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The Social Order of the Underworld
“David Skarbek’s The Social Order of the Underworld can be read with
great profit on each of three levels: it is an engrossing ethnography of
American prison life; it is a penetrating economic analysis of the orga-
nization of the drug trade; and it offers an innovative theory of how an
effective governing institution can originate in the wild and exert legit-
imate domination over its subjects. This book is a stunning achievement
that makes me proud to be a social scientist.”—David D. Laitin, Watkins
Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

“Meticulously researched and convincingly argued. Skarbek’s book

is an outstanding addition to our understanding of self-governance,
its ubiquity, and effectiveness.”—Peter T. Leeson, George Mason
University, and author of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of
Pirates

“Skarbek’s study of California prison gangs offers delightfully fresh

perspective on the relationship between underworld’s informal insti-
tutions. He argues that gangs evolved as substitutes for another set of
informal rules, i.e., systems of criminal codes. The rules constantly
evolve to lower transaction costs and often stabilize interactions and
reduce chaotic violence unrelated to business enforcement. This is
a first rate and novel take on the structure of organized criminal
enterprises.”—Marek Kaminski, University of California, Irvine, and
author of Games Prisoners Play
 The Social
Order of the
Underworld
How Prison Gangs Govern
the American Penal System
z
DAVID SKARBEK

1
 1
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Skarbek, David.
The social order of the underworld : how prison gangs govern the
American penal system / David Skarbek.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-932849-9 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-19-932850-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Prison gangs—United States. 2. Prison administration—United States.
3. Prison violence—United States. 4. Prisoners—United States. I. Title.
HV6439.U5S557 2014
365'.6—dc23
2013041577

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Emily
 Contents

Acknowledgments xi

1. Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 1

Men’s Central Jail 13

2. The Convict Code 17

Death Row 43

3. The Rise of Prison Gangs 47

My Brother’s Keeper 73

4. Governance in the Society of Captives 75

Background Check 105

5. The Internal Organization of Prison Gangs 109

MacArthur Park 129

6. How Prison Gangs Govern the Outside 131

Puppet 151

7. What Works? 155

Endnotes 169
References 193
Index 217
 Acknowledgments

i’ve been extremely fortunate to have the encouragement and guidance

of outstanding colleagues during the process of writing this book, and I am
especially grateful to everyone who commented on drafts of the manuscript.
I owe thanks to Lee Benham, Stewart Dompe, Brendan Dooley, Philip
Goodman, William Keech, Gary Libecap, Benjamin Powell, Mary Shirley,
and Edward Stringham for providing suggestions on individual chapters.
Several people generously provided comments on the entire manuscript—
many thanks to Paolo Campana, Paul Dudenhefer, Mark Kleiman, Peter
Leeson, Adam Martin, John Meadowcroft, Darrell Padgett, Jason Sexton,
Daniel Skarbek, and Kristen Skarbek. Michael Munger’s detailed comments
at an early stage of the project were tremendously helpful. Peter Boettke
encouraged my academic interest in self-governance, and he has been a
constant source of intellectual guidance and inspiration. Peter Leeson’s
research on self-enforcing exchange and criminal organization laid much of
the foundation for this work. I am especially grateful for the extensive com-
ments that he has provided to me on this and other projects. Paul Orozco
deserves special thanks for sparking my initial interest in prison social order.
I presented several chapters in the Political Economy seminars at Duke
University and King’s College London, which generated a long list of useful
comments and suggestions. Seminar participants at the Center for International
Security and Cooperation at Stanford University provided excellent sugges-
tions, as did my insightful commentator, David Laitin. Participants in the
Economics of Crime working group at the National Bureau of Economic
Research’s Summer Institute provided important feedback. Many thanks to
the directors of the working group—Philip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig, and Justin
McCrary—and especially to my thoughtful discussant, Mark Kleiman.
The book builds on earlier articles that benefited from helpful suggestions
by many of those listed above and by Jason Aimone, Daniel D’Amico, Eli
Dourado, John Nye, Doug Rogers, Matt Ryan, Daniel Smith, Virgil Storr,
xii Acknowledgments

Daniel Sutter, Diana Thomas, Michael Thomas, and Georg Vanberg. I thank
Elsevier for allowing me to use ideas from my article “Prison Gangs, Norms,
and Organizations” ( Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 2012;
82(1): 96–109), which informs Chapter 2. I thank Oxford University Press
for permission to use material from my article “Putting the ‘Con’ into
Constitutions: The Economics of Prison Gangs” ( Journal of Law, Economics,
& Organization 2010; 26(2): 183–211) in part of Chapter 5. Finally, I am grate-
ful to Cambridge University Press, which granted permission to reuse material
from my article “Governance and Prison Gangs” (American Political Science
Review 2011; 105(4): 702–716) in Chapter 6. I owe special thanks to the co-
editors at the APSR, who went above and beyond their editorial duties in
providing detailed comments on my paper and on broader issues related to
this research project.
At Oxford University Press, I benefited greatly from the invaluable
feedback provided by my editor, David McBride, and from the skillful work
of the production staff. Two anonymous reviewers also made suggestions that
helped me write a more cogent and coherent book. The Earhart Foundation
provided financial support for this project, for which I’m exceptionally
grateful.
My wife Emily commented on numerous drafts of every chapter, and she
has been gracious and encouraging during my all-too-frequent updates on the
book’s status. Marrying an economist means that I am lucky enough to have
someone with whom I can discuss economics nightly over dinner, and this
was a great help in refining many of these ideas. I wouldn’t have been able to
write this book without her intellectual insights and her constant encourage-
ment, love, and support.
 1

Governance Institutions and the

Prison Community
In short, in California, the question of how to manage
prisons has resolved itself into the question of how to manage
prison gangs.
john j. d i iulio, jr. 1

Criminal Justice
On a warm May evening in 2009, Aaron Osheroff and his nine-year-old
daughter, Melody, walked hand-in-hand through the crosswalk at the corner
of San Carlos Way and San Marin Drive in Marin, California. It was about
9 p.m. A car stopped as they crossed the street; a motorcycle racing down the
road did not. It sped between the stopped car and a parked car, running into
Aaron and Melody. They were both seriously injured, and paramedics rushed
them to the hospital. Melody died the following day at the Children’s Hospital
in Oakland. Aaron spent months in recovery, endured multiple surgeries, and
had his right leg amputated. The Osheroff family lost their daughter, a fourth-
grader who loved reading and hiking.
The motorcyclist, Edward John Schaefer, had a blood alcohol level more
than twice the legal limit. He had a dozen prior convictions for driving
under the influence and reckless driving. Prosecutors charged him with second-
degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, mayhem, and
causing injury while driving under the influence. If convicted, he faced from
17 years to life in prison. In his first court appearance, the unshaven 43-year-old
made a rude hand gesture to the photographers and officials in the court-
room. He was later convicted of second-degree murder and gross vehicular
manslaughter, and he received a prison sentence of 24 years to life. Officials
sent Schaefer to San Quentin State Prison.
2 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

On a brisk morning in late July, only 10 days after arriving at the state’s
oldest prison, Schaefer walked out to the prison yard and never walked back.
An inmate stabbed him seven times in the neck and chest with a seven-inch
prison-made metal spear, known by inmates as a “bone crusher.” It was made
from a piece of a metal bunk bed. His killer, Frank Souza, was a 33-year-old
associate of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang; he wore a large “White
Power” tattoo emblazoned across his entire forehead.
Schaefer’s murder wasn’t motivated by racism. Schaefer was white too.
When authorities asked him why he did it, Souza responded, “All I got to say,
nine-year-old girl.” In court, he explained, “The innocence of a child will be
defended at all costs.”2 He read from William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus,”
wherein circumstances prey upon a man, but “under the bludgeoning of
chance,” he still stands tall. Good men must stand tall in the face of the trag-
edies that befall innocent people. Souza read from the second stanza, “My
head is bloody, but unbowed.”
Schaefer’s death was no accident, nor was Souza’s role in the murder. The
prison gangs that control California’s inmates carefully orchestrated the
events on that brisk July morning. Racially segregated prison gangs rule over
the inmate community. Sometimes they work together. At times, they wage
bloody battles for control of the prison yard. No one who enters prison can
ignore these gang politics. Souza enacted criminal justice at the behest of a
prison gang, and in doing so, he demonstrated one of the myriad ways that
gangs provide governance in the criminal underworld.

