arrangement or neglects its duties, particularly vis-à-vis disempowered segments of society (Bowling, Phillips, Campbell, & Docking, 2004; Worden, 2015), this state-provided protection is generally enjoyed by most of society.

The state’s protection is underwritten by control, which is its ability to establish rules, such as regulations and laws, and to enforce them (Thomson, 1995). States do not need to be liberal democracies to affect control, but when the state develops positive social motivations, such as securing the public’s trust or acting in a way that the public deems just, members of the public are more likely to cooperate with the state’s control efforts (Tyler, 2011). In some instances and spaces, the state may be unable or unwilling to affect control. When the state does not affect control, nonstate mechanisms are responsible for setting the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

In the criminal underworld of street-level crime, interactions are often governed by various criminal entrepreneurs, including prison gangs, who recognize and punish actions that they deem as not being in their interest (Kostelnik & Skarbek, 2013; Skarbek, 2012, 2016). Consequently, protection is fundamental to criminal contexts since, unless the state is colluding with criminal enterprise (see Snyder & Durán Martínez, 2009, for an example), the state does not serve as arbitrator of right and wrong and therefore does not typically exercise control to settle disputes between two criminal parties.

The dynamics of protection and control, as managed by state and nonstate actors, are amplified in carceral settings. The tension between prison administrators and various inmate groups has evolved independently, though unevenly, in carceral settings worldwide, particularly as incarceration demographics and prison policies have changed. Accordingly, the inception and propagation of prison gangs can be traced to periods when the authority of the prison administration was successfully questioned or put into disarray. While the fluctuations of control as a trigger point for the formation of prison gangs is one observed in various contexts around the world, the following section considers some state prison systems in the U.S. context—Texas, California, and Illinois—that have among the best documented histories of inmate groups.

Prison Gangs in Prison

Joining Established Prison Gangs

Joining established inmate groups or prison gangs is a process that varies from gang to gang and from prison to prison. Prison gangs recruit members in various ways, though most inmates who choose to associate with a prison gang typically associate with one with which they share some existing social capital, such as ethnicity, geographic location, an association with an existing member, or an association with a street gang (Jacobs, 1975; Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Often, prison gangs promote association to incoming inmates as a function of solidarity with “one’s kind” or as a mechanism to decrease the likelihood of an inmate being coerced into an action by another against his will. (To that end, while recruits may believe that belonging to an inmate group improves security [Ireland & Power, 2013], gang members are often victimized at a higher rate than non–gang members, perhaps as a function of the increased likelihood that gang members may engage in conflict.)

Membership in a prison gang is variable, depending on the structure of the prison gang (Gundur, 2018). Although many inmates do not participate in any significant or protracted way with the activities of the prison gang, they accept the rules set forth by an overarching convict code (Mitchell et al., 2017; Trammell, 2012), and they accept the prison gang as the arbitrator of those rules. However, those inmates who join prison gangs experience membership as a function of status within the gang. There are two general configurations of prison gangs: vertical (or hierarchical) and horizontal (or flat) (Gundur, 2018).

Most prison gangs, historically, have been vertical, with a paramilitary structure that has various ranks. The terminology for each prison gang varies, but typically there are several ranks with clear positions along a hierarchy. Gaining entry depends on the gang or a ranking gang member’s decision to include a recruit; some gangs require a violent act to gain entry, such as hurting an enemy or taking a beating, while others may “bless in” a recruit, which involves allowing a recruit to join without being subjected to any induction ritual or test. Should an inmate wish to rise through the ranks of a prison gang, that individual will have to “put in work,” that is, engage in behavior that allows him to develop and maintain status. For instance, low-level recruits, often known as soldiers, will be required to engage in the riskiest behaviors, such as engaging in visible violence to punish rule violators or to hold contraband or weapons. As the inmate successfully progresses, he is able to engage in the decision-making process of the gang and reduce his exposure to risk, as is the case with criminal entrepreneurs who improve their standing in the criminal underworld outside of prison (Gundur, 2020a).

Horizontal gangs do not have significant differences among members’ status. There are few reported horizontal groups in the literature (Gundur, 2018; Tapia et al., 2014). Little is known regarding joining and exiting procedures within these gangs, though some gang members have indicated some type of ritual, such as a beating as one enters or exits the group. Nonetheless, it appears that, like vertical groups, inmates join horizontal groups where some preexisting social capital exists.

