Dangerous Convictions for PDF - ADL

Dangerous
Convictions:
AN INTRODUCTION TO EXTREMIST ACTIVITIES IN PRISONS
for dispersed gang members. Many prison gangs use visits from outsiders to
help maintain contacts between separated gang members. Others turn to
publishing homemade newsletters or ’zines, a practice which can also be used
as a recruiting tool as well as a way to maintain solidarity. Additionally,
newsletters and ’zines also provide convicts, who are often stripped of all
forms of social identification, with a sense of community. Gang members can
read about other inmates’ problems with corrections authorities, find addresses
of like-minded free-world groups supportive of inmates, or even submit artwork
and articles. Newsletters serve to draw new members and reinforce the
gang’s ideology. These publications are circulated in prison systems and the
free world, and help to establish and maintain a gang’s existence.
One Michigan prison gang, for example, the United Brotherhood Kindred
Alliance, uses their ’zine, Strife, to further goals of creating an organization
under which all white supremacist gangs could come together to “concentrate
on the survival of our Folk.” Like most prison ’zines, Strife comes under the
scrutiny of Michigan corrections officials, who have the power to restrict literature
that may in some way pose a security threat. As a result, Strife not only
avoids making explicit calls to violence, but also asks those submitting articles
to “refrain from using ethnic/racial slurs and insults. If your article will put
us on the Restricted Pub[lications] list in the Gulags, WE WILL NOT
PRINT IT.” In fact, Strife claims to promote “love, unity and pride…not the
attacking of other groups and races.”
However, the contents of the ’zine belies its claims of love and harmony. The
24-page inaugural issue of Strife, published in late 2000, bears the logo of
World Church of the Creator, an Illinois-based virulently white supremacist
and anti-Semitic organization led by Matt Hale that promotes the pseudotheology
of “Creativity.” Inside, articles focus on racial superiority—including
a tribute to Robert Matthews, the deceased leader of the 1980s white
supremacist terrorist group The Order—as well as a fictional story about a
white child suffering because her mother is engaged in an interracial relationship.
A pro-Hitler article entitled “Far from Evil” winds up the ’zine. The
issue also provides readers with contact information for various prominent
white supremacist organizations, including Central New York White Pride, 14
Words Press and the National Alliance.
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