The Aryan Brotherhood , also known as Brand or AB , is the white supremacy and Neo-Nazi prison gang and organized crime syndicate in the United States with about 15,000-20,000 members in and out of jail. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Aryan Brotherhood makes a very low percentage of the entire US prison population but is responsible for a large number of disproportionate prison killings.
The gang focuses on the peculiar economic activities of organized criminal entities, particularly drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution of convicts, and murder-for-hire. His white membership organizations vary from prison to prison but are generally hierarchical, led by a council of twelve people terminated by a three-person commission. The group has affiliations with the Aryan Nation, and various alliances and rivalries with other prison gangs. The Aryan Brotherhood uses various terms, symbols and images to identify themselves, including shamrocks, swastikas, and Celtic and other symbols, and members can swear blood or take a pledge.
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History
Most prisons in the United States were racially segregated until the 1960s. When prisons began to degrade, many inmates were organized along racial lines. The Aryan Brotherhood is believed to have been formed in San Quentin State Prison, but may have been inspired by the Bluebird Gang. They decided to attack blacks who formed their own militant group called the Black Guerrilla Family. In the early 1970s, the Aryan Brotherhood had links with Charles Manson and the Manson Family. Some members of the Manson Family were not imprisoned at the time, and they tried to join. However, the relationship did not last long because the Aryan Brotherhood considered Manson "too left", while the members were also offended by the murder of actress Sharon Tate who was pregnant.
In 1981, Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain were accused of killing a black inmate named Robert Chappelle in the Marion control unit. It is believed that Silverstein and Fountain choked Chappelle in her cell. Silverstein and Fountain later killed Raymond Smith, a friend of Robert Chappelle. Both men stabbed Smith 67 times. Silverstein then began planning to kill a prison guard. On October 22, 1983, a gang member from the Aryan Brotherhood killed two correctional officers at the American Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois. Silverstein killed a prison guard named Merle Clutts, stabbing him about 40 times. Hours later, Fountain also killed a prison guard named Robert Hoffman. The tactics used were developed for the killing of previous prisoners; Silverstein used an improvised handcuff knife and key when brought to the bathroom. He takes the key, then attacks and kills Merle Clutts. Fountain used a similar tactic to kill Robert Hoffman.
In the 1990s, the Aryan Brotherhood had shifted its focus from murder to racial reasons and focused on organized crime such as drug trafficking, prostitution and convicted murder. They take on organized crime power within the prison system, and they hold more power than Italian crime families in the prison system. For example, Gambino's family crime boss, John Gotti, was attacked while imprisoned in the Marion Federal Penitentiary in 1996, and he allegedly asked the Aryan Brotherhood to kill his assailant. Attacker Gotti was immediately transferred to a protective custody and retaliation planned to be abandoned.
In April 1993, members of the Aryan Brotherhood formed an impossible alliance with the Gangster Disciples of the Southern Ohio prison in Lucasville. The two groups then initiated the 11-day Lucasville Prison Violation. Both gangs carried several hostages and killed nine inmates, then killed a guard in retaliation against the state government. Ten people were killed in the riots.
Investigation and prosecution
At the end of 2002, twenty-nine gang leaders were simultaneously arrested from prisons around the country and brought to justice under the Law on Influential and Corruption Organizations (RICO). The aim is to bring the death penalty to at least 21 of them, in a manner similar to the tactics used against organized crime. This case produced 30 verdicts but none of the most powerful leaders received the death penalty. The punishment occurred in March 2006 for the three most powerful leaders of the gang, including Barry Byron Mills (born 1948) and AB "Lieutenant" Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham, charged under various crimes, including murder, conspiracy, drug trafficking and extortion and to order the killing and beatings of their cells. Bingham and Mills were convicted of murder and sent back to the US Prison Administration's Maximum Facilities Prison (ADX) Prison in Florence, Colorado where they served a life sentence without parole, escaped from the death penalty.
Penalizing the gang was difficult, as many members had already served life sentences without the possibility of parole, so prosecutors sought death penalty for 21 of those indicted but had sentenced to death on all but five defendants. In September 2006, 19 defendants who did not qualify for the death penalty have pleaded guilty. The first of a series of trials involving four high-level members ended in confidence in July 2006.
On June 23, 2005, after a 20-month investigation, a federal strike force raided six homes in northeastern Ohio belonging to the "Ordo Darah", a criminal organization controlled by the Aryan Brotherhood. Thirty-four members or associates of the Aryan Brotherhood were arrested and warrants issued for ten more.
Famous members
Barry Mills, Tyler Bingham and Thomas Silverstein were among the gang leaders. Former members include Michael Thompson and John Greschner. Thompson is a high school football star, and is part of Native Americans. Thompson was sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance of parole and would spend the rest of his life in the California prison protection section.
Maps Aryan Brotherhood
Ideology and motivation
The initial motivation for the formation of the group at San Quentin in 1964 was self-protection against the existing black prison gangs. SPLC has said that although they obviously have a white supremacy ideology, their main motivation is money, and they sometimes set aside a racist view, like allying with the Latino gang, for profit.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States, has designated the Aryan Brotherhood as "the oldest dwarf supremacy prison gang and national crime syndicate," and "the largest and most lethal prison gang in the United States." United States of America.
Daryl Johnson, leader of the Domestic Terrorist Analysis Team, whose job it is to monitor the activities of right-wing militia and domestic terrorist groups, says that white supremacist organizations in prison are "threats of radicalization", commit abusive acts inside the prison, and then in larger communities after being released. Johnson named Aryan Brotherhood, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and the Aryan Circle as examples of gangs based on white supremacist prisons that are a threat of radicalization.