The Economic Way of Thinking

Prison gangs appear baffling. Many people associate their lifestyle, organiza-
tion, monikers, activities, rituals, and customs with non-rational forces. The
oddities of the criminal underworld seem attributable only to psychopathy or
pure evil. Their actions raise many puzzling questions. Why do murderous
prison gangs avenge the death of unknown children? Why do clandestine
groups get prominent tattoos that reveal their membership? Why is prison
the only place that middle-aged men join gangs? Why does racism permeate
prison at a time when society is more tolerant than ever before? Why didn’t
gangs exist for the first 100 years of the California prison system, but now
dominate them? Why do the most dangerous inmates keep the peace? Why
do people join gangs that they can never leave, even after release? We cannot
explain these puzzles by simply calling inmates evil, stupid, or crazy. These are
not the actions of irrational men. On the contrary, the only way to under-
 Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 3

stand prison gangs is to study their members as rational people. This book
uses economics to explain the seemingly irrational, truly astonishing, and
often tragic world of prison life.
There are two central ideas that make up the rational-choice approach.
First, people are self-interested. They pursue ends that they value. This doesn’t
mean that each person cares only about him- or herself. People often do care
more about themselves, their family, and their friends than they do about
complete strangers. However, people also give to charity, save people from
burning buildings, and perform acts of sacrifice for the sake of justice and
honor. People pursue outcomes that they value, both self-interested and altru-
istic ones. One advantage of viewing the world this way is that it makes it hard
to ignore social problems. If people always cared about everyone else as much
as themselves, then violent crime and many other social problems wouldn’t
exist. People would know that these actions harm others, so they simply would
not do them. Related to this point, the focus of this analysis is always on how
individuals act. We cannot understand gangs, prisons, and the legal system
without understanding the individuals who comprise them.
Second, people respond rationally to changes in costs and benefits. If some
activity becomes more costly, people tend to do less of it. If something
becomes less costly, people tend to do more of it. This does not require that
each person be a lightning calculator of pleasure and pain.3 People aren’t
robots. They sometimes make mistakes, get confused, satisfice, and strug-
gle through a murky world of imperfect information and cognitive biases.
However, when they recognize changes in costs and benefits, they respond
accordingly. Again, this does not mean that people will not rush into burn-
ing buildings to save others. It just means that a person will be less likely to
do so when the flames burn twice as hot. A person’s subjective preferences
determine what he or she views as costs and benefits. It is not helpful to
ignore an inmate’s desire for heroin just because we might not share or
approve of that preference. This approach doesn’t require that everyone value
things in the same way or naively assume that people only want money.
Economics looks at how people strive to accomplish their preferred goals,
based on the costs and benefits of doing so.
The rational-choice model applies to criminals as much as it does to
everyone else, possibly more so. The punishment for making errors in the
underworld are often more severe, and meted out more quickly, than in tradi-
tional arenas of life. If you make a mistake in an ordinary job, you may be
fired. If you make a mistake as a criminal, you may go to prison. Mistakes in
prison can be fatal. This feedback makes many inmates highly attuned to their
4 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

environment. Writing about his own experience as a political prisoner,

political scientist Marek Kaminski explains, “Prison socializes an inmate to
behave hyperrationally. It teaches him patience in planning and pursuing his
goals, punishes him severely for his mistakes, and rewards him generously for
smart action. . . . There is little space for innocent and spontaneous expressions
of emotion when they collide with fundamental interests . . . . Paradoxically,
much of the confusion in interpreting prison behavior arises from both a
failure to understand the motives of inmates and an unwillingness to admit
that outcomes judged as inhuman or bizarre may be consequences of individ-
ually rational action.”4 The rational-choice approach provides a way to under-
stand how order emerges in the criminal underworld.5

A Governance Theory of Prison Social Order

Criminals lack access to many formal governance institutions: the legal and
social institutions that promote social order and economic activity by pro-
tecting property rights, enforcing agreements, and facilitating collective
action to provide physical and organizational infrastructure.6 Governance
institutions play a crucial role in every society. Markets, business endeavors,
and nearly every sort of cooperative pursuit require well-functioning gover-
nance institutions. This includes both criminals who wish to cooperate in
crime and the members of society who must cooperate to stop them. However,
precisely because they are involved in illicit activities, criminals can’t rely on
the same governance institutions that law-abiding citizens rely on. To meet
this need, criminals must create alternative, self-governing institutions.
Because the theme of self-governance permeates the entire book, it will be
useful to examine briefly the three components of governance.
First, governance institutions define and enforce property rights. A prop-
erty right is the exclusive authority to choose how a resource is used. It deter-
mines who has the right to use it, earn money from it, transfer it to others, and
enforce the exclusive control of it. Property rights are not a fixed, unchanging
feature of the world. People choose how much to invest in defining and
defending property rights based on the costs and benefits of doing so.7
A person will restrict access to a resource more when it becomes cheaper to
do so. For example, if the cost of a car alarm falls by half, people are more
likely to install one. The car will be safer from theft, so the resource is more
secure. As the value of a resource increases, it will be worth investing more to
protect it. A person is more likely to buy a car alarm for a new sports car than
for an old pickup truck.
 Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 5

Because it is costly to define and enforce property rights, not everything

will have a clearly defined owner.8 For example, no one has found it profitable
to define and enforce property rights claims to vast segments of the world’s
oceans. It is too costly to monitor people’s use of the distant blue sea, and
there is often little benefit in doing so. Property rights are also more complex
and nuanced than either owning something or not. A resource may have many
attributes that comprise a bundle of related property rights. A person may
control some of those rights, but not all of them. I may have the right to keep
someone from trespassing in my home, but I might not have the right to keep
planes from flying across the sky above it, broadcasters from sending radio
waves through it, or own the valuable minerals buried deep below it.
Unlike normative theories of who should have property rights over
something, the positive theory of property rights looks at whether someone
can actually enforce a claim.9 If I go to the store and purchase a bicycle, then
it is legally mine. However, if I do not invest resources to secure it, then it
won’t be mine for long, especially if it is left unlocked. Even if I have a moral
or legal claim, if I lack the resources to defend the claim, then in reality I don’t
control the property right to it.10 An inmate can have a moral claim not to be
assaulted by other inmates, but if he cannot prevent others from doing so,
then he doesn’t actually control that property right. People’s rights differ, and
they depend on one’s ability to enforce such claims. Governance institutions
provide a way for people to assert, define, and defend ownership claims to
property rights.
The second role of governance institutions is to help people capture the
benefits from trade. Voluntary exchange makes both parties better off.
However, beneficial trades might not take place for a variety of reasons. The
costs of finding a trading partner may be too high. The cost of learning the
quality of a product may be excessive. A trader may fear that the other person
won’t hold up his or her side of the bargain. If people know they will have a
venue for resolving disputes, then they will be more likely to engage in
commercial activity. For example, a seller’s reputation provides an important
check on bad behavior.11 If a seller defrauds a buyer, the buyer can expose the
seller’s untrustworthiness to others and reduce the profitability of the seller’s
business in the future. Regulation, licenses, insurance, courts, and a variety of
creative market mechanisms provide the governance that address these prob-
lems and facilitate trade. This assurance gives people confidence to participate
in commercial activity. Good economic governance underlies—and is the
foundation of—the entire system of specialization and the division of labor
that exists in a market economy. Without it, market failures proliferate.
6 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

