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Tango Blast differs from other 'security threat groups'

Not all prison gangs are created equal.Tanya Eiserer at the Dallas News had a feature yesterday ("Texas Tango Blast gang draws kids with tattoos, loose affiliation rules," Nov. 30) focusing on the rise of the Tango Blast, an alternative to hard-core prison gangs created by Texas prisoners for self-protection which has now become well established and is much larger than traditional "security threat groups" (the bureaucratic euphemism for gangs) in prison. (See prior Grits coverage.)Eiserer calls the Tangos "a violent, drug-dealing gang born in the Texas prison system," but that generalization slightly misstates what's going on, IMO - a misstatement she somewhat qualifies elsewhere in the article.This new type of prison gang came to being in the early 1990s when Hispanic inmates from Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston banded together to protect themselves against more organized prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and the Texas Syndicate...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on December 01, 2008 (boomark / email).