In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court strongly criticized the California's use of segregation of gang members in prison. It used to be that you were housed in solitary if you refused to assert your gang affiliation, or worse, the prison officials would assume that you were with a specific gang improperly and house you there anyways.
The very first "gang" to ever appear in the sate system was the Mexican Mafia (La EME) which was created in the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy in the late 1950s.
Innocence Database Searchable database of all exonerations since 1973--allows you to search and sort for cases by year, state, race, and other variables.
I am so glad I met Dr. Annamaria. She works without ceasing to help bring light to darkness by exposing Truth in regards to our Criminal Justice system and the people lost therein.
One year ago this month the ACLU published a report titled, “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration.”
We as a society should be concerned about the rise of the multi-billion-dollar private prison industry that unquestionably profits from mass incarceration.
The imprisonment of human beings at record levels is both a moral failure and an economic one — especially at a time when more and more Americans are struggling to make ends meet and when state governments confront enormous fiscal crises.
As you know, I spent 10 years in prison on drug charges in California, with 4 years in solitary confinement, before turning that research into books as an author. I got a great review for my 6th book Underdog but the kind lady didn't agree that money was a big part of the mass incarceration problem. I would love for her to read this post. Check it out.
A Review of Glenn Langohr’s “Underdog”. Wow! I am blessed to have met and work with David Bitco. His site, deafinprison, is a humanitarian effort to give a voice to the voiceless. Through his tireless research, he shines a spotlight on the inside of our criminal justice system to reveal its sometimes gruesome and torturous activities. Please check it out for yourself and take the time to sign the cause he champions for Felix. A prisoner who shouldn’t be in prison, who needs more angels like David, to bring him out of captivity and give him justice.
Books by Glenn Langohr. Books by Glenn Langohr. The Circle of Hope and Lost In The System Give a Voice For The Voiceless! I am blessed to meet them. Together, we strive to break chains and forge ties.
Are We Breeding Bigger Criminals by Locking Up Drug Addicts? By Glenn Langohr, Author of Lock Up Diaries. In all of Glenn Langohr’s drug war and prison books he points out that the justice system is breeding bigger criminals by locking up low level offenders ( drug addicts and people in poverty ). To check out Lock Up Diaries in audio book go here- http://tinyurl.com/lockupdiaries
Glenn Langohr ran away from a broken home with a death wish and entered the drug war with abandon. Business with the Mexican Mafia and Hell’s Angels became a way of life until the Criminal Justice system interrupted him with Organized Crime charges. In prison he was involved in riots and spent years in the hole. From solitary confinement he started writing and hasn’t stopped since. Now, he is an usher at his church and loves to reach out to other prisoners to help them turn their lives around. He speaks as a guest Lecturer at Criminal Justice colleges and writes articles for newspapers. “I want to show the world and the students and leaders of tomorrow, that we are only building bigger criminals by locking up low level offenders, where in prison, an addiction is bred into an affliction much harder to escape.”
The author will gift his books FREE from the Kindle store to those who can’t afford it. Glenn Langohr rollcallthebook@gmail.com lockdownpubishing.com
Glenn Langohr’s Prison Book: Lock Up Diaries, is Available in Print, Kindle and Audio Book. Newly released in print for $6.99, audio book for $6.97, the kindle version is still $2.99.
Glenn Langohr spent 10 years inside the most violent prisons in California on drug charges. Lock Up Diaries is a depiction of life inside prison and a look at the political landscape between races and gangs. The Mexican Mafia, drug cartels, Aryan Brotherhood and the black gangs all collide. The amazing details of prison life – code words that prisoners use, explanations of how they communicate from cell to cell – really make you feel you have entered a different world, or like you are watching a movie about prison life. The story shows how race riots that can kill prisoners can be started for very small and seemingly unimportant reasons, and how violence permeates every aspect of prison life. In Lock Up Diaries, a drug debt is on the verge of sparking a gang war.
Glenn Langohr ran away from a broken home with a death wish and entered the drug war with abandon. Business with the Mexican Mafia and Hell’s Angels became a way of life until the Criminal Justice system interrupted him with Organized Crime charges. In prison he was involved in riots and spent years in the hole. From solitary confinement he started writing and hasn’t stopped since. Now, he is an usher at his church and loves to reach out to other prisoners to help them turn their lives around. He speaks as a guest Lecturer at Criminal Justice colleges and writes articles for newspapers. ”I want to show the world and the students and leaders of tomorrow, that we are only building bigger criminals by locking up low level offenders, where in prison, an addiction is bred into an affliction much harder to escape.”
