A: Before the 1950s or so, as you’ve written about, this just wasn’t the case. Gangs didn’t exist. Prisoners weren’t “governed” — instead, they had a code which was mostly enforced by decentralized reputational mechanisms.
D: Absolutely. Before gangs took root, norms of good behavior were pretty well understood among inmates. It was clear when someone was following them and it was clear when someone wasn’t. People could individually choose to punish violations or not. That worked really well, but only in relatively small, relatively homogenous communities where there was a lot of agreement about what constituted a deviation. Reputation mechanisms were very effective only when prisons were small enough that you cared about your reputation because lots of people knew who you were and whether you were in good or bad standing.
But as prison populations in California grew through the ’50s and into the ’60s, it became too costly to know everyone’s standing. Reputation became a much less effective driver of behavior. And in the process of becoming less effective, we begin to see a lot of outbursts of serious acts of violence. During the ’50s and ’60s, there were large increases in homicides, stabbings, and riots. And it’s during this turbulent time when the first prison gangs emerge — initially simply for self-protection. But then once gangs are able to effectively protect themselves, it creates incentives for them to engage in a variety of different behaviors.
A: Can you say more about how these gangs actually function? If you’re an incarcerated person, how do they structure your life in prison?
D: I think most importantly is that when someone is new on a yard, the shot caller — either the gang leader himself or one of his colleagues — will go out and basically run through the rules: who holds the keys, who is in charge, how should you behave, and maybe the current state of politics. “This is the person who holds the keys to the yard. They’re the one who’s in charge.”
And then you’re going to program with them. That means, assuming you’re in good standing, you might work out with the gang, you might be tasked with doing certain jobs or activities for them, or maybe you just hang with them. That’s the primary way that gangs will guide you and put guardrails on what is and is not acceptable behavior.