Bloods street gang runs rampant inside New Jersey prisons

Bloods street gang runs rampant inside New Jersey prisons, with members smuggling in drugs and cell phones, demanding money to protect other prisoners and recruiting new members, a new report shows.The report from New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation, released Tuesday, shows the Bloods and other street gangs have a firm grip on the state's prisons, running their crime operations from inside with ease, despite stepped-up efforts to stop them."Our prison system has become a major part of the recruiting and running of violent street gangs in the streets of towns and cities all over New Jersey," said SCI chairman W. Cary Edwards. "Our population is significantly at risk because of what's going on in those prisons."Gang membership now tops one million nationwide, according to the Justice Department. And SCI spokesman Lee Seglem said that since the Bloods street gang was identified in California prisons 30 years ago, gang violence behind bars has spread like a wave across the country."There are so many in so many prisons at this point. It's getting to a situation where it is overwhelming the existing structures that are in place to control it," Seglem said. "There is no question other states are facing the same problem."Cell phones have been particularly helpful to gang leaders, allowing them to continue their operations from inside prison walls. Most cell phones can take photographs and videos that can give away prison security secrets or transmit guards' pictures to accomplices on the street.In California, a bill is pending that would increase the penalties for smuggling a cell phone into prison. And in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia, prison guards use dogs to sniff out the contraband.In Ohio, prison assaults are on the rise partly because gang members are disregarding an unofficial code among inmates by robbing others and attacking in groups.While the problem of gangs in prisons is neither new nor unique to New Jersey, it is worsening in the state, investigators said. The reasons include an explosion in the number of Bloods and other gang members in the state in the past 10 years, a severe budget crunch that is draining resources, and antiquated computer and surveillance tracking systems.New Jersey houses nearly 22,000 inmates in 14 prisons. Some 4,400 of them have been pegged as gang members.According to commission findings, gang recruitment is as active in prison as on the streets; inmates have unfettered access to money through accounts opened in the prisons; drugs and smuggled cell phones are plentiful in New Jersey prisons, and gang members extort money from families of non-members in exchange for protection.The commission credits the Corrections Department for initiating limited reforms in response to preliminary findings, but says sweeping changes are necessary to keep gang inmates from exploiting institutional weaknesses at will."Can things be improved? Of course they can be improved," said Corrections Department spokesman Matt Schuman. "But we have been pretty proactive in taking steps to try to deal with what has become a huge problem nationwide."Schuman said the state's anti-gang initiatives include a unit at Northern State Prison devoted to modifying the behavior of gang members, six cell phone-sniffing dogs that randomly patrol the prisons, and stepped up efforts to prosecute smuggling.

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