Colorado
 D.O.C. –
23 years 1991-2014 (retired)
• Limon Correctional Facility – 17 years
 Officer - Security, Housing, Transport,
 Sergeant - Visiting, Housing, Back-Up Intelligence
Officer
 Lieutenant – Housing, Security, Intelligence Officer
 Intelligence Officer 10 years 1998-2008 (at Limon)
 Private Prisons Monitoring Unit – 2008-2014
 Intelligence Officer
 Contract Monitor
 Basic
D.O.C. Command Structure
• Ranks / Uniforms
 Politics
for Staff
 Staffing Patterns
 Politics for Offenders
 Staff / Offender Relations
 Gangs
 Staff
Ranking System and Uniforms
 Blue Shirt
• Officer
Ranks
• Sergeant
• Lieutenant
• Specialist
(Housing, Security, Transport, Mail
Room) – CO 1
(Housing, Security, Transport,
Mail Room, Recreation, Visiting)
CO 2
(Housing, Security, Recreation.
Specialist) CO 3
(Intelligence, Training, Locksmith,
Armory, Administration, Hearings
etc.) CO 3
 Blue
Shirt Ranks (continued)
• Captain
(Housing – Cell House Supervisor,
Security – Shift Commander
Case Management Supervisor)
CO 4
• Major
(Usually just one per facility for
both housing and security) CO 5
 Command
• Managers
Staff Ranks
(Rank of Major. Education,
Maintenance, Industries)
• Associate Warden
• Warden
• Associate Director (Headquarters)
• Director
(Headquarters)
• Executive Director (Figure Head – changes
every 4-8 years)
 Other
Ranks
• Case Managers
• Kitchen
• Maintenance
• Academics
• Medical
Civilian clothing - Lieutenant
White shirts – Sergeants or
Lieutenants
Brown shirts – Sergeants,
Lieutenants, or Captains
Civilian clothes – Teachers
Physician Assistants, Nurses,
Dentists, etc.
 Housing
and Security
• Are terms that are interchangeable with
 Custody
and Control
 Extra Curricular Activities / Teams
• Not full time job assignment
 Teams
• Each facility has its own Emergency Response
Team (low lethal)
 Immediate response, forced cell entries, response to
neighboring facilities
• The S.O.R.T. – Team is the state wide team with
members in each facility (authorized lethal)
• Each facility also has its own Escape/Tracking
team
 Ranks
are similar with most companies
 Corrections
Corporation of America –
C.C.A. (largest private prison company
in Colorado)
 Officer, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Chief,
Associate Warden, Warden
 Politics
for Staff
 “Politics” are
an extreme factor in
Colorado D.O.C. for Offenders and Staff
 There
are many “cliques” within D.O.C.
 Some small and only at particular facility
 Some very large and multi facility strong
 Behavior very much like “GANGS”
 Manipulation
of the promotional system and
personnel rules
 Favoritism
 “Hit Lists” – identification and elimination of
“undesirables”
 Members of all ranks from top to bottom
 Promotion to specialist positions or very
high ranks of incompetent but “well
connected” staff members
 Undesirables being “set up” and “ran off”
 Using
young and newer “recruits” to do
dirty work
 Using the office of inspector general
(O.I.G.) to investigate trumped up
personnel charges (internal
investigations)
 Unattainable code of conduct
 Young recruits willing to cross the line to
help out the “Clique” will be rewarded
with unearned promotions.
 Falk
Nation
 S.O.R.T. Brotherhood
 Staffing
Patterns
 D.O.C. regulations, post
incident
inquisitions, and court orders have
dictated minimum staffing patterns for
facilities.
 These required patterns are often not
met, but reported on paper as being met.
 “Statistics do not lie, statisticians do”
(unk)
 Do
not accept “Schedules” as proof of
who was there. Schedules are just well
intentioned plans
 The facility sign in/sign out roster (or
computer) is the best indicator of who
was inside of the facility at any given
time; but NOT where exactly they were
inside of the facility
• Just because a kitchen worker was inside of the
facility, does not mean he/she was in the kitchen.
 Daily
logs, particularly the shift
commander daily logs (3 per day). Will
indicate which “scheduled” posts were
not covered, covered by an unscheduled
person, and gaps in coverage.
 Required posts are sometimes “filled” at
beginning of shift for “proof on paper”;
but then “Collapsed” later in the shift to
conduct other duties. This is often not
documented anywhere.
