Criminal Enterprise Environment in the US

[void dew]

Catchall thread to cover the surrounding environment in relation to criminal enterprises inside or from the United States.

I'll respond up here now @pulsar zenith tried to create a thread in the wrong place originally

[pulsar zenith]

oh lmao. Though it makes more sense for threads to be under specific region channels but whatever works.
Thanks! I'll get back with more questions later lol

[void dew]

@primal hound Going to reply in re the question earlier today up here since I got a bit to delve more -

So, there's a lot of interrelated things there important to know. There's a lot of case law that actually impacts these matters, and the most recent and prominent is Ashker v California. This specifically focused on secure housing rather than general classification, although it also has ramifications in relation to generally segregating security classifications. So, for example, putting members of a specific gang in a block alone could be construed as limiting their ability to interact with the larger populace, which is considered a protected right, and in-context they cannot simply just be punished for being members (what Ashker v California covers).
Weirdly enough, this has not impacted county jails, they still do it. That's mostly a prison thing, and since it was a federal case it has impact in every state system & the federal system.

Aside from that, in California, the inmate population self segregates and has for a very long time. There is also a slang term they use for groups called "cars", that can be applied on a few levels. Racial groupings, in most facilities, you tend to have a refined distinction between Blacks, Whites, Northern Hispanics, Southern Hispanics, Paisas, API, and Others. There are some other broader groupings but they're not considered "politically active" outside of defending themselves (and folks tend to leave them alone), like christians, nation of islam, etc.

So, because of this, it also presents a racial issue (which has been tested) since if they were to segregate gang members - they would largely be segregating based upon race. There was even a point, just for informative measures for officers, that they would put the name of the racial car an inmate belongs too on their cell door - they got in quite a bit of trouble for this legally due to the racial context and potential categorization based upon such

[primal hound]

So what's the risk if you're a sharp skinhead that you get put in with the supremacists?

[void dew]

The reason they did that is because there are rough loose alliances.

Whites are "good" with the Southern Hispanics, and by extension the "paisas" (they roll with eme)

Blacks are good the Northern Hispanics

API and Others kind of gravitate in the facility and what their folks of responsibility lean towards.

If you get celled with someone outside of this context, you're suppose to fight them to get re-assigned. So, it's basically an incident waiting to happen if they didn't try and cell people "properly" according to the inmates politics.

"Good" is also loose, theres isolated incidents amongst those and etc not super rigid

[primal hound]

Are the gangs mostly with a particular ethnicity/race due to things like redzoning and segregation between the communities on the outside?

[void dew]

This is very dependent on a few factors

Generally you are at risk of getting removed from the yard or marked (slashed in a publically viewable spot)

It really depends on what group you're with though and how active you are

There absolutely are sharp skins who hit the yards, do not claim to be skinheads, and instead keep their beliefs personal and instead roll with the "peckerwoods" / "woods"

The whites split into two larger functional groupings like that - peckerwoods (normal white criminals, or, basically everyone else) and skinheads

Then beyond that they split into counties or locations also. Technically for the whites and southern hispanics you're not suppose to group based upon gang minus very specific approved circumstances, you do it by the geographic split. That doesn't mean you can't just hang with your homies though.

If they're a SHARP type who hits the yard and, is active about that belief, they will absolutely get removed. Depending on what they do it could, be more severe or not.

[primal hound]

That makes it sound like the inmates would remove them ('severe').

[void dew]

Then there's the org issue also, it's not as prevelant now but back in the early 2000s-early 2010s for example, there was a group called the United Society of Aryan Skinheads for example. These were NOT SHARPs necessarily, but were actual active political-ideological skinheads (though it was an alliance comprised of skinhead gangs, the USAS group itself hardly pushed the political-ideological line which isnt to common for the gangs themselves)

[primal hound]

"Aryan skinhead" can't be sharp

would never be sharp

[void dew]

yeah... socal is... very weird

USAS tried to be that in pretty much every regard but that lmfao

kinda destroyed the purpose

[primal hound]

I don't understand?

[void dew]

I think from their frame it was still because at root they were in the gang scene which is very different, they just progressed into the political-ideological side and tried to push that hardcore

[void dew]

Everything else about the SHARP and straight edge style in general they tried to push

[primal hound]

sharps are explicitly against racism. they listen to ska and/or hardcore. 99% are hard left, the rest are 'soft left'.

[void dew]

Ofc they had the Aryan slant so, not direct like that

[primal hound]

Oh they tried to steal it (because obviously they still can't come up with anything themselves, they also nicked oi)

[void dew]

Yh but remember these guys are also from the gang scene where things like dope etc is very prominent, so, there are a lot of types that look at these groups and how they act as more respectable (but keep their WS beliefs)

You take some 40 year old skinhead gang member that's been through actual rehab and still politically active, is very much so read into the political-ideological side of that (which again, isnt too common), that style can be seen as more respectable since for example the drugs are a hard no, they dont want their little homies on that, etc

And yeah steal the style

[primal hound]

Wait, when you say "politically active" are you specifically saying WS? BEcause lots of skins are politically active anti-WS

[void dew]

Basically the issue with USAS though was they became a "rival" to the standing system, much as a lot of organized SHARP groups would

So there was a pretty significant war there for a while

Interestingly one of the actual leaders was an addict himself (he hid it) and lied to his organization about everything being "okay" until it was too late & their people started getting attacked

They had a very unique clandestine cell system that was pretty well covered and, ended up being kind of useless because of that

