International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 28

Organized Crime Behind Bars
The conditions are reinforced by a general lack of commodities and services, a
situation which confers a disproportionate level of power upon those in a position to
satisfy these needs.
Thus we see, in almost all prisons around the world, groups which often
transform into genuine criminal power structures, either created inside, often under
the guise of self-protection, or having been re-established on the foundations of prior
membership of criminal organizations. They may also come together around religious
proselytism with activist aims. 9
Elaborate organizational structures gradually divert the penitentiary purpose to
serve their own ends and, through a perverse logic, also extend their capacity for harm
outwards, beyond the prison walls. These organizations, ubiquitous and comparable,
are indicative of a deep, little-known and poorly accepted dysfunction—one in which
the triple function of the deprivation of liberty is no longer served.
These organizations, which are a particular form of organized crime, belong to
what have been called the “protagonists” of the Contemporary Criminal Threat. They
constitute a specific criminal threat, which challenges the effectiveness of the sentence,
and thus our penal philosophy as a whole: it has been dubbed the “Threat of Prison
Criminality.” It raises a legitimate concern and calls for serious study.
We intend to show here the extent of the phenomenon, using significant
examples. We shall develop an understanding of the principles generally implemented
in the establishment and functioning of these entities. We shall also examine the
damage, the pathogenesis of this threat of prison criminality in society at large.
I - SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF PRISON CRIMINALITY
A
worldwide, contemporary, and expanding phenomenon, the threat of prison
criminality is not some immaterial notion. It is constituted of people and
the organizations they have created. It is therefore necessary to conduct
a symptomatic approach in the first instance which, without being exhaustive, will
reveal the existence of the threat and its brutal reality. 10 We shall note that most often
we are dealing with identifiable associations, created within the prison world, or reestablishing
themselves inside and putting down roots there. They distort the meaning
of the prison sentence and disrupt the normal functioning of the institution, within
which and beyond which these groups conduct criminal activities of all kinds. 11 These
organizations have been called “Criminal Prison Gangs.”
9
Research into this particular phenomenon, now known by the name of Prislam (Prison-Islam) in the
United States, but which can be found elsewhere, merits a specific study. It will only be referred to here
through some symptomatic epiphenomena.
10
While the study of criminal societies may sometimes be based on observation, this is rarely possible
in the prison world. We must therefore rely on documents, the veracity of which is not always possible
to ascertain, even though many are sworn statements; others, coincidentally, are revealing.
11
The California prison administration gives a definition of Prison Gangs as “Any association or group
of three or more people who share a name, sign or identification symbol, and whose members or
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