The third function of governance institutions is to help people act collec-

tively. Goods like national defense are difficult to produce privately because
everyone enjoys their benefits once they exist. The same threat that deters a
hostile country from bombing my neighbor’s house protects mine too, even if
I haven’t paid for it. Recognizing this ability to free ride, many people won’t
contribute to the production of a public good. As a result, although each
individual acts rationally, the public good may not be provided at all. Everyone
is worse off. Collective action is also needed when people take actions that
harm others, like polluting the environment. The institutions that people cre-
ate to solve these types of problems are necessary for capturing the benefits of
trade and establishing an orderly society. In the real world, these governance
institutions take many different forms, depending on the context, resources,
and people involved. Studies of a tremendous array of collective action prob-
lems from around the world reveal that governance institutions arise in “end-
less forms most beautiful and most wonderful.”12
Each of these three types of governance institutions is necessary for people
to live orderly, prosperous lives. People often assume that governments must
create and operate these essential institutions, but that is not true. Many
modern governments provide governance effectively, but none provides all
of it. Private companies and organizations play an important role in protect-
ing property and adjudicating disputes.13 Moreover, many governments do a
poor job of providing governance. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s his-
tory of human rights abuses reflects the absence of secure property rights.
In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe’s land appropriation policies undermine
commerce and the rule of law. Indeed, governments need not provide gover-
nance, and many remarkably effective governance institutions flourish outside
of the control of the state.14 Sometimes these extralegal governance institu-
tions are more effective than state-created institutions because they can rely
on local expertise and information.15 When governance institutions work
well, they solve the governance problems faced by every society. However,
no one form of governance institution is best in all situations. The spe-
cific constraints of information and incentives in a particular time and place
determine what context-dependent institutions will most effectively provide
governance.
Criminals must rely on extralegal governance institutions. Heroin dealers
cannot call the police if someone robs them. Criminals must conceal their
production, transportation, warehousing, advertising, and selling of illicit
goods. Assets are subject both to theft from other criminals and to confiscation
by the police. The accounting services that aid legal businesses are unavailable
 Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 7

to criminals. Criminal firms can’t legally insure their assets against accidents
and acts of God. Criminals can’t list a company on the New York Stock
Exchange, borrow funds from a local bank, or use traditional advertising to
attract customers. Illegality also raises the cost of developing a good reputa-
tion. A drug dealer known for his honesty may also be well known by the
police. Drug dealers must alert consumers, but not police, to their presence. It
may also be more difficult to recruit employees in the criminal underworld
than in the law-abiding one.16 Criminals are more willing to violate the law
and sometimes widely held moral principles. Incarceration adds to these diffi-
culties. Correctional officers watch inmates. The imposed schedule of incar-
ceration limits one’s freedom to move about and speak to others. Criminals
face an extraordinary challenge in producing the governance institutions that
are necessary for illicit markets to flourish.17
This book examines the extralegal governance institutions that criminals
create. In offering a governance theory of prison social order, I depart from
the two most commonly accepted frameworks for understanding prison life
that have dominated the sociology and criminology literature: the depriva-
tion theory and the importation theory.18 The deprivation theory contends
that prison social order is a direct result of the pains of imprisonment experi-
enced during confinement.19 It focuses on inmates’ deprivations of liberty,
goods and services, heterosexual relationships, autonomy, and security. Thus,
to understand the prisoner community, one must look at the nature of con-
finement. Prison social order has indigenous roots. The importation theory,
by contrast, contends that to understand prison social order one must under-
stand the pre-prison experiences and beliefs that inmates bring into prison.20
The prison culture, for instance, is an extension of the criminal, working class,
or drug culture in the world beyond prison walls. We can best understand the
prison community by looking outside of prison.
I diverge from these theories in two ways. First, I argue that norms are not
a highly rigid or inherent belief. They are neither fixed nor exogenous, and
they are not primarily symbolic. Norms emerge and change to help people
coordinate social interactions.21 They are a means instead of an end. To under-
stand prison social order—of which norms are an important part—we need
to understand what problem norms arise to solve, and when they are inca-
pable of doing so. Second, and related to this, past work on inmate depriva-
tions has tended to downplay or ignore the fact that prisons deprive inmates
of essential governance institutions.22 Goods and services can ameliorate the
pains of imprisonment, but their availability depends on the effectiveness of
extralegal governance institutions. Identifying the crucial need for extralegal
8 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

governance among inmates provides answers for why, where, when, and how
prison gangs form and operate.23 In short, prison gangs form to provide extra-
legal governance when inmates have a demand for it and official governance
mechanisms are ineffective or unavailable.
Economists and political scientists should share an interest in extralegal
governance institutions. Scholars have long studied prisons as microcosms of
society, and understanding the development of informal institutions and
conflict processes in prison provides a useful exercise in comparative politics.
All around the globe people are working in informal and shadow economies.
Half of the world’s workers are in the informal sector: unregulated, unregis-
tered, and untaxed.24 They do a tremendous volume of business—$10 trillion
annually. Moreover, half of the world’s countries provide governance poorly
or not at all.25 Yet, the majority of political economy research focuses on
formal institutions and conventional markets. We cannot fully understand
political and economic outcomes without understanding how formal institu-
tions interact with extralegal governance institutions. Informal governance
institutions are of tremendous importance, and in many cases, are more
important than formal institutions.26 Prison provides a context in which to
study these broader issues.
The prison setting offers an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of extra-
legal governance, and it is uniquely well suited for doing so because it enables
me to examine a worst-case scenario and to control for a number of important
characteristics that are theoretically relevant. For instance, the people who
live in prison are, on average, less trustworthy and have less self-control than
people in the broader population. They can’t choose who to live and interact
with. Inmate drug dealers can’t rely on formal governance mechanisms as a
last resort should extralegal ones fail (a criticism made about Avner Greif ’s
seminal work on self-regulating trade).27 These factors make exchange much
more difficult, so prison presents an excellent environment for testing the
robustness of self-governance mechanisms. More practically, if public admin-
istrators do not have a sound understanding of why prison gangs come into
existence, then they will lack clear methods for mitigating their harms.

Prison Gangs
The primary focus of this book is to understand how criminal institutions
form, function, and evolve, and to determine their effectiveness and robust-
ness. Prison gangs play an important role. A prison gang is an inmate organi-
zation that operates within a prison system, that has a corporate entity, exists
 Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 9

into perpetuity, and whose membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and

often requires a lifetime commitment.28 They recruit most of their hard-core
members from among the most dangerous people behind bars.29 Many gangs
have elaborate written constitutions that guide their operations. Other
common characteristics of prison gangs include well-defined goals and phi-
losophies, a structured internal organization with clearly defined authority
and responsibility, and widespread involvement in criminal activity both
behinds bars and often on the street.30 They vary in size, and can often include
several hundred members. Nearly every prison gang restricts its membership
to one racial or ethnic group.31 Geographic and other characteristics often
matter too. For instance, in California, Hispanics from Northern California
(known as Norteños, Spanish for Northerner) and Southern California
(Sureños, for Southerner) affiliate with different Hispanic prison gangs. Some
have operated for decades and have substantial influence in the criminal
community. Compared to street gangs, prison gang members are typically
more organized, entrepreneurial, covert, selective, and strict.32
Gangs have had an increasingly important presence in jails and prisons
across the United States. Prison gangs did not exist prior to the 1950s. By 1985,
prison gangs were active in 49 states, with 114 different gangs and nearly
13,000 members.33 By 1992, national prison gang membership had tripled to
roughly 46,000.34 A recent study estimates that there are about 308,000 gang
members in U.S. prisons.35 Prisons in California and Texas hold about 70 per-
cent of all prison gang members in the United States, so it is a useful context
to study, to understand their origin and operation.36 In 2002, a high-ranking
official testified that there were 40,000 to 60,000 gang members in California
prisons.37 Another estimate suggested that 75 percent of California inmates
were gang members.38 Importantly, the number of prison gang members
underestimates their actual influence, because gangs have substantial influence
over other inmates. A gang investigator at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility
in Indiana described the gangs’ control: “What people don’t realize is that
almost everything that happens in a prison setting has some sort of gang
involvement, whether it be extortion, intimidations, trafficking narcotics.
There’s nothing that goes on that at least one gang member is not involved
with . . . nothing.”39
Compared to research on street gangs, criminologists and sociologists
have done relatively little work on prison gangs. The most widely cited article
on prison gangs reports that there have been only a few in-depth studies.40
Two leading criminologists describe prison gangs as the final frontier of gang
research.41 Ethnographic research on prison social order in the United States
10 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

more generally is in decline. In 2000, one scholar observed that studies of

prison social organization have largely ceased since 1980.42 Sociologist Loïc
Wacquant writes that detailed ethnographic studies of “the everyday world of
inmates in America have gone into eclipse just when they were most needed
on both scientific and political grounds.”43 Fortunately, there has been some
renewed interest in studying prison social order, but none focuses on the role
of extralegal governance.44
The absence of useful data is the major obstacle to studying prison gangs.
Data on gang-affiliated inmates remain some of the most elusive figures in
corrections.45 According to a recent study, “there are no national (or state)
longitudinal data tracking street gang expansion in state and federal prisons,
and prison gang growth over the three decades of prison expansion.”46 From
the mid-1990s to 2005, the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation even closed down its research unit.47 Moreover, there is little
or no coordination of information management systems among the hundreds
of criminal justice–related agencies that track offenders in California.48 When
officials collect data, the data set often isn’t useful because it is “confounded
by definitional variability and variation in disciplinary policies.”49 People in
different corrections departments measure and count things differently, so we
can’t compare them. Moreover, data are often only for departmental use
because officials consider the information too sensitive or confidential to
make public.50 Of course, unlike the study of mainstream businesses, we
cannot use gang’s financial statements and accounting records.51
There are several additional obstacles to collecting qualitative evidence.
Prison gangs enforce a code of silence.52 Staff can revoke an inmate’s privileges
if they validate him as a gang member.53 Even if a gang member is willing to
talk, he may exaggerate his claims or lie. Unlike studies of other deviant com-
munities, no one has conducted field studies on prison gangs.54 One difficulty
is that the same walls that keep inmates locked in also keep researchers out.
Getting evidence on the inmate community, and specifically prison gangs,
therefore presents a substantial challenge.
In my work, I rely on wide-ranging types of evidence. First, I use the best
academic research available, much of it from criminology and sociology.
Rebecca Trammell’s work on prison violence has been especially useful, as
have classic works by Donald Clemmer, Gresham Sykes, and John Irwin.55
Second, I have collected data on California’s inmate population, going back
in some cases to the 1850s. Much of this information comes from annual
reports and periodic studies released by the California Department of
 Governance Institutions and the Prison Community 11

