“Us” and “Them”

Abstract

This research is the first empirical study to examine ethnic minority gangs which have emerged within the Singapore prisons. It argues that the distinctive forms these entities have assumed in terms of history, structure, subculture, geography, and ideologies have to be appreciated in the context of the social, economic, and political dynamics that exist in wider Singapore society, particularly between the formal social control institutions and the institutionalized Chinese secret societies. What is sociologically revealing is that although the latter operating within the prisons tend to recruit non-Chinese inmates and is therefore more “out-group” orientated in their recruitment strategies, memberships into ethnic minority gangs such as the “Omega” and “Sarah Jumbo”—the two important minority gangs in prisons—are restricted to inmates of the same “race,” pointing to a conceptualization of gangs in prisons as a racialized phenomenon as far as the Singapore context is concerned.

Keywords

prison gangs ethnic minorities Chinese Secret Societies policing Singapore

Introduction

There is a dearth of literature on the phenomenon of gangs in Singapore, and the few that deal with it are limited to the study of Chinese secret societies (CSSs; Blythe, 1969; Comber, 1959; Mak, 1981; Trocki, 1979; Wong, 1963; Wynne, 1941). There is still relatively little empirical knowledge on gangs in prisons or the nature of their constituency in the social organization of the prisons. This research seeks to examine the two most important ethnic minority gangs, Omega and Sara Jumbo, and account for the forms they have assumed in the context of the prisons in relation to history, structure, subculture, geography, and ideology. Data from the study revealed that Omega and Sara Jumbo—comprising exclusively ethnic Malays and Indians, respectively—have emerged primarily as a response to ethnic consciousness and racialization processes engendered within the prison institution, where racial self-identification becomes the only criterion in gang affiliation. Sociologically, this also begs the question of why is it that gangs that have their roots in prisons tend to be ethnic minority in nature. The ideology of ethnic minority gangs stands in contrast to the criminality exhibited by the “imported” (into prisons) CSSs, juxtaposed with mainstream values such as consumerism, elitism, and competitive success—values that promote the strong economic orientation of CSSs.

This observation necessitates an analysis of gangs in prison (and in the free society, as shall be illustrated later) as a racialized phenomenon warranting an investigation into the power relations—historically, structurally, and interpersonally—that exist among gang members of the various racial groups in prisons. Such understanding and contextualizing of their experiences not only reveal the function of gangs as part of the informal inmate code to “surviving” the prisons but chart important conceptual and empirical linkages with the free and legitimate society. This study, as the next section will reveal, challenges the position of the structural functionalists who have sought to understand the processes of gang formation in prisons as merely a mechanism to cope with the pains of imprisonment (Irwin & Cressey, 1962). Although this seems a logical deduction, such an analysis obscures an understanding of the historical contextualization of the lived experiences of inmates of various racial as well as class groups in prisons, and the social hierarchies, rivalries, and ideologies these groups represent and reproduce in the context of the prisons. Although this study primarily focuses on the lived experiences of ethnic minority gang members where it is argued that they are qualitatively distinct from the experiences of Chinese inmates, any analysis of ethnic minority gangs in prisons cannot be complete without documenting the role of the CSSs as a dominant player in the illegitimate society, as will be discussed later in the section on “The Chinese Secret Societies and Ethnic Minority Gangs.”

Theorizing Gangs in Prisons

More generally, academics researching delinquent gangs in prisons have often invoked the concept of prisonization to understand their emergence and proliferation. Prisonization conceptually refers to the “process by which a new inmate takes on the norms, customs, values, and culture in general of the penitentiary and learns to adapt to the prison environment” (Clemmer, 1958, p. 298). This concept has influenced the development of two important theoretical models—deprivation (Cloward, 1977; Goffman, 1961; Sykes, 1958) and importation (Irwin & Cressey, 1962)—in explaining the role of delinquent associations in the prison milieu. These two models, fundamentally, have suggested that the emergence and importation of gangs into prisons are functional to countering the numerous “pains of imprisonment” induced by the loss of liberty, goods and services, heterosexual contact, autonomy and security, and the psychological threats to their self-conception (Sykes, 1958; Sykes & Messinger, 1960). Delinquent associations safeguard against the threat and reality of physical violence in prisons, which is often a consequence of material and psychological deprivations, and against poverty through an “informal prison economy, involving the selling and consumption of contrabands smuggled into the penitentiary” (Ross & Richards, 2002; Toch, 1998).

