Viewing Prison Through the Eyes of the Gang Leader: “Will I Ever Get Out of Here?”

• In Event: IASOC Presents: A Look at Prison Gangs throughout the US

Abstract

In 1999 Antonio Fernandez entered federal prison at the beginning of a 12 and a half-year sentence. As the leader of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation of New York Fernandez was not just another inmate in the rapidly expanding population of incarcerated individuals spread across the vast network of U.S. gulags. Rather, he was King Tone, a “dangerous other,” labeled, designated and categorized by the Department of Corrections as the chief operative and spokesperson of an STG (security threat group). In this presentation we describe and analyze the arc of special treatment of a New York street “gang” leader serving federal time for a non-violent offense at the height of the punishment age. Based on insider knowledge and first-hand experience of the correctional lens, we demonstrate the unintentional consequences of this system's encounter with “dangerous others” in the U.S.’s variegated carceral worlds.

Authors

• Antonio Fernandez, Grow Up Grow Out Inc.

• David Brotherton, The Graduate Center, CUNY