[void dew]

"politically active" in the street sense

sorry should've also noted, theres a lot of environments here where criminal groups as such use the term "politics" to reference, underworld politics

when I mention political in the literal sense I do political-ideological

[primal hound]

Pleas explain because I think we're coming from different context (I am EU based, my knowledge of US 'skinheads' is like philly 90s hardcore)

[void dew]

So this really differs depending on state, California is just a really extreme example and since we were talking about the SoCal active club it had some relevancy, don't take that as meaning this exists in other states it's all very diff everywhere you go

Although in California, you generally have 3 types of "skinheads". You have political-ideological skinheads, which, are probably more what you think of with WS skins. There's the SHARPs. And then there's the skinheads from skinhead gangs (these have all the WS symbolism and some beliefs but the whole sociocultural context is very different, and the political-ideological context is very different from how it is in say the literal political-ideological skinheads like the first cat referenced)

"straight edge" isnt really its own type there, its a reference that can present across any of those

[primal hound]

rly?

[void dew]

Yeah

[primal hound]

There's WS straight edgers? Lol, makes sense I guess.

[void dew]

Yeah not very common

[primal hound]

They tend to be quite 'severe'

[void dew]

It tends to be guys who get more serious about that life & quit dope

There's also some, but fewer, edge examples of guys who become skinhead gang members but did hold those political-ideological beliefs beforehand (in the way we generally think) that enable that straight edge context to present for them

[primal hound]

Ok that's the bit I missed then. So if I understand this correctly, when you say 'political-ideological skinhead' you mean actively promoting white supremacist literature/bands/movement, when you say SHARP you mean actual 'skinheads against racial prejudice' as in actively antifascist, and then there's like 'gang-skinheads' who are like WS for the fashion but more of a criminal underground thing?

[void dew]

For context with these skinhead gangs for example, a lot of them use the symbolism and imagery etc, but the background context is like, these are all people who are actually active gang members, they just may be in a pocket area that's predominately white, and most of who they end up beefing with are from another race. This creates a very different context from political-ideological types, who, for example, may never actually face violence in this context from the other race. That's all amplified with the prison context (and the prison cultures have ramifications on the streets)

[void dew]

Yessir

[primal hound]

Well, there's always been some who went from punk -> nazi punk, but I have not really seen similar for the skinhead and hardcore scenes so am a little surprised.

[void dew]

Yeah like I said it's not very common at all, I have heard of like 4 cases of it

All but one were people who had those beliefs before becoming an actual gang member & they're recruited for some other reason

[primal hound]

punk to nazi punk also infrequent. I personally know of only one in my local scene. Arsehole joined the hammerskins (euro chapter based in .de) . Was then persona non-grata pretty much everywhere.

[void dew]

Yeah even Hammerskins is really weird, I presume you're thinking more of groups like that but the skinhead gangs out in California are really different from that

[primal hound]

Yeah I am trying to wrap my head around that but I have so little context

Ok so, back to the original then, the people who run the prisons house people based on suspected gang affiliation which is basically a by-ethnicity/race/religion type deal?

do they ask people what their gang preference is or do they like, look at someones tattoos?

[void dew]

No, they don't house folks based upon that

The closest you get is having things like, this differs in every state also, but California has "non-programming" or 50/50 yards. These basically blend Protective Custody & Sensitive Needs inmates with General Population (this, logically, makes literally no sense and CDCR cant even explain things themselves so yeah lmao on that).

There are some gangs which are considered "PC" / "SNY" gangs, and, if you're a member of these, you will be put on one of those yards. That's technically doing it based on suspected gang affiliation but they wiggle around it for protective reasons (they're not saying that person is a threat but rather protecting them, which, is their responsibility while that person is under their care)

[primal hound]

So you can put gang members who hate one another in the same cell, but then in the yard they'd separate out by themselves? (I am really unfamiliar with prison culture except for tvv shows like everyone, which I am sure is very wrong)

"PC" / "SNY" <-- what are those acronyms?

[void dew]

Yes, although, there is a high potential they'd fight each other in the cell before going out to yard

[primal hound]

This is very complicated. I am not aware of it being so complex here

[void dew]

Hence why they try not too, but they can't explicitly say, "Hey, this white guy is going to be with the white group", because, then technically CDCR is then classifying them based upon race, even if the inmates will fight to get celled together/away from each other

[void dew]

So, PC is one you'll see in most places, it's "Protective Custody". Generally in most states PC takes the form of solitary unfortunately, but is meant for protective reasons rather than for punishment (ie if you're an informant, and run the risk of being killed in general population)

Some states do have open-aired PCs though so they're not all like solitaries

So, in California specifically, California has both PC and "SNY". SNY is their form of open-aired protective custody

SNY is a bit of a misonomer though, those yards can end up being more violent than general population yards because the structuring isnt there to limit things like violence

[primal hound]

What does it mean?

SNY I mean

[void dew]

Sensitive Needs Yard my apologies

[primal hound]

Ah

[void dew]

Yeah CDCR isnt the brightest there either to be honest

[primal hound]

I guess that the prison population in the US is so big that all this becomes a whole own universe.

[void dew]

The whole NDPF (Non Designated Programming Facilities, the technical reference to the blended yards I made above) thing is really stupid since, for example, for the whites and southern hispanics, if you're on an NDPF yard, you're considered "no good". Although each group handles it a bit different, you're suppose to get yourself removed from the yard and sent to a purely general population yard