Why People Join Gangs In Prison

This video was a very interesting one; it brought up facts and statistics that I hadn’t heard about before. For example, David Skarbek first brought up why people even join a gang in prison, a very interesting question. He brought up examples about safety in prison and the people inside of the prison that deals with the “underworld,” which he means is selling drugs, alcohol and other non-legal products inside of the prison. The people who does join this underworld and want to earn money in some kind of way inside of the prison, this is the only solution. However, people who do this needs to be able to feel safe too, and the prison guards are not going to be the ones who protect the people who sell drugs, since it’s illegal. This is the reason to why gangs were formed. …show more content…
Nevertheless, when you get to prison you cant just choose what group you want to join. For example, if you’re white you’ll join a white gang, if you’re black, Hispanic etc you’ll get together with the same race inside of the prison. However, there is also a different if you’re from the north, or south too. Skarbek also mentions that ones you join a gang in prison, it’s a thing that you’ll stay a part of until you get out because you can’t just leave your gang. Before I watched this video I thought that gangs were created for violence though and promoted it. However, when I watched the video my thoughts were determined. Since gangs had been created the violence in prison had gone down significantly compared to how it was before. Other interesting facts and statistics that he brought up was that the prison gangs weren’t as common as before due to the population inside of the