In an investigation in a California prison that ended in 1989, the FBI marked the Brotherhood as a "cruel white supremacist group", and the DHS 2008 intelligence conference in Newport, Rhode Island, divides the cruel domestic extraction into three types, and concludes that the white group supremacy like the Aryan Brotherhood remains a threat and a concern.
Operation and membership
Estimates of Aryan Brotherhood membership vary from fifteen to twenty thousand members inside and outside of prison.
The Aryan Brotherhood has members in federal and state jails, and outside on the streets. All Caucasian members, and either in jail or imprisoned. Joining is difficult; new members on probation for one year, must swear by life, and commit acts of violence to join such as killing rival inmates or attacking a guard. Members were implanted with various reading materials smuggled into prisons issued by the Aryan Nation, Militia Montana, and other groups, as well as Mein Kampf, Art of War, and Prince of The Machiavelli.
The criminal activities within the prison walls include male prostitution, gambling, extortion and drug trafficking, particularly those involving methamphetamine. Outside the prison, AB was involved in every type of criminal enterprise, "including murder-to-hire, armed robbery, gun running, methamphetamine manufacturing, heroin sales, forgery and identity theft," according to SPLC.
Organization and affiliation
Organization
Having been formed in California prison in the mid-1960s, the Aryan Brotherhood had spread to most California jails in 1975. When some leaders were sent to federal prisons, they took the opportunity to begin organizing in federal prisons. This ended with the creation of two separate but related organizations, the Aryan Brotherhood of California, and the federal prison of Aryan Brotherhood. As a former top leader says, "" They are like two related but different criminal families. They each have their [rulers] commission... but they are allies. "In the late 1970s, there were fewer than 100 members, but it grew rapidly as they absorbed other racist and skinhead groups, with more than 20,000 members in federal and state prison systems.
In the early days of the group, there was a one-man, one-vote system, but this was broken with rapid expansion, and a hierarchical structure was established, led by a 12-man board, and overseen by three member commissions. Each federal and state system has its own board and commission. The organization varies somewhat, from prison to prison. For example, in the Arizona prison system, members are known as "family" and organize into "family". "Council" controls the family. Kindred can recruit other members, known as "progeny", and serve as a mentor to new recruits.
Such an internal banking or accounting system is institutionalized, allowing them to "tax" criminal activity on the streets, and collect 20% of the proceeds, money that is then laundered and controlled by the commission.
Affiliates, alliances and competition
Aryan Brotherhood is affiliated with the national hatred organization, Aryan Nations.
In 1992, the Ikhwan established links with American Mafia crimes, through boss John Gotti, who was sentenced to prison and contacted the Brotherhood for protection while he was in prison. Gotti also organized outside business partnerships between his group and the Ikhwans outside, which greatly expanded the group's strength on the streets.
Their communication and control has become so tight and efficient that they have been able to organize and direct major criminal companies outside, even from solitary confinement, which frustrates federal and state authorities.
The group has an alliance with La Eme (Mexican Mafia) as both are common enemies of the Black Guerrilla Family.
Symbology and identification
The Aryan Brotherhood uses various symbols and images to identify members, and organizations, as well as oral or written motives and vows to secure it.
Tattoos and other signs
New members are branded with tattoos, following procedures in a popular prison novel among inmates. The picture is a green shamrock (also called, "rock"), the letter AB , the number 666 . "Brand" means inmate belonging to Aryan Brotherhood.
Like most prison gangs, Aryan Brotherhood members mark themselves with a distinctive tattoo. Design usually includes the words "Aryan Brotherhood", "AB", "666", Nazi symbolism such as SS, sig runes, and swastika, as well as shamrocks and Celtic iconography.
Motto and appointments
Another way of identifying group membership is the slogan "inner blood, out blood" which symbolizes lifelong membership without leaving beyond death, and "promise", the eight-line vow that every new member should swear.
Categorization and analysis
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the gang only amounts to less than 0.1% of the prison population, but is responsible for between 18-25% of federal killings.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the Extremist Extremist Lexicon report in 2009 that defines various extremist classifications. In the last entry of the 11-page report, it destroyed the "white supremacist movement" into six categories: Neo-nazi, Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, racist skinhead, Nordic mysticism, and Aryan prison gang.
An analysis in Slate describes the classification of the Aryan prison gang as "farther outside the white supremacist stream," and describes them as largely independent of other white supremacist groups, although the lines are blurred in tandem along the time. But it also refers to them as "more flexible" than other white supremacist groups because "their criminal purpose is usually preferred over ideology."
In popular culture
TV documentary movies
- Aryan Brotherhood (National Geographic)
- The Most Deadly Prison Gang in America
- Ross Kemp on Gangs (2004-2008)
- Gangland : "Aryan Brotherhood" (Historical Channel)
- Outlaw Empire (1 episode, 2012)
- Flagged (Historical Channels, August 27, 2009)
Film
Serial TV
More
- Difficult Time (comic book: 2004-06)
See also
- Christian Identity
- Ku Klux Clans
- Nazi Lowriders
- Prison tattoo
- Public Enemy No. 1 (street alley)
- Peckerwood
- White skinhead
References
External links
- FBI files in Aryan Brotherhood
- "Allegations against the Aryan Brotherhood" - BBC News
- People v. Price (1991) 1 C4th 324
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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