 One
on One interviews with particular
staff members will sometimes be the only
means to prove that an employee was in
the facility, but not in “required” location
due to:
 Post collapsed
 Sent to another area for legitimate business
 In a meeting
 Etc.
 Private
Prisons
• In reference to staffing patterns and pretty much
all other regulations; the Privates are usually
held to a much higher standard than the state
facilities.
 Privates are monitored, states are not.
 The contracts between the state and the privates are
extremely detailed and re-negotiated each year.
 Privates are charged monthly with “Liquidated Damages”
(fines) for not following the contract. There are no built in
disciplinary measures for state facilities not following the
regulations.
 Politics
for Offenders
 The
politics that an offender must deal with
are extremely deep and multi faceted
 Prison Yard Politics are based upon a
mixture of numerous pieces of information
including
• Gang association, race, geography (where from,
where last lived), current crime, criminal history,
personality, character traits, physical appearance,
mental aptitude, skills, financial ability, attitude, etc.
 An
offenders “place” in the prison
hierarchy is constantly at risk and can
change day by day.
 If an offender gets a “jacket” thrown on
him, his whole life changes and he must
defend his character or accept that he is
now at risk 24-7.
• Rat Jacket
• SO Jacket
• Cho-Mo Jacket
(Told on Someone)
(Sex Offender)
(Child Molester)
 If
an offender now has a “Jacket”; not only
is he at risk of being assaulted, being
forced to “Pay Rent”, being shunned,
being forced to “Check-In”, etc.
 But depending on the circumstances of
his “Jacket”, he also may be on a “Hit
List” from one of the gangs; meaning
members MUST seriously assault, stab,
kill him on sight.
 Offenders
sometimes get False Jackets
thrown on them because they were seen
talking friendly with a staff member, or
another offender lied about them, or
because a situation was taken out of context.
• An offender, prior to going to prison, called the
police when his car was stole from in front of his
house. 10 years later, now in prison he has a “Rat
Jacket”.
• An offender charged with statutory rape, even
though he and the victim are now in late 20’s and
married, has a “Cho-Mo jacket” and/or “SO Jacket”
 Staff
/ Offender Relations
 New
staff are taught in the academy that
offenders are extremely manipulative
and criminal minded; so much so that
even a short conversation with them can
cause a new hire to ruin their career by
turning “dirty”
 Staff are told that only a small portion of
them will be left in a few years; the rest
will be fired and or in jail.
 Some
staff are “Dirty” and/or become
“Dirty”
• Love Affairs
• Friends
• Common Interests
 Being friendly or having common interests does not
make a staff member “Dirty”; but it can cause other
staff to start spreading rumors, shun that staff member
in question, isolate, and basically push that staff
member towards being “dirty”
A
staff member becomes “Dirty” when
he/she starts doing “Favors” for a
particular offender such as:
• Sharing confidential information
• Allowing contraband, preferential searches
• Gives preferential treatment like extra anything
or single cell before his turn, etc.
• Sharing items like food, snacks, candy
A
staff member becomes “Criminally
Dirty” if he/she:
• Puts another offenders’ life in danger by sharing
information about confidential informants,
location of offenders being “hidden”, etc.
• Gives/receives/sends personal letters and notes
to and from each other.
• Introduces contraband
• Has sexual relations with offender
 Staff
are taught that the minor “gateway”
behaviors will ALWAYS lead to the
criminal behavior because once the
offender gets a staff member to break the
little rules, then he owns them and will
start demanding the illegal stuff.
• Not the case most of the time
• But many new staff are so afraid of this, they will
rarely speak to an offender as a human. Strictly
icy cold business.
 Most
of the staff I have seen that had a
“Favorite” offender; did break the rules
and was unprofessional, but never
crossed the line to illegal. The offender
was happy to just be treated like a person
and get the little extras he did; but
respected the “Friendship” enough to
never ask for anything illegal.
 That
being said, there are still many “Dirty”
staff.
 Every facility has several ongoing
investigations into “dirty” staff members, at
any given time.
• Some are caught right away, and some can continue
for months and even years.
 “Dirty” staff
can be from any work group.
• Officers of all ranks, kitchen, medical, maintenance,
academics, programs, industries, etc.
 For the most part:
• Offenders are afraid to be friendly with staff for
fear of getting a “Rat Jacket”
• Staff are afraid to be friendly with offenders in
fear of getting manipulated
• Mature staff members get past this, as do the
Mature offenders. There are many professional
working relationships between
Sergeants/Lieutenants and offenders who have
been in the system for 10-15 years.