Prison Gangs on the Street

Although some prison gangs have a physical presence on the street, most prison gangs have a non-physical presence on the street. Through its non-physical presence, a prison gang can establish the rules of engagement vis-à-vis crime on the street that criminal actors must respect. Prison gangs can enforce these rules without a physical presence on the streets by punishing, that is, imposing protection upon, rule breakers (or their associates) upon their invariable entry into the carceral system (Skarbek, 2014). Although rules are established primarily for economic interests, they may be established for other, arbitrary reasons (Skarbek, 2011). For example, rules that dictate how drive-by shootings must be conducted or that prohibit drive-by shootings outright are designed to reduce unwanted police scrutiny, while decreasing the number of errant shootings in places like El Paso and Los Angeles (Gundur, 2020b; Skarbek, 2011). Notably, in the U.S. context, when prison gangs are strong providers of governance, they have the power not only to make prisons safer but also to regulate the criminal underworld, supplementing, in a way, good law enforcement efforts by instituting rules designed to reduce law enforcement attention (Skarbek & Freire, 2018).

The most developed prison gangs have a clear physical presence on the street, operating as organized criminal organizations (Gundur, 2020b). Prison gangs engage in a wide variety of crimes (Ellis, 2018; Gundur, 2019a, 2020b; Lessing, 2014; Skarbek, 2011). However, the crimes prison gangs commit on the street, as within prison, are a function of the gangs’ capacity to contest state control. In the United States, where state control is comparatively strong, prison gangs’ street crimes are relatively narrow, with the most typical crimes being trafficking and dealing narcotics, armed robbery, and, occasionally, murder (though when murder occurs, victims are commonly part of the criminal underground) (Gundur, 2019a; Skarbek, 2011).

These patterns, however, do not translate to Latin American contexts, where prisons are comparatively dangerous and are increasingly so when there is criminal enterprise present (Peirce & Fondevila, 2019) and when, in the free world, the corruption of law enforcement, coupled with the violence of intimidation, is a more effective economic strategy for criminal entrepreneurs (Bailey & Taylor, 2009; Sabet, 2012; Ungar, 2013). Thus, in Latin American countries where law enforcement’s ability to exert control is comparatively weak, prison gangs engage in more visible and brazen crimes, such as kidnapping, targeted killings, extortion, and intimidation, and these crimes impact more people who are not willing participants in the criminal underground than in places where law enforcement has better capacity to exert control (Bowden, 2010; Ellis, 2018; Fontes, 2016; Lessing, 2014; Skarbek, 2020).

Regardless of their location, prison gangs that persist diversify their illicit business portfolios, engaging in crimes, such as money laundering, to dispose of the proceeds of their crimes, and running licit businesses, such as operating nightclubs taken from owners who failed to pay their protection money (Ellis, 2018). While there are similarities in prison gangs’ organizational objectives across contexts, it is clear that the distinct behaviors of prison gangs in states with weaker control indicate that solutions posited must take into consideration the social and political realities of the contexts in which these solutions are to be enacted.

Prison Administration Responses and Shifts in Prison Gang Organizational Structures

Prison administrations respond to prison gangs in various ways (Camp & Camp, 1988). Responses have included gathering intelligence on the gangs, to identify gang members and address gangs’ internal developments (Camp & Camp, 1988; Forsythe, 2006); implementing restrictive housing, such as placing inmates in single cells, and subjecting them to increased oversight and behavioral regulations (Griffin et al., 2013); implementing gang suppression, by isolating leadership from the general population in administrative segregation (solitary confinement) or by targeting leadership for removal from the prison system (Pyrooz et al., 2017), to disrupt communication within gang hierarchies (Pyrooz et al., 2011; Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2019; Shalev, 2013); and offering gang programs to encourage desistance and reintegration within the community (Carlson, 2001).

Nonetheless, the actions undertaken by prison administrators vis-à-vis prison gangs have one unifying objective: to reduce the strength of prison gangs in carceral settings. Results have been mixed in terms of meeting this objective (Forsythe, 2006; Griffin, 2007). Critically, little consideration has been given to how weakening prison organizations affects how inmates choose to organize and even less consideration has been given to how these changes impact how street crime unfolds.

Historically, most prison gangs observed have had a vertical, paramilitary structure with defined leadership and a clear chain of command (Gundur, 2018; Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). This structure allowed for power to be transferred as leaders were placed into solitary confinement, removed from the prison system, released, or died. Moreover, most of these vertical organizations required absolute fealty, demanding ongoing association in and out of prison. However, prison administrations increased their efforts to isolate not only established gang leaders but also anyone who appeared to step into those vacated roles; with inmates understanding the risks of solitary confinement, several vertically organized prison gangs have declined as they struggle to maintain effective leadership and stable membership (Gundur, 2018, 2020b).

