GANGS' INFLUENCE ON SOUTHCOAST GROWS

Prisons are fertile recruiting grounds

DARTMOUTH -- They grew out of the Illinois prison system in the 1940s,
a tough Latino gang formed to protect Hispanic prisoners from the
black gangs that then ruled the cell blocks. Now, a dozen suspected
Latin Kings are in the Dartmouth House of Correction and the Ash
Street Jail in New Bedford, awaiting trial after being rounded up in
Fall River and New Bedford in two recent police raids.

All are charged with various drug- and weapons-related offenses.
According to Lt. Michael Reedy, who is in charge of investigating
security threat groups in the Bristol County prison system, they are
not the first Latin Kings in the mix. "They've been around for a
while," Lt. Reedy said. "In Hampden County, they have a very big
population of the Latin Kings, and they're starting to meander down
this way," Lt. Reedy said. "One guy comes down and starts recruiting
in prison, or outside prison, and that starts the ball rolling.

It's getting to be in every city in the country, and it's getting more
noticeable now." Dr. C. Ronald Huff, who edited the book "Gangs in
America" and recently completed a $250,000 study for the National
Institute of Justice called "The Criminal Behavior of Gang Members,"
said prisons are fertile breeding grounds for gangs. "In there they've
got a lot of time to talk to each other," Dr. Huff said in a telephone
interview from Ohio State University, where he is the director of the
Criminal Justice Research Center. "It's another reason why you don't
want to take first-time minor offenders and put them in with these
hardened guys. It just makes it worse." Bristol County Sheriff Thomas
M. Hodgson formed Lt. Reedy's unit to evaluate the threats of gangs
and other security threats in his prisons. In the unit's two years of
operation, Lt. Reedy said he has seen a growing presence of gangs,
including the Latin Kings, motorcycle gangs such as the Outlaws and
Hell's Angles, white supremacy groups such as the Aryan Brotherhood,
and a plethora of small neighborhood gangs. Lt. Reedy said two of the
people brought in after the two raids acknowledged membership in the
Latin Kings, while two others sported the gang's five-point crown
tattoos but denied involvement. "They know if they admit to being in a
gang and they go (to state prison) then they'll go into the gang
blocks, and that will eliminate certain privileges." Gang blocks --
prison cell groups dedicated to specific gangs -- are common in state
prisons, and are designed to keep gang members from recruiting other
prisoners. There is no gang block in the Dartmouth House of
Correction, although Lt. Reedy said he would not rule it out in the
future. Right now, gang members are logged into a database, and known
members are kept away from rival gangs to avoid trouble. Prisoners
found recruiting for gangs or with gang paraphernalia are locked down,
and get disciplinary reports on their record that often mean more time
in jail. In the recent New Bedford raid, police said most of the
people arrested were born and raised in the area. This is how the
Latin Kings, and other gangs across the country, generally operate,
Dr. Huff said. "When you see people show up in your area, like the
Crips, the Bloods and the Latin Kings, people assume they're some

highly organized national gangs, but that's usually not true. There's
usually some kind of a personal connection," Dr. Huff said. Dr. Huff
said drugs follow major transportation routes, and gangs follow drugs.
Finding recruits for the gangs is not difficult, he said. "Kids from
New Bedford go to concerts in Providence or Boston, they watch MTV,
they watch movies that glorify gangs -- there are gangs everywhere,"
Dr. Huff said. "People in the community need to understand this is not
just outside people. Your own kids are at risk. And we're seeing kids
not only from the inner-city underclass, but from the suburbs, who are
pretty easy to recruit because of the glamour associated with gangs."