By C1 Staff
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new study is claiming that prison gangs are actually good for prisons, as they help to keep violence down.
The study by economic professors M. Garrett Roth and David Skarbek states that gangs facilitate a stable environment for contraband trades, providing an “extralegal framework of community social responsibility,” according to News.com.au.
And as prison gangs have flourished, the authors claim, the rate of inmate homicides and prison riots in the US has been declining. The authors cite figures that show inmate homicides have declined 94 percent between 1973 and 2003.
The study is based on an analysis of California prison populations, which have given rise to some of the world’s most notorious gangs, such as the Mexican Mafia, Nuestra Familia, and the Aryan Brotherhood.
The authors argue that racial divisions between gangs are less about race and more about ease of identification. They also state that gangs resolve both social and commercial conflicts among inmates.
In the end, the authors claim that prison wardens benefit from some level of gang activity.
“The optimal number of prison gangs from the perspective of the warden is not zero,” they write.
“They provide relatively peaceable dispute resolution amongst inmates. Gangs wish to avoid riots and conceal fistfights. Gangs also help allocate scarce prison resources, such as benches and basketball courts, in the face of a shortage of such amenities.”