Corrections and Rehabilitation.56 I have supplemented it with information

obtained in other sources, like histories of the state’s prisons.
I have also made extensive use of legal documents related to California’s
prison and street gangs. This includes indictments, criminal complaints, court
orders, and testimony. In addition to histories and descriptions of gangs, these
items give detailed lists of alleged overt criminal acts and reveal the inner
workings of numerous street and prison gangs. While legal documents pro-
vide a tremendous amount of information, courts of law have not yet vetted
many of these allegations. Law enforcement is not without its own biases.
Police want to make arrests, and prosecutors want to get convictions. One
way that I leverage these court documents is to see what appellate court
judges think about the quality of the evidence. They review and describe the
evidence presented in the original case, assessing its reliability and validity.
This provides a relatively impartial and judicious assessment of the evidence.
A related source of evidence is declassified files from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Numerous agents working on different projects over several de��
cades created these documents. Because they are primarily internal correspon�
dence, they tend to be informative and are likely to be fairly accurate.
Personal memoirs and biographies of former law enforcement officials
who investigated prison gangs in California also provide insights. Some of
these people spent decades scrutinizing prison gangs, others served long ten-
ures as correctional officers. In addition, prison gang members who have
dropped out and testified against their former colleagues have written about
them. Prison gangs kill former members who tell their secrets, so the people
involved appear to consider informants’ accounts accurate enough to warrant
serious action. A gang investigations supervisor I spoke with described these
works as highly informative and reliable. I supplement these with conversa-
tions with correctional officers, gang investigators, gang experts, police offi-
cers, and former inmates. I have visited some of the prisons discussed in this
book, including minimum-, medium-, and maximum-security facilities in
California and elsewhere.
I have also taken advantage of documentaries and media reports on
prisons. This is a nontraditional, but useful, source of evidence. Clearly, the
producers of these reports do not randomly select the prisons they go to,
the people they speak with, and the clips they air. These sources do not
single-handedly provide generalizable results. However, they do coincide
strongly with findings from both the academic literature and my own inter-
views. They also offer texture, detail, and perspective that complement other
12 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

sources. They add to the rich mosaic of qualitative evidence, and they help
paint a compelling picture of prison life. I would prefer to rely entirely on
scholarly observational studies, but as Loïc Wacquant sadly notes, “with social
science deserting the scene, one is forced to turn to the writings of journa-
lists and inmates to learn about everyday life in the cells and dungeons of
America.”57
Each of these types of evidence is imperfect, yet together they provide a
compelling picture. Their authors come from both sides of the law and
from many academic disciplines. Judges have vetted and assessed much of
it. It is qualitative and quantitative. I hope to show that the synthesis of
these diverse sources provides an accurate and convincing picture of the
criminal underworld.
Finally, economics helps us identify the mechanisms that underlie social
interactions, but it neither condones nor condemns the people involved. Just
because we understand why something happened doesn’t mean that it is desir-
able. Clearly, many prison gang members have participated in heinous, deplor-
able crimes and have left in their path a wake of innocent victims and shattered
lives. (I document this in some of the vignettes throughout the book, which
provide vivid illustrations of issues related to gangs and governance.) If we
have any hope that we can improve the problems associated with crime and
incarceration, then we must believe that people are not inherently and immov-
ably committed to violence and racism. Criminals, like all people, respond to
incentives.
 Men’s Central Jail

Built in 1963, the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles is one of the oldest
county jails in California. Officials claim it’s the largest jail in the world. It is
also one of the most controversial. The jail is overcrowded. Its antiquated
design reportedly makes it dangerous for both inmates and staff. Over the last
several years, inmates, visitors, and the American Civil Liberties Union have
raised serious concerns about the behavior of the jail’s deputies.
In December 2010, Juan Pablo Reyes was serving a short sentence in the
Men’s Central Jail for making a criminal threat. He had threatened his wife
during a domestic dispute. He is a native Spanish speaker and knows “a little
English.” Because he was neither a gang member nor a serious offender, staff
assigned him to a job as an inmate worker and to a cell that housed only
inmate trustees. He spent his days delivering bag lunches to inmates, sweeping
and mopping floors, picking up trash, distributing mail, and cleaning the staff
bathrooms and deputies’ desks. This is a relatively comfortable way to serve a
sentence at Men’s Central because an inmate gets to spend lots of time outside
of his cell and is not housed among the most dangerous inmates. However,
according to Reyes’s legal deposition, his incarceration experience quickly
changed for the worse.
While at work on December 10, Reyes found a piece of mail on the
ground. It didn’t appear to be trash, and he claims that he was going to return
it. Before he could do so, however, a deputy saw Reyes holding the mail and
accused him of stealing it. Reyes objected, saying that he had just found it.
The deputy didn’t believe him, and said that he would “deal with him” on his
next shift.
On Sunday, December 12, two deputies approached Reyes while he was in
his cell. They told him that if he identified inmates who had cocaine and
crystal meth, they would forgive him for stealing the mail. Reyes told them
that he didn’t know anyone with drugs. This displeased the deputies. They
ordered him to switch out of his green inmate clothes (which indicated he
was an inmate worker) into blue clothes (for regular inmates). They had fired
14 t he so ci al order of t he un derworld

him. The deputies then ordered him out of his cell and told him to stand with
his face against the wall. They put on plastic gloves. Then the beating began.
According to Reyes’s translated deposition, “They punched me in the eyes,
body, back and ribs, and one of their punches broke my eye socket. I could feel
my face breaking as they beat me. The beating was extremely painful, and I felt
upset, confused and helpless. Two other deputies, whom I cannot name at
this time, joined in the attack, and continued to punch me as well. I did not
strike back, but tried to cover myself up as I fell to the ground. Once I had
fallen, the deputies proceeded to kick me with their leather steel toed boots.
I cried out for them to stop, but they refused, and were laughing.”1
After the beating, officers took Reyes to a holding area and made him
undress. They were moving him to the housing unit reserved for gang mem-
bers. Not being a gang member, this was an unusual housing decision, and for
Reyes, much more dangerous. They walked him up and down the tier of the
gang module, naked, and spoke in English about Reyes being a homosexual.
As Reyes walked past the row of inmates in the gang module, one of the dep-
uties spoke over the intercom so that all of the inmates could hear: “Aqui va
un maricon caminando.” Translation: “Here goes a faggot walking.” The dep-
uties and some of the inmates were laughing as they marched him around.
Reyes entered a four-man cell occupied by three gang members, two
Hispanics and one black. Hispanic gang members follow “gang rules” that
require them to assault Paisas, inmates from Mexico and Central America. The
deputies closed the cell door. Almost immediately, and without warning, the
Hispanic gang members began to beat Reyes. He explained, “I do not know
whether they beat me because of whether they thought I was gay, or because I
was a Paisa, or the fact that I was paraded naked by the deputies gave them
license to beat me, but they proceeded to punch me and hit me on my back,
face, chest, and stomach.” Sadly, this was not the end. “The beating started mid-
morning, and continued on and off all day for hours. Deputies would walk by
doing their cell checks and feeding the inmates, and they ignored my cries for
help and my appearance. They refused to respond to my cries to take me out of
the cell. One time when [the deputy] walked by the cell, I begged him to take
me out. I told him that I was being attacked. He said I deserved the attacks by
the inmates and walked away.” At night, his cellmates took turns raping him.
When the cell doors opened the following morning, Reyes fled. He ran
into a holding area and cried out for help. A female chaplain heard his cries
and contacted a sergeant. Officials took him to an interview room. The deputy
who beat Reyes was in the room when the sergeant asked him what happened.
 Men’s Central Jail 15

