The connection between prisoners and street gangs is evident in daily news headlines across the country and in the information that law enforcement uncovers in investigating these crimes.

But fighting gang activity on the street and inside prisons takes a joint effort among criminal justice agencies and, in recent years, this partnership has become increasingly difficult to maintain as budget cuts and resource shifting have taken place.

"[When] 9/11 happened gang units ceased to exist [in many areas] and now, with the budget crisis that everybody is facing in corrections, law enforcement, the whole nine yards -- there's no money for anyone to stay up on current trends and the gang members are saying 'It's party time. Let's get busy,'" said Lina Presley, Director of Operational Support Services for the Indiana Department of Correction and a board member of the National Major Gang Task Force.

Presley and others say that corrections, for the most part, is working hard to keep tabs on incoming and active security threat group members, but communication and assistance from the law enforcement community is sorely needed to do the job well.

"They are coming into corrections agencies by the boatloads. No one is working to bust them up," she added.

Presley explained that, before 9/11, many communities, including rural ones, were making headway in breaking up gangs and "making it uncomfortable" for them to operate. But when resources needed to shift towards homeland security nationwide, gang prevention activities suffered in some communities.

This is something that has hurt the overall effort to combat gang activity.

Not only are gang units being disbanded or their focuses shifted, but there is little money to keep gang investigators trained on the latest information about street gangs and STGs, which is changing constantly.

This, some say, is a recipe for disaster.

"There's no dollars for training, jurisdictions can't afford it, the agencies can't afford it and the problems have not stopped," Presley said.

New Focus, New Challenges

According to Joe DeLaTorre, a former Senior Special Agent for the California Department of Corrections who has worked in gang identification for almost 30 years, there's plenty of reason for keeping up-to-date on gang activity on the street.

"A lot of street gangs are fluid - they change. The guys get older and they get out. A lot of things change in your street gangs. In East L.A . you might have two Hispanic gangs that get along, but if someone starts a fight and someone is stabbed at a party, [for example], then they become enemies," he said. A rivalry can be reflected in activities in prison and jail.

DeLaTorre said that many of the shot-callers for gangs on the outside are really on the inside of corrections facilities -- all the more reason for agencies to work together to deal with gang violence.

Another trend being recognized by gang investigators on the west coast and in the mid-west is the rise of Sureños - new Hispanic gang members who are competing for gang business on the outside.

DeLaTorre said that these gang members do not necessarily have the alliances with other Hispanic gangs and they are splitting into multiple factions in different states. The Texas groups claiming Sureño membership may not be respected by the California groups, for example.

Frank "Paco" Marcell, head of Jail Intelligence for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Ariz. agrees that the migration of certain gangs and groups is important for corrections and law enforcement to track.

"The Surenos have migrated to the east and midwest it seems. They are popping up in cities in Virginia and New York. It makes for more violence and they will compete in illegal activities with established gangs," said Marcell.

Other trends are also becoming apparent and, Presley said, gang units could take a page from the effort being put into terrorism investigation and homeland security. She said in some areas there is a fine line between religious groups and gangs - take Benjamin Smith for example.

Smith, the World Church of The Creator member and white supremacist who murdered 11 people several years ago, had visited inmates in the correctional system prior to his crime spree, Presley said.

She added that it is important for gang and STG units and investigators to consider potential terrorists in the U.S. as threats as well.

"Osama bin Laden is a radical zealot, but we could grow our own right here if we aren't paying attention," she said.

This is a major point for continuing to support gang investigation activities on the outside.

In Indianapolis, Presley said, the local gang unit has been renamed and has become more reactive in recent years.

Although she still works closely with the unit members and helps to identify gang graffiti and other gang-related activity in the community, she sees a shift in focus that is not proactive. As a result, she has some ideas about what should happen instead.

"They just need to broaden the span of what we were doing before to include terrorism and broaden it all through the finances and support [that goes to homeland security]," she said.

An approach like this could go a long way towards improving gang investigation and identification inside correctional facilities as well.