 Gangs
 D.O.C. refers
to “Gangs” as Security
Threat Groups or S.T.G.
 Offenders are identified using a “point
system” based upon “indicators”
 Indicators include
• Admission, Previous Law Enforcement or Court
Identification, Possession of STG Material,
Tattoos, Monikers, Known Associates,
Participating in STG Activity, Etc.
 Based
upon the “Points”; offenders can
be identified for STG involvement at
different levels, including:
• Member
• Suspect
• Associate
• Defector
 Security Threat

Group
A group of three or more individuals with a
common interest and/or activity characterized by
criminal or delinquent conduct, engaged in either
collectively or individually.
 Disruptive
Group
• Any group of people that are causing disorder
• Examples:




Narcotic Rings
Weapon makers/sellers
Extremely violent or militant
Groups or individuals prone to facilitating disturbance or
escape
 Of
those offenders identified, the racial
breakdown is approximately:
• 40%
• 30%
• 25%
• 5%
Hispanic
White
Black
Other (Asian, Native American, Etc.)
 Based on 2013 data
 Gangs
represented in Colorado include:
• Street Gangs
• Prison Gangs
• Motorcycle Gangs
• Extremists Groups
• Disruptive Groups
 Depending
on the facility, anywhere from
25% to 60% of the facility population will
be identified as “S.T.G.”
 Normally, the
higher the security level,
the higher the S.T.G. percentage.
 White
Gangs
 White
S.T.G.
• 2-11 Crew
• Aryan Syndicate
• Aryan Brotherhood / Aryan Nation
• Aryan Nazi Party (A.N.P.)
• White Aryan Socialist Party (W.A.S.P.)
• White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.)
• Aryan Resurgence Society (A.R.S.)
 White
S.T.G.
• Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.)
• Skin Heads
• Pecker Woods
• Wood Pile
 Motorcycle
Gangs
 Motorcycle
Gangs
• Hells Angels
• Prison Motorcycle Brotherhood
• Sons of Silence
• Bandidos
• Outlaws
• Pagans
• Mongols
• Sin City Deciples
 Hispanic
Gangs
 Hispanic
STG
• Sureno-13 / Mexican Mafia affiliated
 18th Street California
 18th Street Greeley
 Los Carnales- East Side Dukes – Pueblo
 Young Crowd – Pueblo
 Juaritos
 Paisa
 Border Brothers
 Hispanic
STG
• Norteno / Nuestra Familia affiliated
 Northern Structure
 Northern United Kings – Greeley
 Texas Syndicate
 Fresno Bulldogs
 Latin Aces – Pueblo
 Gallant Knights Insane (G.K.I.)
 North Side Mafia (N.S.M.)
 Varrio North Town (V.N.T.)
 Hispanic
STG
• Norteno / Nuestra Familia affiliated
 Warlords
 Untouchable Assassins (U.T.A.)
 Los Primer Padres (L.P.P.)
 Azteca
 Huds
 Westwood Huds
 A.K. Huds
 187 Anybody Killers
 Hispanic
STG
• Not affiliated with North or South
 Inca Boys (enemy of GKI)
 East Side Gangsters / Oldies 13 (Denver)
 Puro Chicano Locos
 Chici-30’s (North Denver)
 Duce Seven (27) CMG Bloods
 Hispanic sub-set of the Crenshaw Mafia Gangster Bloods
 Varrio Grande Varrio (V.G.V.)
 Tre Duce (32) Clique / Tre Dog Clique
 Asian
Gangs
 Asian
STG
• Asian Pride
• Asian Boyz / Asian Boy Crips
• Viet Nam Pride
• Oriental Lazy Boys / Ruthless Boys
• Hong Kong Triads (China)
 Black
Gangs
 Black
•
•
•
•
•
STG
Blood
Crip
Folk
Chicago Oriented
People
Chicago Oriented
Black Guerilla Family (Prison Gang)
 Black
STG
• Folk
• Right Side
• 6 Pointed Star
 Crips (some)
 Gangster Disciples – Growth and Development
 Black Disciples
 Black
STG
• People
• Left Side
• 5 Pointed Star
 Bloods – (some)
 Black Peace Stone
 There
are many Hispanic and some White
gangs that also fall under the Folk Nation
and People Nation
 Not prominent in Colorado
 Disruptive
Groups
 Disruptive
Groups
• Drugs
• Dangerous / Disruptive
• Escape
• Weapons
 Questions??
 Thank You
 Timothy
Smelser