But the county jails are catching up. Recently, they started sharing information with the CDC, which has led to many high-profile gang members being placed in segregation when they are housed in the county jails. “I went back on a writ and they put me in high power—max security—and when I asked them why, they said because the CDC called down and told them I was a threat to the orderly running of their jail,” Trouble tells me. “But it was all good. I still got visits. And the homies that weren’t behind the glass looked out, so I was straight.”
Illicit drugs in jails and prisons aren’t anything new—it’s a battle prison administrators have been fighting pretty much forever. The amount of drugs flowing into local jails is just another example of the problems the CDC is facing as a result of the decades-long expansion of the state prison system. By swallowing balloons of heroin, meth, and cocaine, or using a method called keistering—which involves stuffing packaged drugs into the anal cavity—prison inmates can sneak contraband through strip searches. Once inside the jail, they can retrieve the drugs and sell them quickly. Then the money from the sale of the drugs is funneled back out to the real world and diverted to the accounts of the gang leaders, most of whom are doing life at Pelican Bay.
“The Eme, AB, BGF, NF—these are the big four Cali organizations,” Trouble says. “But my gang and the Bloods are doing things like this also. The Nazi Low Riders, everybody is getting in on the action. It’s a free-for-all. Once the drugs are in they use a deputy to smuggle the money out. You would be surprised how much cash people have in these county jails. But if it’s not a cash transaction, they do it just like they do in prison. They get their people on the street to send money for the drugs.”
If you buy drugs in prison, the dealer will give you an address and tell you to send the money there. You call your people or see them in a visit and make sure the money arrives, because if it doesn’t, consequences will arise. “Don’t fuck around with the gang’s money,” Trouble says. “That can get you fucked up, seriously. When it comes to money, muthafuckas ain’t playing. Not in these streets and not in these jails. Muthafuckas can get green lighted [marked for murder] for that.”
With gang leaders sending out the call for their members to violate the terms of their parole and get re-incarcerated in the local county lockups, drug use will continue to rise in California jails. After all, in prison, drugs mean money and power—and that’s what the gang leaders crave more than anything else.
*This piece originally appeared on VICE.
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Article Appeared @http://www.gorillaconvict.com/2016/09/gangs-rule-california-prisons/