The prison gang as a «brand» (an overview of informal prison hierarchies in modern prison systems)

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of prison gangs as the main form of organized crime in many foreign countries. The relevance of the paper is explained by the fact that modern penitentiary systems are characterised by the increasing role of violent criminal subcultures in prisons, which is a major challenge for most penitentiary systems around the world. That is why, in this paper, the authors aim to analyse the phenomenon of prison gangs as a special form of criminal organisations in the penitentiary systems of modern foreign countries.
The paper further develops the thesis that prison subcultures formed within informal prison hierarchies and the inherent prison violence are objective elements of modern power relations, an integral part of power relations and at the same time a product of the spread of panoptic discipline in the society of the twenty-first century.
In the paper, the authors analyse the essence of the concept of "prison gang" in the context of current trends in prison management, identify the main prison gangs operating in the penitentiary systems of modern foreign countries, and also study the impact of modern prison gangs on the prison policy of modern foreign countries.
Based on the results of the study, the authors prove that in modern foreign penitentiary systems, informal prison hierarchies are an integral element that creates competition for formal prison administrations. A special place among informal prison hierarchies is occupied by prison gangs, whose activities have become particularly widespread in the countries of South and North America, Asia, and Africa.
The authors argue that prison gangs are the most widespread forms of informal prison hierarchy that operate not only within penitentiary institutions, but also extend their criminal activities and subcultural influence on free society, and most importantly, are characterized by special attention to their own subcultural codes of conduct in relations with "brothers", the State, competitors from other gangs and third parties.
Prison gangs have formed a new «brand» – the «brand» of individual, autonomous and influential actors – without which the functioning of national penitentiary systems is now unimaginable. It is emphasized that prison gangs are a phenomenon which, in the context of the State’s declared monopoly on the use of force, requires interdisciplinary research due to the encroachment on such a monopoly by private actors from among the leaders and active members of prison gangs who claim the main power in penitentiary institutions in many modern countries.