I've spoken many times of the gang problem in our institution. It's certainly nothing new or unique. Every single prison all over the world has this very same problem. Wherever there are criminals in large numbers, there will be gangs trying to take advantage of the strength in numbers.It's a fact of life in prison whether you are living there or working there. There's no changing it and there's no getting rid of it. The only possible way to get rid of the gang problem is to isolate every single offender from every other offender for the entire length of their incarceration.
Theoretically possible, but not practical. But there you are.
For some odd reason, our state still maintains that we have no gang problems.
I don't get that.
We do have..... excuse me.... we did have a Gang Task Force Officer that kept track of who belonged to which gangs and attempted to keep any one group from getting too large in our institution. This officer spent hours and hours of personal time doing research and going to conferences whenever possible all over the country in order to keep abreast of the trends in gang activity and efforts to combat it.
Apparently, at a recent conference this officer complained about not getting enough support from the state (which, of course, still denies there's a gang problem) and the institution.
And that made them look bad. We can't have that, naturally.
So the officer was removed from the post and it was put up for bid.
And we all knew who was going to get the job.
I sure as hell didn't want it. Too high profile and too much work and too much personal time will have to go into that job to make it effective. I just wonder if this new officer will be as effective as the old one.
But it just goes to show how careful you have to be in criticizing the administration. They have long ears and longer egos.
And the Good Ole Boy Network only works for you if you are one of the Good Ole Boys.
And as long as you make all the rest of them look good.
I'm not all that good at behaving myself, apparently.