Reyes told them about how the inmates had beat and raped him, but he didn’t
mention the beating he received from the deputies. He feared retaliation.
He received medical care at the jail that day, and about two weeks later, he
spent several days in the county hospital. The doctor told him he needed eye
surgery. Instead, officials released him from the hospital directly to the street,
two months earlier than expected. Since he didn’t receive the surgery and
doesn’t have insurance, his eye remains unrepaired.
The American Civil Liberties Union alleges many more disturbing
instances of neglect and abuse by deputies in the Los Angeles Jail system.2 It is
important to note that this is not the experience of all inmates or the actions
of all deputies. Moreover, the legal system has not yet examined these allega-
tions. Nonetheless, there has been a growing awareness of corruption and
misconduct in Men’s Central Jail. These complaints come not only from
inmates but also from court-ordered monitors, jail chaplains, and former Los
Angeles Sheriff ’s Department jail supervisors. This disturbing incident illus-
trates one of the reasons why inmates often seek out alternative forms of
governance: they cannot always rely on the guards.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
at the upper part and terminating posteriorly at the lower part of the
body cavity.

In Fig. 63 we show the arrangement of some of the chief organs of

the body, with the exception of the muscular and respiratory
systems, and the fat-body. It is scarcely necessary to point out that
the figure is merely diagrammatic, and does not show the shapes
and sizes of the organs as they will be found in any one Insect.

Muscles.

The muscular system of Insects is very extensive, Lyonnet[31] having

found, it is said, nearly 4000 muscles in the caterpillar of the goat-
moth; a large part of this number are segmental repetitions,
nevertheless the muscular system is really complex, as may be seen
by referring to the study of the flight of dragon-flies by von
Lendenfeld.[32]

The minute structure of the muscles does not differ essentially from
what obtains in Vertebrate animals. The muscles are aggregations of
minute fibrils which are transversely striated, though in variable
degree. Those in the thorax are yellow or pale brown, but in other
parts the colour is more nearly white. The muscles of flight are
described as being penetrated by numerous tracheae, while those
found elsewhere are merely surrounded by these aerating tubules.

The force brought into play by the contractions of Insect muscles is

very great, and has been repeatedly stated to be much superior to
that of Vertebrate animals; very little reliance can, however, be
placed on the assumptions and calculations that are supposed to
prove this, and it is not supported by Camerano's recent researches.
[33]
Some of the tendons to which the muscles are attached are very
elaborate structures, and are as hard as the chitinous skeleton, so
as to be like small bones in their nature. A very elaborate tendon of
this kind is connected with the prothoracic trochantin in Coleoptera,
and may be readily examined in Hydrophilus. It has been suggested
that the entothorax is tendinous in its origin, but other morphologists
treat it, with more reason, as an elaborate fold inwards of the
integument.

Fig. 64.—Cephalic and ventral chain of ganglia: A, larva of

Chironomus; B, imago of Hippobosca. (After Brandt.)

Nervous System.

Insects are provided with a very complex nervous system, which

may be treated as consisting of three divisions:—(1) The cephalic
system; (2) the ventral, or ganglionic chain; (3) an accessory
sympathetic system, or systems. All these divisions are intimately
connected. We will consider first the most extensive, viz. the ventral
chain. This consists of a series of small masses of nervous matter
called ganglia which extend in the longitudinal direction of the body
along the median line of the lower aspect, and are connected by
longitudinal commissures, each ganglion being joined to that
following it by two threads of nervous matter. Each of the ganglia of
the ventral chain really consists of two ganglia placed side by side
and connected by commissures as well as cellular matter. In larvae
some of the ganglia may be contiguous, so that the commissures do
not exist. From the ganglia motor nerves proceed to the various
parts of the body for the purpose of stimulating and co-ordinating the
contractions of the muscles. The number of the ganglia in the ventral
chain differs greatly in different Insects, and even in the different
stages of metamorphosis of the same species, but never exceeds
thirteen. As this number is that of the segments of the body, it has
been considered that each segment had primitively a single
ganglion. Thirteen ganglia for the ventral chain can, however, be only
demonstrated in the embryonic state; in the later stages of life eleven
appears to be the largest number that can be distinguished, and so
many as this are found but rarely, and then chiefly in the larval stage.
The diminution in number takes place by the amalgamation or
coalescence of some of the ganglia, and hence those Insects in
which the ganglia are few are said to have a highly concentrated
nervous system. The modes in which these ganglia combine are
very various; the most usual is perhaps that of the combination of the
three terminal ganglia into one body. As a rule it may be said that
concentration is the concomitant of a more forward position of the
ganglia. As a result of this it is found that in some cases, as in
Lamellicorn beetles, there are no ganglia situate in the abdomen. In
the perfect state of the higher Diptera, the thoracic and abdominal
ganglia are so completely concentrated in the thorax as to form a
sort of thoracic brain. In Fig. 64 we represent a very diffuse and a
very concentrated ganglionic chain; A being that of the larva of
Chironomus, B that of the imago of Hippobosca. In both these
sketches the cephalic ganglia as well as those of the ventral chain
are shown.

Turning next to the cephalic masses, we find these in the perfect

Insect to be nearly always two in number: a very large and complex
one placed above the oesophagus, and therefore called the supra-
oesophageal ganglion; and a smaller one, the sub- or infra-
oesophageal, placed below the oesophagus. The latter ganglion is in
many Insects so closely approximated to the supra-oesophageal
ganglion that it appears to be a part thereof, and is sometimes
spoken of as the lower brain. In other Insects these two ganglia are
more remote, and the infra-oesophageal one then appears part of
the ventral chain. In the embryo it is said that the mode of
development of the supra-oesophageal ganglion lends support to the
idea that it may be the equivalent of three ganglia; there being at one
time three lobes, which afterwards coalesce, on each side of the
mouth. This is in accordance with the view formulated by
Viallanes[34] to the effect that this great nerve-centre, or brain, as it is
frequently called, consists essentially of three parts, viz. a Proto-, a
Deuto-, and a Trito-cerebron. It is, however, only proper to say that
though the brain and the ventral chain of ganglia may appear to be
one system, and in the early embryonic condition to be actually
continuous, these points cannot be considered to be fully
established. Dr. L. Will has informed us[35] that in Aphididae the
brain has a separate origin, and is only subsequently united with the
ganglionic chain. Some authorities say that in the early condition the
sub-oesophageal ganglion is formed from two, and the supra-
oesophageal from the same number of ganglia; the division in that
case being 2 and 2, not 3 and 1, as Viallanes' views would suggest.
The inquiries that are necessary to establish such points involve very
complex and delicate investigations, so that it is not a matter of
surprise that it cannot yet be said whether each of these views may
be in certain cases correct. The supra- and sub-oesophageal ganglia
are always intimately connected by a commissure on each side of
the oesophagus; when very closely approximated they look like one
mass through which passes the oesophagus (Fig. 66, A). The large
supra-oesophageal ganglion supplies the great nerves of the
cephalic sense-organs, while the smaller sub-oesophageal centre
gives off the nerves to the parts of the mouth. From the lower and
anterior part of the supra-oesophageal ganglion a nervous filament
extends as a ring round the anterior part of the oesophagus, and
supplies a nerve to the upper lip.[36] This structure is not very well
known, and has been chiefly studied by Liénard,[37] who considers
that it will prove to be present in all Insects.

Whether the two cephalic ganglia be considered as really part of a

single great ganglionic chain, or the reverse, they are at any rate
always intimately connected with the ventral ganglia. We have
already stated that the two cephalic masses are themselves closely
approximated in many Insects, and may add that in some Hemiptera
the first thoracic ganglion of the ventral chain is amalgamated into
one body with the sub-oesophageal ganglion, and further that there
are a few Insects in which this latter centre is wanting. If the cephalic
ganglia and ventral chain be looked on as part of one system, this
may be considered as composed originally of seventeen ganglia,
which number has been demonstrated in some embryos.

