The subculture found in prisons consists of the inmate who shares rigid beliefs and customs. These inmates form gangs who share the same race, geographical locations, political and religious inclinations. Their membership consists of leaders, staunch members, and marginal members. The leadership and staunch members make up only 20-25% of the total membership. Simultaneously, the inclusion of non-membership is crucial to aid in attaining narcotics, drugs, and contraband ( Mitchell et al., 2020) . Prison gangs are mostly comprised of males, while females are rarely members of any group. Any group's growth is achieved by recruiting street gangs to affiliate with prison gangs, the addition of transferred inmates, and threatening other inmates. When the gang incorporates their beliefs, an institution is formed, which can also be referred to as a subculture. Some roles are played by the gangs in any United State's prisons (Mitchell et al., 2020). Some of the roles include prisonization. Prisonization involves making new inmates adapt to a particular prison's way of life. The dominant gang will try to lure or threaten new inmates to adapt to the prison's subculture. The gang will help new members to learn the statuses, roles, and consequences of any actions. Also, the gang is responsible for making new inmates learn the prison code ( Mitchell et al., 2020) . The prison code is the norms and the expected behaviors from the inmates. Since the prison rules are alike in all US prisons, it acts as an endorsed rulebook to all inmates ( Mitchell et al., 2020) . The codes run parallel to outside's expectations since the inmates rely on each other's loyalty and distrust of the staff. For instance, an inmate who has killed a police officer would be viewed with contempt by the community but with other inmates' great respect. Therefore, the prison gang has to revive the code and prison argot in their subculture to all new inmates.
The evolvement of prison subculture and its gangs is inevitable. Evolvement is attributed to the growth of the gang in terms of increased population and society changes. For instance, recruitment of new inmates and inmates' transfer to other prisons is the major factor to the gang's growth. Change in education, religion, and family units has been credited to be the largest factors that have led to prison gangs' evolution ( Mitchell et al., 2020 . One of the renowned prison gangs called the Mexican Mafia led to its strength and spread when members were transferred to other prisons, where they involved themselves in gambling, debt collections, and narcotics deals ( Mitchell et al., 2020) . The involvement in all social, economic, and political decisions made the group evolve in all community setups. The evolution of prison gangs can be attributed to the emergence of other subcultures that have become popular in prison. The first type of subculture includes the deprived model ( Zhao et al., 2020) . This model describes the adaption of the prison environment concerning its troubles. The inmates are deprived of basic human expectations such as goods and services, liberty, sexual relationships, security, and autonomy. These troubles are inflicted on the prisoners to control the population as they learn how to enforce prison rules. As the staff depends on the gangs to maintain peace and order, another institutional subculture arises. The importation model contributes to another subculture. For instance, Lai (2019) a rgues that a prisoner has a primary coping mechanism, which helps them cope in prison. The inmates might have a first-hand experience of what happens in prison since the outside society has some ideologies that imitate the prison setup ( Zhao et al., 2020) . The outside society might connect with the prison gangs; hence a new inmate might have experienced the subculture while outside. The last type of subculture is the integrated culture. The integrated subculture combines the deprived and importation culture to allow visitation from families and coping behaviors ( Lai, 2019) . The researchers can use the integrated culture to explain why some inmates respond differently to the prison culture. The three models explain the evolution of inmate's subculture adequately while giving more insights into why inmates get involved in prison gangs.
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Since prison gang controls all narcotic deals in prison, we can use their culture to explain how they bring drugs into a prison. Their leaders establish a rapport with the prison warden to maintain a conducive environment for their drug deals. The gang connects with the outside authorities to procure drugs and robbery through initiation into directive seats in the community ( Bucerius & Haggerty, 2019) . When some of its members are incorporated into decision-making committees, they can control the selling of drugs. Therefore, the gangs can obtain drugs through their chain of command from the prison to the outside society. Also, their relatives can bring them drugs while visiting. According to Bucerius and Haggerty (2019), many visitors who have been frisked during prison visitation have been found with prohibited drugs and other stuff. In rare cases, a corrupted prison warden can access drugs from the outside at a ramson reward. As prison warden, we must enhance the prison culture to promote peace and security. Therefore, management of the gang is inevitable. As a warden, the most effective way to curb the entry of drugs in prison is through disintegrating the known gags. Known gang leaders can be separated from other prisoners and kept in separate rooms. Also, I can suggest the transfer of gang leaders to other states to weaken the group left by the leader. The transfers interrupt the gang's activities such as drug dealing and recruitment.
Most prisoners are creative, and they can improvise ways to make weapons to defend themselves from brutal gangs in prison. One of the prison weapons found with many inmates is the shank. According to Gibson (2017), a shank is a plastic or a metallic object used as a knife. It can be formed from scrap metals, utensils, and toothbrushes. However, the inmates have to attach blades and other sharp objects to these crap metals, tighten the blade and use it to attack their enemies. Gibson (2017) s ays that the blades can be sharpened on the walls or concrete floors. An inmate will also add a handle on the scrap and tighten it with a piece of cloth. The most popular gang conversant with the weapon was the Mexican Mafia gang ( Gibson, 2017) . The member could hold in the palm since the handle is always small and make the blade protrude between their fingers. At a distance, the posture of the fist should look harmless, although it was lethal. The shank can be sued to attack the prison warden, other inmates and can also be used to cut wood while escaping prison.
References
Bucerius, S. M., & Haggerty, K. D. (2019). Fentanyl behind bars: The implications of synthetic opiates for prisoners and correctional officers. International Journal of Drug Policy , 71 , 133-138 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.05.018 .
Gibson, C. (2017). Contraband, Including Weapons. The Encyclopedia of Corrections , 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118845387.wbeoc101 .
Lai, Y. L. (2019). Determinants of Importation and Deprivation Models on Committed Juvenile Offenders’ Violent Misconduct: A Taiwanese Perspective. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology , 63 (8), 1242-1264 https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X18815991 .
Mitchell, M. M., Pyrooz, D. C., & Decker, S. H. (2020). Culture in prison, culture on the street: The convergence between the convict code and the street code. Journal of Crime and Justice , 1-20. https://dpi.org/10.1080/0735648X.1772851 .
Zhao, Y., Messner, S. F., & Liu, J. (2020). The influence of importation and deprivation factors on prison adaptation: Insights from Chinese prisons. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice , 63 , 100425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2020.100425 .