Following the deprivation model of imprisonment, the myriad functions of delinquent groups in prisons instill in unaffiliated inmates the reality that membership in delinquent groups is crucial as a “currency” to surviving incarceration (Flesher & Rison, 1999, p. 237; Jacobs, 1974, p. 400). Within the organizational framework of delinquent groups, members are allocated definite roles and can aspire to successive levels of status through the display of manly virtues such as that of bravery or fearlessness, toughness, physical prowess, and loyalty to one’s group members, which allows them to assert their masculine self (Ross & Richards, 2002). In contradistinction to the prison institution’s attempt to “de-masculinise” its subjects or at least regulate masculinity through institutional means such as providing legitimate space for sports activities during “yard time” and banning physical exercise in the cells, participation in gangs allows members to subscribe to the ideals of an “aggressive” or “exaggerated” masculinity where such performances allow inmates to attain status among peers and imperviousness toward staff. This often assumes the expression of “rape, defiance against custodians of control, sports and the construction of the ‘ideal type’ masculine physicality” (Lockwood, 1980; Messerschmidt, 1993; Messner, 1989; Sabo & Runfola, 1980). More importantly, leveraging on the social platform provided by gangs, displays of masculinity offer symbols to resist the “mortification of self” within the prison milieu (Strong, 1943, p. 564).

The “border crossing” image, which the concept of prisonization attests to, arises from a normative conception of prisons as a “total institution,” denoting a place of “residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut-off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life” (Goffman, 1961, p. xiii). Similarly, Foucault (1979) saw the prisons as a “complete and austere institution,” which “assumes responsibility for all aspects of the individual, his physical training, his aptitude to work, his everyday conduct, his moral attitude, his state of mind” (p. 235). For the prisoners, it entails a transition into

a social world that is organized differently and centered around a different culture than the everyday world left behind—a passage that is acknowledged by the prison culture distinction between the world of the joint and the outside free world. (Jones & Schmid, 2000, p. 1)

This leads to a conceptualization of the prison community as a social system in its own right, variously acknowledged as “primitive society,” “prison society,” “autonomous society,” “social microcosm,” “micro society,” “inmate society,” “segregated communities,” and “closed institution” (Clemmer, 1958; Etzioni, 1957; Jacobs, 1979; Sykes, 1958; Sykes & Messinger, 1960), where it is isolated from the outside world with its own language, leaders, laws, rites, and rituals. Members of this society are seen to speak in “the pungent argot of the dispossessed and have their own vocabulary for everything from sex roles to dis-positions vis-à-vis the official administration” (Sykes & Messinger, 1960, p. 11). Yet, rather paradoxically, both the deprivation and importation theses of prisonization challenge the much revered notion of the prison as a total institution. Although prisons denotes structurally a totalitarian regime and an almost absolute control of the inmate population, the very formation, proliferation, and importation of delinquent associations into prisons as an adaptive response to surviving incarceration provide a conceptual space for recognizing agency of prisoners amid the “totality of the institution.”

A more serious conceptual problem with the deprivation theory, despite its utility in documenting the “structural accommodation” on the part of the inmates, is the assumption of the existence of a monolithic, homogeneous, and an “isolated” prison culture, which is conceived as the result of a collectively adaptive response to the conditions of imprisonment. Although the importation model tends to address this conceptual gap by emphasizing the influence of external statuses and behavior patterns on prisoner subcultures (Irwin & Cressey, 1962; Jacobs, 1979; Phillips, 2008), it cannot adequately explain the form the prisoner subcultures assume and the differentiated strategies offered by the various racial, class, and gender groups within the prisons. Of interest to this study is the salience of race as an ideology in gang formation and membership—an important component in the process of prisonization—among minority inmates and how it equips them with a repertoire of race resources to cope with the pains of imprisonment. By this, I argue that the experiences of minority gang members are qualitatively distinct from those of the majority Chinese inmates where the discourse of racialization and the attendant semantics of social exclusion, subjugation, racism, and discrimination have a pervasive effect on constructing intra-minority and minority–majority relationships in the prisons context.