All True Crime Books by the Author are available in the Kindle Store and include:
Roll Call Book 1 & Upon Release From Prison ( Roll Call Book 2 )
Race Riots – Prison Killers- Book 1, Gladiator – Prison Killers- Book 3, Underdog- Prison Killers- Book 4 & Prison Riot, A True Story of Surviving a Gang War in Prison- Book 5
It’s B.J. fighting for his life again in the wretched California prison system.
In his latest novel, “Underdog,” Glenn Langohr takes B.J. back into the dreaded Supermax at Pelican Bay, California’s toughest prison. At first he’s just fighting to survive, hopelessly outnumbered by Mexican and black gang members, but then he goes back to try and help his friend, still inside, ferociously battling to change the penal system.
And ex-con Langohr can describe the hell of life inside better than any other writer. His vivid passages on just surviving in prison describe a nightmare we’d rather not know about.
He compares the plight of abandoned dogs, locked and horribly mistreated in rows of cages in animal shelters, to California prison inmates, locked and abused in the same cages.
Not a book for the faint of heart. We who sleep peacefully in our beds at night, unaware of the savagery going on behind prison walls, can only thankfully say: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” John South, American Media
Realignment in California Prisons Should Be More Than Just Moving Bodies Around by Glenn Langohr ( Former Prisoner now author/speaker )
The prison yard is stacked with prisoners bursting at the seams like a slow moving tsunami. A gun tower guard stands holding a block gun 30 feet in the air watching the exercise bars below. A couple of Mexican prisoners aren’t working out. They’re facing the gym and using their fingers to sign words into sentences that could spell violence to inmates inside the gym 10 feet away. I walk by on the cement track that circles the yard, in pain with a limp from a pinched sciatic nerve, and look inside the gym through bullet proof glass. On the other side of the glass, it’s stacked with 150 prisoners and is just a little larger than the size of a basketball court. A handful of prisoners stand naked other than white boxer shorts and shoes studying the yard. Further inside, inmates are stacked on triple bunks like sardines. I silently thank God again that I’m not in there where the inmates are left in charge of figuring out who can use 8 toilets and 6 showers. When they’re not doing that, they’re busy trying to establish rules and regulations to keep respect in tact amidst so much noisy warring chaos. With so much pressure and the constant threat of violence, inmates sleep with their state boots on. During the day, another way they try to maintain the perception of respect, is by blasting ink into gangland tattoos and another identity far away from home.
Even though the yard I’m on is a level 4 California prison next to the border of Mexico, the prison administrators are still trying to find inmates to stick in the overcrowded gym. The inmates serving life sentences are safe and are excluded at this prison so far and make up about 20% of the inmate population. After that, most of the prisoners serving 20 years or more are pretty safe, so far. From there, prisoners who had been involved in surviving a number of riots and other violence in rule violations used to be safe. Not anymore. Up to this point I had been in solitary confinement for a couple of prison riots, 3 mutual combats and a couple of other investigations. On my last trip to solitary the prison administrators had written in my file that I wasn’t to be housed in a gym or dorm environment. It didn’t matter. With the overcrowding, I was still on deck to get housed in the gym. I knew because prison guard Security Escort Heart warned me. My cell mate Scott had just been transferred to the gym yesterday. He was a 19 year old surfer looking kid without a tattoo on him. He was doing his time for a prison sentence related to his heroin drug habit.
Walking the track full circle I saw Security Escort Heart in front of the gym. He was shooing away the Mexican inmates on the yard still communicating with their fingers to inmates inside the gym. He walked my way and noticed me. “Inmate Langohr your back looks bad. You probably have a herniated disk from all the burpies you used to do.”
Heart’s face looked authentic, like he cared. I said, “Every time I go to the hospital all they give me is aspirin.”
Heart shook his head and said, “You’re supposed to get better medical attention with the Supreme Court ruling and this realignment. Do you think moving prisoners to the county jails is going to fix anything?”
Now I was shaking my head. “You know just moving bodies around isn’t a solution. The solution to start with is to stop sending people to prison for drug and poverty crimes. This is what we get for warehousing a bunch of drug addicts. We’re breeding an addiction into an affliction much harder to escape and spitting out tattooed displaced souls back onto the streets.”
I limped passed Heart and saw Scott in the gym. He was standing on the other side of the bullet proof window with a fresh tattoo on his chest. I nodded to him and thought about his mom he often wrote. Her name was Sally and I wondered if Sally the soccer mom realized her son was now a skin head.