The effects of isolation have varied. In Illinois, there are no strong prison gangs in the Department of Corrections; the gang umbrella organizations function as self-protection or predatory groups. However, in Texas, horizontally structured prison gangs, such as the various Tango factions (Gundur, 2018; Pyrooz & Decker, 2019; Tapia et al., 2014), emerged in response to the decline of vertically structured prison gangs.

Unlike vertically structured prison gangs, the Tangos do not have a clear leadership structure, impeding the prison administration’s isolation strategy. Moreover, Tangos do not require the same degree of loyalty; members may affiliate while they are incarcerated without carrying the burden of membership back to the street, thus making membership more enticing to a larger array of inmates. To that end, Tangos do not appear to have, nor contribute to, significant criminal enterprises in the free world that their members are obligated to join (Tapia, 2019). Accordingly, Tango members not only have no obligation to keep street gangs in line but also can return to representing their own street gangs, privileges that vertically structured prison gang members do not have. With this horizontal configuration, Tangos have flourished, displacing, or at least effectively competing with, the established vertically organized prison gangs atop of the protection and control marketplace, without being deemed security threat groups by the Texas Department of Corrections (Tapia, 2019).

This change in the way prison gangs may organize themselves, along with shifts in behavior that result from these organizational changes, will likely have an impact on crime as it unfolds on the street. Gundur (2018) showed that recently released inmates reported that vertically structured prison gangs, such as Barrio Azteca, were already losing prison dominance to the Tangos prior to 2014, though more recent work by Tapia (2019) has indicated that the ability of Barrio Azteca to tax groups engaging in the street drug trade has largely persisted. Additional studies are required to understand how the shifts of prison gang structures within prison systems, from vertically to horizontally structured prison gangs, influence the capacity of prison gangs to control the behavior of street criminals on an ongoing basis. One potential outcome may be an emulation of the gang dynamics of Chicago, where the umbrella gang organizations have functioned similarly to the Tangos in Texas for at least 20 years.

In Illinois prisons, there are no strong prison gangs that truly unite street gangs. Only a modest street influence of inmate organizations has been reported (Decker, Bynum, & Weisel, 1998). Despite attempts of street gang leaders, like Larry Hoover, Jeff Fort, Jerome Freeman, Gino Colon, David Barksdale, and other lesser known figures, to create powerful gang alliances (Hagedorn, 2015; Knox, Etter, & Smith, 2018), each of these leaders, except for Barksdale and Freeman, who are deceased, has been placed in solitary confinement in federal prisons, leaving unfilled leadership voids. With the gang alliances failing to unite Chicago’s street gangs, there has been a balkanization of gangs in Chicago.

The competition among Chicago’s street gangs over territory and market share of the drug trade has resulted in continued, visible violence on the street (Skogan, 2006; Vargas, 2016). Street gang sets that identify as part of the same gang sometimes fight among themselves. And, unlike the American southwest, where prison gangs deter drive-by shootings, drive-by shootings are still relatively common among Chicago’s street gangs (Vargas, 2016; Venkatesh, 2008). This practice quite possibly may be a function of the lack of extrajudicial punishment that would occur if such offenders were to report to a Texas or California jail, where they would be more likely to be punished by a prison gang for such actions.

Should the rise of the Tangos in Texas result in a decreasing capacity and interest of inmate organizations to affect control and impose protection on the streets, one would expect an increase in violence as a function of unregulated competition among gangs and other illicit entrepreneurs; however, to date, this outcome has not materialized. An alternative hypothesis, which has not been investigated, is that membership in some Tango groups may provide inmates with a clearer path to desistance by doing two things hierarchical gangs do not.⁶ First, they provide inmates with the solidarity they need to weather prison in ways that do not involve significant risk of prolonging their sentences. And, second, the Tangos give their members the ability to exit prison without obligations to anyone in prison; as a result, they can break from their past criminality, a choice that many street gang members make as they grow older and become less interested in, or even disillusioned with, committing crime (Carson & Vecchio, 2015; Moloney, MacKenzie, Hunt, & Joe-Laidler, 2009; Pyrooz & Decker, 2011).

Exiting Prison Gangs

While some prison gangs actively allow members to quit, or do not act against members who quit despite having rules to the contrary, most (vertically structured) prison gangs generally require a lifetime commitment to acquire advanced status within the gang (Dooley et al., 2014; Gaes et al., 2002; Johnson & Densley, 2018; Orlando-Morningstar, 1997; Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Exiting a gang after gaining status is not necessarily a straightforward task, if the gangs’ punitive rhetoric is taken at face value (Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Generally, inducted members simply cannot leave the prison gang; nonetheless, there are four typical ways out: dying; quitting and facing the consequences, aging out, and finding religion.