The anatomy of the supra-oesophageal ganglion is very complex; it

has been recently investigated by Viallanes[38] in the wasp (Vespa)
and in a grasshopper (Caloptenus italicus). The development and
complication of its inner structure and of some of its outer parts
appear to be proportional with the state of advancement of the
instinct or intelligence of the Insect, and Viallanes found the brain of
the grasshopper to be of a more simple nature than that of the wasp.

Fig. 65.—Brain of Worker Ant of Formica rufa. (After Leydig, highly

magnified.) Explanation in text.

Brandt, to whom is due a large part of our knowledge of the anatomy

of the nervous system in Insects, says that the supra-oesophageal
ganglion varies greatly in size in various Insects, its mass being to a
great extent proportional with the development of the compound
eyes; hence the absolute size is not a criterion for the amount of
intelligence, and we must rather look to the complication of the
structure and to the development of certain parts for an index of this
nature. The drone in the honey-bee has, correlatively with the
superior development of its eyes, a larger brain than the worker, but
the size of the hemispheres, and the development of the gyri
cerebrales is superior in the latter. In other words, the mass of those
great lobes of the brain that are directly connected with the faceted
eyes must not be taken into account in a consideration of the relation
of the size and development of the brain to the intelligence of the
individual. The weight of the brain in Insects is said by Lowne to vary
from 1⁄150 to 1⁄2500 of the weight of the body.

Figure 65 gives a view of one side of the supra-oesophageal

ganglion of the worker of an ant,—Formica rufa,—and is taken from
Leydig, who gives the following elucidation of it: A, primary lobe, a,
homogeneous granular inner substance, b, cellular envelope; B,
stalked bodies (gyri cerebrales), a, b, as before; C, presumed
olfactory lobes, c, inner substance, d, ganglionic masses; D, ocular
lobes, e, f, g, h, various layers of the same; E, origin of lateral
commissures; F, median commissure in interior of brain; G, lower
brain (sub-oesophageal ganglion); H, ocelli; J, faceted eye.

Fig. 66.—Stomato-gastric nerves of Cockroach: A, with brain in situ,

after Koestler; B, with the brain removed, after Miall and Denny:
s.g, supra-oesophageal ganglion; o, optic nerve; a, antennary
nerve; f.g, frontal ganglion; oe, oesophagus; c, connective; p.g,
paired ganglia; v.g, crop or ventricular ganglion; r, recurrent nerve.

Besides the brain and the great chain of ganglia there exists an
accessory system, or systems, sometimes called the sympathetic,
vagus, or visceral system. Although complex, these parts are
delicate and difficult of dissection, and are consequently not so well
known as is the ganglionic chain. There is a connecting or median
nerve cord, communicating with the longitudinal commissures of
each segment, and itself dilating into ganglia at intervals; this is
sometimes called the unpaired system. There is another group of
nerves having paired ganglia, starting from a small ganglion in the
forehead, then connecting with the brain, and afterwards extending
along the oesophagus to the crop and proventriculus (Fig. 66). This
is usually called the stomatogastric system. The oesophageal ring
we have already spoken of.

By means of these accessory nervous systems all the organs of the

body are brought into more or less direct relation with the brain and
the ganglionic chain.

Our knowledge of these subsidiary nervous systems is by no means

extensive, and their nomenclature is very unsettled; little is actually
known as to their functions.

Organs of Sense.

Insects have most delicate powers of perception, indeed they are

perhaps superior in this respect to the other classes of animals.
Their senses, though probably on the whole analogous to those of
the Vertebrata, are certainly far from corresponding therewith, and
their sense organs seem to be even more different from those of
what we call the higher animals than the functions themselves are.
We have already briefly sketched the structure of the optical organs,
which are invariably situate on the head. This is not the case with the
ears, which certainly exist in one Order,—the Orthoptera,—and are
placed either on the front legs below the knee, or at the base of the
abdomen. Notwithstanding their strange situation, the structures
alluded to are undoubtedly auditory, and somewhat approximate in
nature to the ear of Vertebrates, being placed in proximity to the
inner face of a tense membrane; we shall refer to them when
considering the Orthoptera. Sir John Lubbock considers—no doubt
with reason—that some ants have auditory organs in the tibia. Many
Insects possess rod-like or bristle-like structures in various parts of
the body, called chordotonal organs; they are considered by
Graber[39] and others to have auditory functions, though they are not
to be compared with the definite ears of the Orthoptera.

The other senses and sense organs of Insects are even less known,
and have given rise to much perplexity; for though many structures
have been detected that may with more or less probability be looked
on as sense organs, it is difficult to assign a particular function to any
of them, except it be to the sensory hairs. These are seated on
various parts of the body. The chitinous covering, being a dead, hard
substance, has no nerves distributed in it, but it is pierced with
orifices, and in some of these there is implanted a hair which at its
base is in connexion with a nerve; such a structure may possibly be
sensitive not only to contact with solid bodies, but even to various
kinds of vibration. We give a figure (Fig. 67) of some of these hairs
on the caudal appendage of a cricket, after Vom Rath. The small
hairs on the outer surface of the chitin in this figure have no sensory
function, but each of the others probably has; and these latter, being
each accompanied by a different structure, must, though so closely
approximated, be supposed to have a different function; but in what
way those that have no direct connexion with a nerve may act it is
difficult to guess.

The antennae of Insects are the seats of a great variety of sense

organs, many of which are modifications of the hair, pit and nerve
structure we have described above, but others cannot be brought
within this category. Amongst these we may mention the pits
covered with membrane (figured by various writers), perforations of
the chitin without any hair, and membranous bodies either concealed
in cavities or partially protruding therefrom.
 Fig. 67.—Longitudinal section of portion of caudal appendage of
Acheta domestica (after Vom Rath): ch, chitin; hyp, hypodermis;
n, nerve; h1, integumental hairs, not sensitive; h2, ordinary hair;
h3, sensory hair; h4, bladder-like hair; sz, sense-cell.

Fig. 68.—Longitudinal section of apex of palpus of Pieris brassicae:

sch, scales; ch, chitin; hyp, hypodermis; n, nerve; sz, sense cells;
sh, sense hairs. (After Vom Rath.)

Various parts of the mouth are also the seats of sense organs of
different kinds, some of them of a compound character; in such
cases there may be a considerable number of hairs seated on
branches of a common nerve as figured by Vom Rath[40] on the apex
of the maxillary palp of Locusta viridissima, or a compound organ
such as we represent in Fig. 68 may be located in the interior of the
apical portion of the palp.

The functions of the various structures that have been detected are,
as already remarked, very difficult to discover. Vom Rath thinks the
cones he describes on the antennae and palpi are organs of smell,
while he assigns to those on the maxillae, lower lip, epipharynx, and
hypopharynx the rôle of taste organs, but admits he cannot draw any
absolute line of distinction between the two forms. The opinions of
Kraepelin, Hauser, and Will, as well as those of various earlier
writers, are considered in Sir John Lubbock's book on this subject.
[41]

Alimentary and Nutritive System.

The alimentary canal occupies the median longitudinal axis of the
body, being situated below the dorsal vessel, and above the ventral
nervous chain; it extends from the mouth to the opposite extremity of
the body. It varies greatly in the different kinds of Insects, but in all its
forms it is recognised as consisting essentially of three divisions:
anterior, middle, and posterior. The first and last of these divisions
are considered to be of quite different morphological nature from the
middle part, or true stomach, and to be, as it were, invaginations of
the extremities of a closed bag; it is ascertained that in the embryo
these invaginations have really blind extremities (see Fig. 82,
p. 151), and only subsequently become connected with the middle
part of the canal. There are even some larvae of Insects in which the
posterior portion of the canal is not opened till near the close of the
larval life; this is the case with many Hymenoptera, and it is
probable, though not as frequently stated certain, that the occlusion
marks the point of junction of the proctodaeum with the stomach.
The anterior and posterior parts of the canal are formed by the
ectoderm of the embryo, and in embryological and morphological
language are called respectively the stomodaeum and proctodaeum;
the true stomach is formed from the endoderm, and the muscular
layer of the whole canal from the mesoderm.

