Members write and post rules governing when other inmates can use the facilities' televisions and phones. They dictate who can buy what and when during commissary visits. On a November walk through the jail, this reporter saw several inmate-written rules hanging near phones and TVs. The sheriff's department's only gang intelligence officer, Sgt. James Stroud, says that kites are composed of intricate, coded gang language and often carry messages about non-affiliated inmates who have violated gang rules.
Inmates file the kites in their cells, which some refer to as their offices.
Pod and cell monitors are assigned to the east and west side of the jail's four floor cellblocks. Below them are the chiefs of security, the first rung on the jail gang career ladder, assigned to protecting their superiors while they are sleeping or showering. Mimicking the court system, the institutional coordinator conducts a trial before meting out punishment. In Mac Pig's case, the offending inmate was sentenced to a timed three-minute beating by other inmates. If the gangs are the jail's single worst problem, the guards may be the second.