David Skarbek's Theoretical Analysis

In this article, David Skarbek refutes the widespread assumption that prisons are filled with violent thugs who cannot act irrationally. He demonstrates how criminals who break the rules and have been sentenced to long-term or life sentence are capable of creating rules, explicit and implicit, to establish an informal governance system that would serve them. Precisely, Skarbek attempts to explain “state-making” and systems of governance based on prison gangs in California. He argues that the Mexican Mafia gang, a Mexican-American criminal prison organization, has set up a governance system that facilitates drug trafficking conducted by Hispanic drug dealers in the streets of Los Angeles. In other words, Skarbek claims that order has been instituted …show more content…
However, the originality of Skarbek’s article is to look at prison gangs who provide protection to inmates from rival gangs and maintain order outside by extorting “gang taxes” from drug-traffickers. In an environment where there is no possibility to appeal to the state to protect illegal activities, the author explains how the Mexican Mafia has become this state-like governance institution that protects gang members from their rivals when in jail, but also prevents turf wars by enforcing the respect of territories of drug-trafficking gangs and reducing drive-by shootings outside prisons. Here, the author outlines the two main activities of the Mexican Mafia gang inside and outside of prison: the Mexican Mafia established a governance system that taxes criminal activities and, in exchange, enables market exchange by protecting property, enforcing agreements and solving disputes between rival street gangs. Like Olson’s theory, violence is underlying the governance institution because if a street gang refuses to give the Mexican Mafia a share of the proceeds from its drug trafficking, jailed associates of the gang or members of the gang would get killed in prison. The stability of this governance system, Skerbak argues, lies on the firm willingness of the Mexican Mafia to enforce punishment in case of defection. In other words, it …show more content…
He, thus, made a valuable contribution to the literature of illegitimate governance by expanding the analysis beyond organized crime and terrorist groups. He successfully met the challenge of examining the emergence of governance institutions in jails from a rational-choice theory perspective. Indeed, in an environment where control exerted upon allegedly rational profit-maximizing actors is nearly total, Skarbek skillfully demonstrated how prison becomes a necessary governance mechanism for drug trafficking in the streets. That is to say, assuming that all Hispanic drug traffickers in Los Angeles eventually go to jail, or have an associate they care about in jail, they will have to pay the gang tax while outside. Control of prisons by the Mexican Mafia leads to smoother transactions in the