Here is my understanding.
on the street there are a lot of black gangs who are at war with each other. At least in LA, various crip sets are at war with each other, and the crips are against the bloods, etc. Among white motorcycle gangs the mongols and hells angels don’t get along in the streets.
But supposedly prisons are divided along race. So in prison do all these sets and gangs that are killing each other in the street just have a truce in prison and suddenly fight along racial lines? Maybe the hells angels are at war with the mongols in the streets while the rollin 60s are at war with the hoovers, then the hoovers and 60s ally as a black gang while the angels and mongols ally as whites?
Where is little nemo he might know.
Or are prison gangs not divided along racial lines as much as some people say?
from what I’ve been told by people who have been in jail that’s how it works “what happend outside stays outside”
The Mexican Mafia and Nuestra Familia are two of the biggest rival gangs in prisons, especially California. Both are primarily ethnic Mexican, though (traditionally) in different geographical and social strata.
I feel the close connection between street gangs and prison gangs is more of a California thing. It didn’t seem to be as big a thing in New York where membership is a lot more fluid.
In New York, you might have a small core of say, Latin Kings for example, that stuck together. But you’d have a bunch of other guys who basically hung out with the Latin Kings but weren’t really part of the organization - and they might not be Hispanic. Both sides benefited; the gang members had a bunch of other people that increased its numbers and the fringe members benefited by being under the umbrella of the gang.
We encouraged this by moving prisoners around a lot (a process known as boat therapy). New York has a number of big maximum security prisons so we could shuffle prisoners around within the system. This kept the gangs in any one prison from developing deep roots there. They were always adjusting to a changing situation. If any one group looked like it was causing problems, we rounded up a dozen of their members and shipped them off to five other prisons.
Does there need to be official justification, or does this shuffling around happen without the need for any “why” on the forms?
In the UK there are shipouts for various reasons.
Safety of individuals - someone might be suspected of being an informer, or deep in debt.
Routine security - certain individuals are high risk of escape and may well be routinely moved in order to defuse even the potential for developing a plan - be it physical infrastructure or conditioning or attempts to compromise staff. These would usually be the highest risk rating and a few of those have 24 hours ‘eyes on’
Good order and discipline - this is one of the more common, individuals who present direct threats to others including staff, prisoners, or visitors. They might be those who are known to develop and operate drug supply. Certain organised gangs - these would be the local lower levels of organised crime and are often almost indistinguishable from gangs.
The reasons individuals and groups are shipped out have to be evaluated, simply moving prisoners around of itself poses a security risk and so it is not done lightly. The reasons will be around behaviors and observations and intelligence from within and outside of prisons.
Prior to being put in any prison the convicts will be assessed for suitability to be housed within a specific establishment to ensure that there are no ongoing issues with other prisoners in the individual prison - it can happen that you cannot locate someone in a place for all sorts of reasons. One of which is critical numbers of one group - its far better to locate them in the right place first time instead of finding out after the event.
A huge amount of work is undertaken to locate convicts correctly, there are many issues involved but things can change quickly and moves can be for all kinds of reasons - some of which are sensitive, but all of which are justifiable and have a recorded trail