Fig. 69.—Digestive system of Xyphidria camelus (after Dufour): a, head

capsule; b, salivary glands; c, oesophagus; d, crop; e,
proventriculus; f, chyle, or true stomach; g, small intestine; h,
large intestine; i, Malpighian tubes; k, termination of body.
The alimentary canal is more complex anatomically than it is
morphologically, and various parts are distinguished, viz. the canal
and its appendicula; the former consisting of oesophagus, crop,
gizzard, true stomach, and an intestine divided into two or more
parts. It should be remarked that though it is probable that the
morphological distinctions correspond to a great extent with the
anatomical lines of demarcation, yet this has not been sufficiently
ascertained: the origin of the proctodaeum in Musca is indeed a
point of special difficulty, and one on which there is considerable
diversity of opinion. In some Hemiptera the division of the canal into
three parts is very obscure, so that it would be more correct, as
Dufour says, to define it as consisting in these Insects of two main
divisions—one anterior to, the other posterior to, the insertion of the
Malpighian tubes.

It should be borne in mind that the alimentary canal is very different

in different Insects, so that the brief general description we must
confine ourselves to will not be found to apply satisfactorily to any
one Insect. The oesophagus is the part behind the mouth, and is
usually narrow, as it has to pass through the most important nervous
centres; extremely variable in length, it dilates behind to form the
crop. It may, too, have a dilatation immediately behind the mouth,
and in such case a pharynx is considered to exist. The crop is
broader than the oesophagus, and must be looked on as a mere
dilatation of the latter, as no line of demarcation can be pointed out
between the two, and the crop may be totally absent.

In some of the sucking Insects there is a lateral diverticulum, having

a stalk of greater or less length, called the sucking-stomach; it is by
no means certain that the function this name implies is correctly
assigned to the organ.

The gizzard or proventriculus (French, gésier; German, Kaumagen)

is a small body interposed in some Insects between the true
stomach and the crop or oesophagus. It is frequently remarkable for
the development of its chitinous lining into strong toothed or ridged
processes that look as if they were well adapted for the comminution
of food. The function of the proventriculus in some Insects is
obscure; its structure is used by systematists in the classification of
ants. The extremity of the proventriculus not infrequently projects
into the cavity of the stomach.

The true stomach, or chylific ventricle (Magen or Mitteldarm of the

Germans), is present in all the post-embryonic stages of the Insect's
life, existing even in the imagines of those who live only for a few
hours, and do not use the stomach for any alimentary purpose. It is
so variable in shape and capacity that no general description of it
can be given. Sometimes it is very elongate, so that it is coiled and
like an intestine in shape; it very frequently bears diverticula or
pouches, which are placed on the anterior part, and vary greatly in
size, sometimes they are only two in number, while in other cases
they are so numerous that a portion of the outside of the stomach
looks as if it were covered with villi. A division of the stomach into
two parts is in some cases very marked, and the posterior portion
may, in certain cases, be mistaken for the intestine; but the position
of the Malpighian tubes serves as a mark for the distinction of the
two structures, the tubes being inserted just at the junction of the
stomach with the intestine.

The intestine is very variable in length: the anterior part is the

smaller, and is frequently spoken of as the colon; at the extremity of
the body the gut becomes much larger, so as to form a rectum.
There is occasionally a diverticulum or "caecum" connected with the
rectum, and in some Insects stink-glands. In some Hemiptera there
is no small intestine, the Malpighian tubes being inserted at the
junction of the stomach with the rectum. The total length of the
alimentary canal is extremely variable; it is necessarily at least as
long as the distance between the mouth and anal orifice, but
sometimes it is five or six times as long as this, and some of its parts
then form coils in the abdominal cavity.
The alimentary canal has two coats of muscles: a longitudinal and a
transverse or annular. Both coexist in most of its parts. Internal to
these coats there exists in the anterior and posterior parts of the
canal a chitinous layer, which in the stomach is replaced by a
remarkable epithelium, the cells of which are renewed, new ones
growing while the old are still in activity. We figure a portion of this
structure after Miall and Denny, and may remark that Oudemans[42]
has verified the correctness of their representation. The layers below
represent the longitudinal and transverse muscles.

Fig. 70.—Epithelium of stomach of Cockroach (after Miall and Denny):

the lower parts indicate the transverse and longitudinal muscular
layers.

In addition to the various diverticula we have mentioned, there are

two important sets of organs connected with the alimentary canal,
viz. the salivary glands and the Malpighian tubes.

The salivary glands are present in many Insects, but are absent in
others. They are situate in the anterior portion of the body, and are
very variable in their development, being sometimes very extensive,
in other cases inconspicuous. They consist either of simple tubes
lined with cells, or of branched tubes, or of tubes dilated laterally into
little acini or groups of bags, the arrangement then somewhat
resembling that of a bunch of grapes. There are sometimes large
sacs or reservoirs connected with the efferent tubes proceeding from
the secreting portions of the glands. The salivary glands ultimately
discharge into the mouth, so that the fluid secreted by them has to
be swallowed in the same manner as the food, not improbably along
with it. The silk so copiously produced by some larvae comes from
very long tubes similar in form and situation to the simple tubes of
the salivary glands.
The Malpighian tubules are present in most Insects, though they are
considered on good authority to be absent in many Collembola and
in some Thysanura. They are placed near the posterior part of the
body, usually opening into the alimentary canal just at the junction of
the stomach and the intestine, at a spot called the pylorus. They vary
excessively in length and in number,[43] being sometimes only two,
while in other cases there may be a hundred or even more of them.
In some cases they are budded off from the hind-gut of the embryo
when this is still very small; in other cases they appear later;
frequently their number is greater in the adult than it is in the young.
In Gryllotalpa there is one tube or duct with a considerable number
of finer tubes at the end of it. There is no muscular layer in the
Malpighian tubes, they being lined with cells which leave a free canal
in the centre. The tubes are now thought, on considerable evidence,
to be organs for the excretion of uric acid or urates, but it is not
known how they are emptied. Marchal has stated[44] that he has
seen the Malpighian tubes, on extraction from the body, undergo
worm-like movements; he suggests that their contents may be
expelled by similar movements when they are in the body.

The functions of the different portions of the alimentary canal, and

the extent to which the ingested food is acted on by their mechanical
structures or their products is very obscure, and different opinions
prevail on important points. It would appear that the saliva exercises
a preparatory action on the food, and that the absorption of the
nutritive matter into the body cavity takes place chiefly from the true
stomach, while the Malpighian tubes perform an excretory function.
Beyond these elementary, though but vaguely ascertained facts, little
is known, though Plateau's[45] and Jousset's researches on the
digestion of Insects throw some light on the subject.

Respiratory Organs.

The respiration of Insects is carried on by means of a system of

vessels for the conveyance of air to all parts of the body; this system
is most remarkably developed and elaborate, and contrasts strongly
with the mechanism for the circulation of the blood, which is as much
reduced as the air system is highly developed, as well as with the
arrangement that exists in the Vertebrates. There are in Insects no
lungs, but air is carried to every part of the body directly by means of
tracheae. These tracheae connect with the spiracles—the orifices at
the sides of the body we have already mentioned when describing
the external structures—and the air thus finds its way into the most
remote recesses of the Insect's body. The tracheae are all intimately
connected. Large tubes connect the spiracles longitudinally, others
pass from side to side of the body, and a set of tracheae for the
lower part of the body is connected with another set on the upper
surface by means of several descending tubes. From these main
channels smaller branches extend in all directions, forking and giving
off twigs, so that all the organs inside the body can be supplied with
air in the most liberal manner. On opening a freshly deceased Insect
the abundance of the tracheae is one of the peculiarities that most
attracts the attention; and as these tubes have a peculiar white
glistening appearance, they are recognised without difficulty. In
Insects of active flight, possibly in some that are more passive,
though never in larvae, there are air-sacs, of more than one kind,
connected with the tracheae, and these are sufficiently capacious to
have a considerable effect in diminishing the specific gravity of the
Insect. The most usual situation for these sacs is the basal portion of
the abdominal cavity, on the great lateral tracheal conduits. In
speaking of the external structure we have remarked that the
stigmata, or spiracles, by which the air is admitted are very various in
their size and in the manner in which they open and close. Some
spiracles have no power of opening; while others are provided with a
muscular and valvular apparatus for the purpose of opening and
closing effectually.

