Mellow Assignment #2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mellow Assignment #2 - Essay Example One such example can be given by the popularized total white prison gang founded after the state prisons started to become desegregated, The Brand. According to the article in The New Yorker, The Brand became the most lethal prison gang in the history of America, starting from California and spreading in other state prisons around the country. They brutally stabbed, strangulated and poisoned their inmates, rival gang members, blacks and homosexuals, child molesters, prison guards and anyone that annoyed them. Apart from the killings, the Brand leaders ordered contracted hits extorted the victims, robbed from them and were involved deeply into drug trafficking inside the prison wall. Also popularly known as the Aryan Brotherhood, they had the motto of Blood In/Blood Out meaning a person had to take a life to become a member and losing ones own life was how the membership ended. Another example in time is the incident that took in the California Institution for Men, which serves as a Level I, II and III prison where the designed capacity is overshadowed with present number of inmates. On January 10, 2005 the correctional officer Manuel A. Gonzalez, Jr. was stabbed by an inmate Jon Christopher Blaylock, who was transferred six months before from a Level IV maximum security prison. The inquiry in the matter found out that the inmate was inappropriately housed in a minimum security Level I area, was long awaiting transfer, had easy access to weapons and security was lax among several findings. According to the article in the Prison Journal, prisons in California are facing an increasing threat of overcrowding and high service costs. The goal to classify the inmates was to protect the public and help prisoner rehabilitation, was left in the dark when the budget constraints hit. Prisoners are either uselessly held in expensive facilities to maintain the ‘public safety’ while others are kept in minimum security zones. In California only 11%