What is it about?
This paper talks about why prison gangs form the way that they do. It discusses motivations for formation and how prison gangs control behavior not only in prison but on the street. It offers that vertical prison gangs, which have long been the dominant structure, may be supplanted by horizontal prison gangs in some places where the state is able to destroy leadership in vertical organizations. This has already happened in Chicago and may also happen in Texas.
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Why is it important?
This paper updates the Buentello et. al model, which went unchallenged for 30 years. It shows that intervention from the state or competitors can result in a horizontal prison gang that has a flatter structure of command that is resilient to the loss of any given actor.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The changing social organization of prison protection markets: when prisoners choose to organize horizontally rather than vertically, Trends in Organized Crime, February 2018, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s12117-018-9332-0.
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