The structure of the tracheae is remarkable: they are elastic and

consist of an outer cellular, and an inner chitinous layer; this latter is
strengthened by a peculiar spiral fibre, which gives to the tubes,
when examined with the microscope, a transversely, closely striated
appearance. Packard considers[46] that in some tracheae this fibre is
not really spiral, but consists of a large number of closely placed
rings. Such a condition has not, however, been recorded by any
other observer. The spiral fibre is absent in the fine capillary twigs of
the tracheal system, as well as from the expanded sacs. The mode
of termination of the capillary branches is not clear. Some have
supposed that the finest twigs anastomose with others; on the other
hand it has been said that they terminate by penetrating cells, or that
they simply come to an end with either open or closed extremities.
Wistinghausen[47] states that in the silk-glands the tracheal twigs
anastomose, and he is of opinion that the fine terminal portions
contain fluid. However this may be, it is certain that all the organs are
abundantly supplied with a capillary tracheal network, or arboreal
ramification, and that in some cases the tubes enter the substance of
tissues. Near their terminations they are said to be 1⁄30 to 1⁄60
millimetre in diameter.

Fig. 71.—Portion of the abdominal part of tracheal system of a Locust

(Oedipoda): a, spiracular orifices; b, tracheal tubes; c, vesicular
dilatations; d, tracheal twigs or capillaries. (After Dufour.)

We must repeat that such a system as we have just sketched forms

a striking contrast to the imperfect blood-vascular system, and that
Insects differ profoundly in these respects from Vertebrate animals.
In the latter the blood-vessels penetrate to all the tissues and form
capillaries, while the aerating apparatus is confined to one part of the
body; in Insects the blood-circulating system is very limited, and air
is carried directly by complex vessels to all parts; thus the tracheal
system is universally recognised as one of the most remarkable of
the characters of Insects. Many Insects have a very active
respiratory system, as is shown by the rapidity with which they are
affected by agents like chloroform; but the exact manner in which the
breathing is carried on is unknown. In living Insects rapid movements
of contraction and expansion of parts of the body, chiefly the
abdomen, may be observed, and these body contractions are
sometimes accompanied by opening and shutting the spiracular
orifices: it has been inferred that these phenomena are respiratory.
Although such movements are not always present, it is possible that
when they occur they may force the air onwards to the tissues,
though this is by no means certain. It is clear that the tracheal
system is the usual means of supplying the organisation with
oxygen, but it appears to be improbable that it can also act as the
agent for removing the carbonaceous products of tissue-changes. It
has been thought possible that carbonic acid might reach the
spiracles from the remote capillaries by a process of diffusion,[48] but
it should be recollected that as some Insects have no tracheal
system, there must exist some other mode of eliminating carbonic
acid, and it is possible that this mode may continue to operate as an
important agent of purification, even when the tracheal system is, as
a bearer of air to the tissues, highly developed. Eisig[49] has
suggested that the formation of chitin is an act of excretion; if so this
is capable of relieving the system of carbonic acid to some extent.
Others have maintained that transpiration takes place through the
delicate portions of the integument. Lubbock[50] has shown that
Melolontha larvae breathe "partly by means of their skin." The mode
in which the carbon of tissue-change, and the nitrogen of inspiration
are removed, is still obscure; but it appears probable that the views
expressed by Réaumur, Lyonnet, and Lowne[51] as to inspiration and
expiration may prove to be nearer the truth than those which are
more widely current. In connexion with this it should be recollected
that the outer integument consists of chitin, and is cast and renewed
several times during the life of the individual. Now as chitin consists
largely of carbon and nitrogen, it is evident that the moulting must
itself serve as a carbonaceous and nitrogenous excretion. If, as is
suggested by Bataillon's researches,[52] the condition accompanying
metamorphosis be that of asphyxia, it is probable that the secretion
of the new coat of chitin may figure as an act of excretion of
considerable importance. If there be any truth in this suggestion it
may prove the means of enabling us to comprehend some points in
the development of Insects that have hitherto proved very
perplexing.

Peyrou has shown[53] that the atmosphere extracted from the bodies
of Insects (Melolontha) is much less rich in oxygen than the
surrounding atmosphere is, and at ordinary temperatures always
contains a much larger proportion of carbonic acid: he finds, too, that
as in the leaves with which he makes a comparison, the proportion
of oxygen augments as the protoplasmic activity diminishes. Were
such an observation carried out so as to distinguish between the air
in the tracheal system and the gas in other parts of the body the
result would be still more interesting.

We know very little as to the animal heat produced by insects, but it

is clear from various observations[54] that the amount evolved in
repose is very small. In different conditions of activity the
temperature of the insect may rise to be several degrees above that
of the surrounding medium, but there seems to be at present no
information as to the physiological mode of its production, and as to
the channel by which the products—whether carbonic acid or other
matters—may be disposed of.

In the order Aptera (Thysanura and Collembola) the tracheal system

is highly peculiar. In some Collembola it apparently does not exist,
and in this case we may presume with greater certainty that
transpiration of gases occurs through the integument: in other
members of this Order tracheae are present in a more or less
imperfect state of development, but the tracheae of different
segments do not communicate with one another, thus forming a
remarkable contrast to the amalgamated tracheal system of the
other Orders of Insects, where, even when the tracheal system is
much reduced in extent (as in Coccidae), it is nevertheless
completely unified. Gryllotalpa is, however, said by Dohrn[55] to be
exceptional in this respect; the tracheae connected with each
spiracle remaining unconnected.

Water Insects have usually peculiarities in their respiratory systems,

though these are not so great as might à priori have been
anticipated. Some breathe by coming to the surface and taking in a
supply of air in various manners, but some apparently obtain from
the water itself the air necessary for their physiological processes.
Aquatic Insects are frequently provided with gills, which may be
either wing-like expansions of the integument containing some
tracheae (Ephemeridae larvae), or bunches of tubes, or single tubes
(Trichoptera larvae). Such Insects may either possess stigmata in
addition to the gills, or be destitute of them. In other cases air is
obtained by taking water into the posterior part of the alimentary
canal (many dragon-flies), which part is then provided with special
tracheae. Some water-larvae appear to possess neither stigmata nor
gills (certain Perlidae and Diptera), and it is supposed that these
obtain air through the integument; in such Insects tracheal twigs may
frequently be seen on the interior of the skin. In the imago state it is
the rule that Water Insects breathe by means of stigmata, and that
they carry about with them a supply of air sufficient for a longer or
shorter period. A great many Insects that live in water in their earlier
stages and breathe there by peculiar means, in their perfect imago
state live in the air and breathe in the usual manner. There are, in
both terrestrial and aquatic Insects, a few cases of exsertile sacs
without tracheae, but filled with blood (Pelobius larva, Machilis, etc.);
and such organs are supposed to be of a respiratory nature, though
there does not appear to be any positive evidence to that effect.

Blood and Blood-Circulation.

Owing to the great complexity of the tracheal system, and to its

general diffusion in the body, the blood and its circulation are very
different in Insects from what they are in Vertebrates, so that it is
scarcely conducive to the progress of physiological knowledge to call
two fluids with such different functions by one name. The blood of
Insects varies according to the species, and in all probability even in
conformity with the stage of the life of the individual. Its primary office
is that of feeding the tissues it bathes, and it cannot be considered
as having any aerating function. It is frequently crowded with fatty
substances. Graber says: "The richness of Insect blood in
unsaponified or unelaborated fat shows in the plainest manner that it
is more properly a mixture of blood and chyle; or indeed we might
say with greater accuracy, leaving out of consideration certain
matters to be eliminated from it, that it is a refined or distilled chyle."
Connected in the most intimate manner with the blood there is a
large quantity of material called vaguely the fat-body; the blood and
its adjuncts of this kind being called by Wielowiejski[56] the blood-
tissue. We shall return to the consideration of this tissue after
sketching the apparatus for distributing the refined chyle, or blood as
we must, using the ordinary term, call it.

There is in Insects no complete system of blood-vessels, though

there is a pulsating vessel to ensure distribution of the nutritive fluid.
This dorsal vessel, or heart as it is frequently called, may be
distinguished and its pulsations watched, in transparent Insects
when alive. It is situate at the upper part of the body, extending from
the posterior extremity, or near it, to the head or thorax, and is an
elongate tube, consisting as it were of a number of united chambers;
it is closed behind, except in some larvae, but is open in front, and
has several orifices at the sides; these orifices, or ostia, are
frequently absent from the front part of the tube, which portion is also
narrower, being called the aorta—by no means a suitable term. Near
the lateral orifices there are delicate folds, which act to some extent
as valves, facilitating, in conjunction with the mode of contraction of
the vessel, a forward movement of the blood. The composition of the
tube, or series of chambers, is that of a muscular layer, with internal
and external membranous coverings, the intima and adventitia. Olga
Poletajewa states[57] that in Bombus the dorsal vessel consists of
five chambers placed in longitudinal succession, and not very
intimately connected, and that there is but little valvular structure. In