Gangs, mafia, organised groups in prisons: the formal and informal strategies of managing the “public enemy"
Two cases-study between Global North and Global South
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2076Keywords:
Organised crime, special prison regimes, mafia, gangs, desistanceAbstract
How does the label of “public enemy” influence the strategies of managing prisons? Using insights coming from on-the-field research conducted in different countries (mainly inside the prison for gangs in Triángulo Norte – El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras – and into “high security” units for mafia members in Italy), the article focuses on the forced relationship between two complex organisations, the State and its punitive apparatus on one side and the organised groups, the non-state actor, on the other. Organised groups bring inside the walls of prison their habitus, organisation, leadership, hierarchy, symbols, typical of that continuum. The special units for dangerous prisoners are becoming a transnational strategy for experimenting different forms of relationship between State and criminal organisations: recognition, degradation, desertion and the underestimated desistance.
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