One major factor hampering the broader ability to obtain gang intelligence, officials testified at the SCI hearing, is the structure of each prison’s Special Investigation Division.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Maya Rao
Also in the news this week: Testimony tells how gang used communication system to extort
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey Department of Corrections checks incoming inmates at its 14 prisons for signs that would identify them as members of gangs. Someone with a tattoo of the numbers 252, for instance, might belong to the “Sex Money Murder” set of the Bloods gang.
Yet when state investigators recently confiscated cell phones from prison inmates, they made a troubling discovery: Some inmates had not been flagged as being part of a gang, but their contact lists included names of known gang members.
The official tally of gang members in prison accounts for a fraction of inmates with gang ties, according to officials at the State Commission of Investigation, which is scrutinizing gang behavior in prisons. Inmates may have looser gang affiliations and display no overt sign of involvement. Others don’t go to prison as part of a gang, but are later forced to join for their own survival, officials say.
“The actual population of inmates that somehow affiliate with gangs is much larger than what the official numbers would seem to reflect,” said Lee Seglem, assistant director for the State Commission of Investigation, in a recent interview.
He said there are about 4,000 known gang members in New Jersey prisons, but there could be as many as 13,000 in all with some degree of gang affiliation.
The commission held a hearing in Trenton last week following a 20-month investigation that found gang members - particularly the Bloods - were exploiting vulnerabilities in state prisons. Officials testified inmates freely continued gang operations from behind bars by obtaining cell phones, drugs and money, aided by lax policies and corrupt staff members.
Among the myriad issues investigators discussed was how gang members are made and identified in prisons. They found that not only are inmates sometimes forced to join gangs to avoid harm to themselves and their families, but county jails have inconsistent policies for flagging gang members, and the prisons and law-enforcement agencies are not sharing enough information with one another on their identities.
They plan to make recommendations in a report to be released early next year.
It isn’t only law-enforcement officials who are trying to better identify gang affiliates - hospitals in New Jersey are the latest group moving to educate themselves. In the event, for example, of a shooting that brings gang members to the emergency room, hospital employees must be able to separate members of rival gangs, protect patients and staff, and take various precautions.
“The hospitals are a fairly new phenomenon . . . as gangs become more prevalent, they become more violent, and if anybody’s injured, where do they go? They go to a hospital,” said Sgt. Daniel Riccardo, field coordinator for the New Jersey State Parole Board’s Street Gang Unit.
Last week, officials from Riccardo’s unit spoke to employees of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden about common gang signs, as part of the New Jersey Hospital Association’s push this year to train medical professionals on the topic. Some attendees nodded in recognition as the state officials showed images of gang markings, including the M.O.B tattoo, which means “Member of the Bloods.”
Hospitals accept everyone, so “if prisons are feeling it and schools are feeling it, hospitals are feeling it, whatever it is,” said Marty Ditri, the NJHA’s director of professional practice, after the event.
Law-enforcement officials have long educated schools and parents on identifying gang signs, including in a forum this month at a Gloucester Township high school.
Prisons also accept a wide swath of the population, and increased awareness of gangs has led to targeted “gang sweeps” that put more members in jail.
State prisons have screened for gang membership since 1996, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer. She said incoming inmates are checked for tattoos and gang-related paraphernalia, and prison officials also rely on outside law-enforcement agencies, county jails and, in some cases, the inmate’s own admission.
Inmates flagged as gang leaders are sent to the Security Threat Management Group Unit in the Northern State Prison in Newark to undergo a program that, among other things, teaches alternatives to violent behavior, she said.
One major factor hampering the broader ability to obtain gang intelligence, officials testified at the SCI hearing, is the structure of each prison’s Special Investigation Division, or SID. They said friction exists between the SID and custody officials because the division’s responsibilities include both handling internal affairs - which can involve investigating employees - and gathering information on gangs from those same custody officials.
The Department of Corrections would not comment on the hearing beyond a statement saying it was committed to reviewing the information provided. Fedkenheuer said that units such as internal affairs and intelligence fall under SID, but “there is a clear line of demarcation.”
In any case, the problem is likely to pose new challenges, according to Seglem of the SCI, as more gang members - especially leaders - are wising up to identification tactics and starting to keep a lower profile.
“People are going to have to start thinking more creatively and out of the box on how to approach this, because the gang phenomenon is an ever-evolving, moving target and you need to stay several steps ahead of it,” Seglem said.
Copyright 2008 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC
Also read: An inside fight against gangs in N.J. jail