Wood, Graeme. "How Gangs Took Over Prisons". The Atlantic, October 2014.

Wood, Graeme. "How Gangs Took Over Prisons". The Atlantic, October 2014.

• David Skarbek, author of The Social Order of the Underworld, argues that prison gangs are the primary source of order and stability inside of prisons. Despite being the primary criminal actors in prison -- organizing both contraband trafficking and violence -- prison gangs also enforce standards and rules among criminals.
• Prison gangs developed in different places at different times: the UK does not have prison gangs, they formed in New York prisons during the 1980s, while they have existed in California prisons since the 1950s. Gangs formed in response to a large influx of inmates, a phenomenon occurring at different times in different places, whose massive caused the previous system of informal 'convict codes' of behavior to collapse.
• In California, the 1950s saw a large increase in the number of inmates and their racial diversity. Violence increased between inmates, leading some inmates to band together for protection. This prompted other inmates to form their own gangs to avoid domination or predation by the gang.
• Gangs recognize the danger of violence between their membership, and often take steps to avoid this outcome. For example, if a gang member is behaving in a disrespectful way, his own gang with reprimand him because that is preferable to having him attacked by another gang, starting a gang war.
• The presence of gangs in prisons, especially if they also have a street presence, serves to discipline criminals on the street. If criminals know that they will be placed into a gang-dominated prison environment when they are arrested, they are likely to avoid seriously crossing other criminals because of how exposed to vengeance they will be in prison.
• Prison gangs have developed forms of bureaucracy to inform themselves about new members, to better regulate their behavior or plan activities. In California, the Nuestra Familia is particularly known for bureaucracy, demanding that initiates fill out a full questionnaire upon placement in the prison.
• California has used two strategies to manage gangs: breaking up gangs and sending members to different prisons, a strategy which failed spectacularly by speeding up the rate at which gangs spread to other prisons in the states; and sending high-ranking gang membership to Pelican Bay state prison, far away from bases of gang power. 
• Other countries have other methods to deter the formation, mainly violence by prison guards, but which are not generally considered available to American correctional officers. Chinese prisons, for example, do not have gangs because the prison guards will kill any organized group of prisoners.