The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System

From the first chapter of The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System, readers are drawn into David Skarbek's exploration of the mystery shrouded inner workings of prison gangs. Skarbek sheds light on the origins and functions of gangs in the U.S. prison system and illustrates the significant role that gangs play in the prison system, explaining that, far from being pale, less potent shades of their non incarcerated counterparts, gangs behind bars often have even greater influence. In Skarbek's words, 'the primary focus of this book is to understand how criminal institutions form, function, and evolve and to determine their effectiveness and robustness' (p. 8) Skarbek analyzes prison gang formation through a rational choice theoretical lens, with gangs as the pinnacle of extralegal governance organizations that criminals create, however unconsciously, in order to meet their needs. In his examination, he either critiques or avoids the two traditional theoretical perspectives underlying prison life, namely deprivation theory, in which it is the structural conditions of the prison itself as opposed to the specific characteristics of the inmates that determine prisoner misconduct, and importation theory, in which prison life may be organized through the pre existing mechanisms of socialization that prisoners carry with themselves in their incarceration. There are two important ways in which Skarbek diverges from the usual theoretical underpinnings. The first is that he discusses norms as emergent in society, rather than pre existing as eternal, immutable social laws. Norms are fluid and are created as a means to an end through the coordination of social actors. The second divergence is his position that prison gangs are created in order to foster a measure of extralegal governance, a demand that arises when prison institutions and administrators fail to provide adequately for the needs of inmates. A great number of scholastic examinations of gangs and their formation and functions exist, but most focus on street gangs rather than prison gangs. While many of these gangs share the same names and the same rules, leadership, and activities, the reasons for their inception and reproduction can be different. Prison gangs have been described as the final frontier of gang research (Fleisher and Decker 2001) Much excellent research studying prison social order exists (Trammell 2011, Kuttschnitt and Gartner 2008, Crewe 2009, Fleisher and Kreinert 2009, and Dolovich 2012) but no such work has yet addressed the role of extralegal governance in prison gang formation. Prison gang research may be the final frontier, but it's not from lack of pioneer interest. The rise in popular media portrayals of prison life depicted in such programs as 'Oz, 'Prison Break, and, most recently, 'Orange is the New Black' serves as a sign that interest in prisons is high but that the usual limiting factor is access. Prison gangs operate behind tall walls that cast long shadows. Researchers (Trulson, Marquert, and Kawucha 2006) lament that 'data on gangaffiliated inmates remain some of the most elusive figures in corrections' (p. 10) Obstacles to qualitative data include the prison gangs' codes of silence, potential loss of a prisoner's privileges if gang affiliation becomes known, the fact that respondents' claims may be exaggerated or false, and the fact that field studies are, by any measure of practicality, impossible. In an effort to clear these very high hurdles, Skarbek utilizes a dizzyingly wide range of data sources, the synthesis of which, he writes, 'provides an accurate and convincing picture of the criminal underworld' (p. 12) He underpins his arguments with data drawn from academic research, over 150 years of California inmate population records, state prison histories, legal documents detailing California street and prison gangs, FBI declassified files, personal memoirs and biographies of former law enforcement officials who investigated prison gangs in California, 352 Reviews