PRISON CRIME RINGS 'A BIG BUSINESS'

Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs Seek To Manipulate And Dominate The
Corrections System

Matthew Ramsey Vancouver Sun

Outlaw motorcycle gangs are as dangerous and disruptive in prison as they
are on the street, according to the man in charge of monitoring the
behaviour of jailed gangsters in Canada.

Luciano Bentenuto, national project manager for organized crime and
criminal gangs with the Corrections Canada intelligence unit, told
delegates Friday at the 29th Canadian Congress on Criminal Justice that
just seven per cent of offenders in jail across Canada are related to or
affiliated with organized crime rings, but that seven per cent dominates
the system in almost every way.

Criminal organizations pose a "serious threat" to the safety, efficiency
and management of correctional facilities, he said.

"It's a business -- a big business," Bentenuto said of crime rings
operating in jail, "and they want to make our business [managing
correctional facilities] their business."

Bentenuto's speech to the Vancouver gathering came on the heels of an RCMP
report on organized crime that determined the Hells Angels remain the most
powerful outlaw motorcycle gang in the country.

It also followed release of the book The Road To Hell: How the Biker Gangs
are Conquering Canada, which examines the power and influence of the Hells
Angels and looks at how gang members infiltrate legitimate business circles.

Bentenuto said that as of October 2002, 1,626 organized crime members or
affiliates were in jail in Canada and making life even more difficult for
the 22,100 other incarcerated offenders.

There are currently about 1,900 criminals in jail in B.C. but Corrections
Canada spokesman Dennis Finlay was unable to say exactly how many of them
are related to organized crime rings, but if the seven-per-cent average is
applied, there are about 133 gang members behind bars in this province.

The outlaw motorcycle gang operations in jail work in much the same way as
they do on the streets, Bentenuto explained. Members seek to establish
control of the facility through intimidation of other prisoners and staff,
infiltration of key areas, corruption of staff and manipulation of the
system so it works for them.

Bentenuto said that in one case outlaw motorcycle-gang members were able to
convince prisoners in one facility they needed and wanted a different kind
of tomato sauce for their pasta. The prison eventually agreed to the demand.

It turned out that the pasta sauce was imported by just one company in
Canada -- controlled by outlaw motorcycle gangs -- and was delivered by a
biker gang-affiliated trucking company. Bentenuto later opened 126 cans of
the new sauce and found heroin, cocaine and other drugs stuffed inside one
of them.

As a result of more organized crime members being incarcerated, Corrections
Canada has noted an increase in violence in jails, more cases of voluntary
segregation (when a prisoner asks to be removed from general population
because he fears for his safety), an increase in costs (medical bills go up
due to violence and the fact that some prisoners try and seek refuge in
prison infirmaries) and requests for leave by staff.

Gang members are also doing whatever they can to continue making money from
drugs in jail, Bentenuto said. Their tactics range from the mildly amusing
(firing arrows with packages of drugs attached to them over prison walls),
to the disturbing -- using a baby to block a security camera so the male
prisoner could take drugs from his female partner during a visit and insert
them into his rectum.

In the case of the drug-strapped arrow, a Hells Angel had been able to
acquire a gardening job at the prison. Coincidentally, the garden ringed
the prison tennis court where most of the arrows landed.

More often than not, Bentenuto said, drug couriers are usually street gang
members hoping to be adopted into the ranks of the outlaw motorcycle gangs,
or offenders who have been strong-armed into the task.

Drugs are a huge business in Canadian jails, he said. Project Spring Time
in 2001 saw Corrections Canada seize drugs worth an estimated $5.67 million
in jail prices.