"When they are all under our care and roofs they are either doing their time quietly or they are recruiting and they still have contact with the outside world. There's letters and phones and visits, but there's not enough staff or money to listen to every phone call, so we have to pick and choose," she said.

Those communities that have taken a proactive approach to gang investigation and STG identification have reaped the benefits.

Being Proactive

In Arizona's Maricopa County, the sheriff has put together a jail intelligence unit that is comprised of 10 officers, two sergeants and a unit supervisor, who oversee gang identification and safety and security for the county's 8,000 inmates in five facilities.

Marcell, supervisor of the unit, said that a very active and supported unit can help corrections and other law enforcement agencies keep an eye on gang trends on the street and as they float into the jail.

"We look at a couple of things in terms of monitoring gang activity. We certainly attempt to ID all incoming street gang members. We do that because we find street gang members tend to group up with one another in a jail setting," he said.

The unit also is aware of the street gang infrastructure in the community and the influence those members can have on a jail population.

"All those who are validated members are placed in close custody status. They definitely will become shot-callers in the jail system," he said.

Marcell believes that this is not widely recognized by the criminal justice system.

"They continue to run their criminal enterprises from the correctional setting to the communities and a lot of law enforcement don't recognize that. The need to look for the connections and need to form shared partnerships with their correctional counterparts," he said.

Marcell said the jail intelligence unit is able to keep close tabs on these members in large part because of its involvement in local gang task forces. But without that community connection, he sees trouble ahead.

"When gang units are disbanded or reduced [and] when those resources are put into other places, we are going to see gang activity rise," he said.

One example in Arizona, he said, is a multi-agency gang intelligence unit called Gang Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission that was honored a few years ago by the National Association of Chiefs of Police for its innovative work. Today, however, that unit's work has been diminished, Marcell said.

"We've really felt it here. We felt the effects. [Gangs] are a closed society and they will continue their activities while incarcerated. We can't afford not to monitor them," he said. "When gang units are disbanded, gang activity will rise across the board on a national level."

DeLaTorre, who was involved in the California DOC's multi-agency approach, also says that resources in the right place can net positive results.

"The biggest satisfaction I felt was when I worked in San Diego. I worked with a multi-agency task force and the fugitive apprehension group. We bought narcotics off Crips and then targeted 125 people and we put away most of them. The reward was whenever I could help take someone off the streets. It was one less crime," he said.

DeLaTorre's last assignment was in a small DOC unit, consisting of four agents that covered 10 counties, but it worked with others in law enforcement, which allowed a regular and open communication to combat gang activity. He said the combination of corrections and law enforcement brings more people to the table and more to work on the problem.

"I definitely recommend the best way to combat these guys is multi-agency. They get overwhelmed in local agencies; they don't have the expertise in gangs. They are patrol cops [and] cover everything," he said.

With gangs splitting into different factions, new rivalries beginning and increased fighting over the illegal gang businesses in communities across the country, the criminal justice community should bring the biggest group it can to the fight against gangs and STGs.

"What people don't realize is gang members are committed; it's not a social club. They are committed and they are going to continue their criminal activities regardless of whether we have a strong law enforcement influence or not. When we are not there, they are going to take advantage of that," said Marcell.

Marcell said the statistics say it all. Gang members represent the highest number of recidivators coming out and then back into the correctional system. Even a study by the National Gang Crime Research Center in 1999 foretold the problem: The percentage of male inmates who self-identified as gang members rose from 9.4 percent to 24.7 percent from 1991 to 1999. Five years later few believe that number has gone down.

"They are ever-increasing their use of weapons and their propensity for violence. You have to look at the myriad of activities and the unsolveds they get away with. Statistically it is so great .You have to look at it in a broader sense and not stereotype it. When we lose sight of that is when we start seeing the rise of violent gang activity," Marcell said.

Resources:

Marcell - 602-876-1225

Joe DeLaTorre - 559-449-1837

NMGTF - www.nmgtf.org