Death, either by natural causes or by being killed, ends the obligation of a prison gang member. His obligations are not generally transferred to a related party but are assumed by whoever is next in line or in charge.

Quitting a hierarchical prison gang in its entirety by attempting to sever all ties and obligations is problematic. (Although one U.S.–based study found that the consequences are largely mythologized, with many prison gang members exiting their gangs without consequence [Pyrooz & Decker, 2019], Latin American accounts indicate that violent consequences are more frequent [Brenneman, 2011; O’Neill, 2010]). Allegiance requires members to participate in gang affairs as directed and to respond to calls for help when requested. Members who fail to obey this protocol may be punished by the gang in a number of ways, including being labeled as an ex-member, which would then result in social exclusion or, worse, being assaulted or killed (Brenneman, 2011; Fong et al., 1993; Orlando-Morningstar, 1997). In carceral settings, gang leaders often give these tasks to prospective members, so that they can prove their worth to the gang (Skarbek, 2011). In free world settings, these tasks may be pursued by members opportunistically.

Aging out is a process with two vantage points. From the prison gang’s point of view, the member has done enough for the gang and has sufficient social recognition for “OG” (original gangsta/older gangster) status, so that he no longer has to participate in gang-related tasks if he so chooses. Plus, OG status may provide the holder with the ability to disobey some of the gang’s rules while still maintaining good status (Valdez, 2005). Sometimes, prisoners who have enough social capital can request and be granted permission to leave the gang without consequence (Brenneman, 2011; Rosen & Cruz, 2019).

From the individual’s point of view, aging out is a process of maturation. Members may no longer consider participation to be exciting or beneficial, or they may consider participation to be detrimental, subjecting them to unnecessary risks or forcing them to engage in behavior they do not wish to engage in, such as attempting to kill a fellow inmate (Fong et al., 1993). Members may become disillusioned; for instance, they may no longer believe that the gang’s ethos (e.g., unity and brotherhood) is true (Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Or members may shift their priorities and obligations away from the gang and to other aspects of their lives, such as parenthood, family, or legitimate work (Carson & Vecchio, 2015; Moloney et al., 2009). In the context of prison gangs, however, there may be ongoing obligations, even after a member ages out and is released from prison, such as contributing to the gang’s fund or being available if called upon by active members; however, little research has investigated how these ongoing obligations unfold outside prison. Notably, more U.S. inmates leave gangs—street or prison—than join them while incarcerated (Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Moreover, most of those gang members who quit their gangs do so without their gangs’ blessing, independently of assistance, and do not face severe or ongoing consequences (Pyrooz & Decker, 2019).

Perhaps the only (nearly) obligation-free exit, within the rules set by prison gangs, besides being blessed to leave or dying, is finding religion, which a small proportion of gang members do (Pyrooz & Decker, 2019). Most of the literature looking at religion as a desistance mechanism from gangs focuses on (usually evangelical) Christian conversion among Latino gang members (Brenneman, 2011; Johnson & Densley, 2018; O’Neill, 2010; Orozco Flores, 2013; Rosen & Cruz, 2019). However, committing to some other religion, such as Islam, also may be an acceptable means to exit a prison gang (Sowa, 2011), particularly among black gang members (Moore & Williams, 2011).

Prison gangs will allow members to exit if they dedicate their lives to religion, with the caveat that they must dedicate their lives to religion and abide by that code. The ex-gang members who find religion typically gravitate to evangelical Christianity, eschewing a Catholic identity for a born-again Christian one (Brenneman, 2011). This conversion manifests itself in terms of personal outlook and personal presentation and behavior, with adherents getting gang-tattoos removed or covered up and abstaining from drugs (and sometimes alcohol) (Orozco Flores, 2013). By finding religion, ex–gang members attempt to dedicate their lives to pro-social behavior that allows them to reintegrate into their communities as positive contributors (O’Neill, 2010). These men show their commitment by persisting through often “laborious and painful recovery rituals” (Johnson & Densley, 2018). Despite this commitment to achieve genuine and visible conversion into a virtuous lifestyle, many former prison gang members struggle to find licit employment, as is the case with ex-prisoners generally (Pager, 2008), and engage in ministry on the outside of prison as they seek to leave their prison gang pasts behind them (Brenneman, 2011; Orozco Flores, 2013).