Theoretically, the empirical investigation into the phenomenon of minority gangs calls for the need to merge the deprivation and importation models of prisonization to appreciate why and how their racialized adaptation to the prison experience is a direct consequence of the unequal power arrangement between the minority and majority racial groups in both the legitimate and illegitimate societies. Undoubtedly, socialization into prison life is dictated by the conditions of captivity, but the form the process assumes has to be traced beyond the boundaries of prisons (deprivation model) and pre-prison behavior patterns of individual inmates and groups (importation model). Following this argument, one can then locate the “excesses” of violence—disproportionately perpetrated by minority gang members against “others”, including prison staff and members of their own “race” but who have joined rival gangs run by the Chinese—in the differential access to race resources. Given that minority gang members do not see a future in hegemonic masculinity by virtue of their ethno-class position and because they lack the race resources of the Chinese majority in and outside prisons, minority gang members tend to resort to those hegemonic masculine ideals that remain available in prisons, such as physical violence. Thus, instead of pathologizing the violent behaviors of minority gang members, their engagement in physical aggression should be seen as a collective resource for accomplishing masculinity—hyper, “uncontrolled,” and racialized. It is crucial to recognize their violence as a form of compensatory behavior in the context of unequal distribution of race resources, and it is one way through which ethnic minority members prove and “visibilize” their masculinity, which becomes a status resource in itself in prisons.

It is the contention of the author that the study of ethnic minority gangs in prisons must necessarily entail an analysis of the social, economic, and political dynamics that exist in wider Singapore society and how they are reproduced and replicated, albeit in different forms, in the prison context. Central to this investigation is examining the historical role of the institutionalized CSSs in both colonial and contemporary Singapore societies and the symbiotic relationship that exists between these societies and the police in the regulation of illicit markets, which serve to control the distribution of race resources in the illegitimate society. The latter is an important precursor to understanding ethnic minority gangs in prisons.

Method

It is well known that conducting research in Singapore, particularly of a sensitive nature (such as on gangs or criminality) is not easy. Many barriers exist for the social researcher, and access is not always forthcoming as prison administrators are reluctant to allow outsiders into facilities to conduct research. Relying on official documentation is equally problematic, as the little information that does exist is intended for internal use only and is often procedural in nature (see Fong & Buentello, 1991). This study presents a unique insight into the form, materiality, and genesis of minority prison gangs in Singapore, providing important and much-needed context to a phenomenon that has been dominated by quantitative studies. As Gaes, Wallace, Gilman, Klein-Saffran, and Suppa (2002) note, “most of our knowledge on prison gangs is based on responses to surveys of institutions or jurisdictions” (p. 359), and furthermore, statistical models have dominated the prisonization debate.

Data collection for this study was conducted in three phases. The first phase was initiated in 2003 when the author had the opportunity to witness and experience prison life beyond the “showcase” sections of the prison institution. Assuming an ethnographic style underpinned by a theoretical sampling approach whereby groups are chosen as they are needed rather than before the research begins (Glaser, 1992), and where the initial sample was determined to examine the phenomenon where it is found to exist (Chenitz & Swanson, 1986), close to 500 hours were spent in the field. This time was spent engaging inmates in informal conversations while observing the routines and rhythms of their lives as they interacted with fellow prisoners and prison staff. These initial observations were confined to one Housing Unit of a Remand Prison where convicted prisoners were housed. In particular, “the yard” offered an excellent site to study prison life as it was here that prisoners from the housing units were allowed for an hour a day to leave their cells and mingle “freely” with others, albeit under the watchful eyes of the prison staff and Gurkha guards from the guard towers. Most of the author’s conversations and observations took place during “yard time” as it presented an invaluable opportunity to observe the interactions between the inmates and the guards. As Sykes (1958) notes, it is these moments of release from confinement that “set the stage for a wide range of social interaction” and enable the observer “to see the realities of the prison social system emerge” (p. 6).

In almost all conversations regarding the prisoners’ incarceration experience, they led to discussions about their gangs without any prompting, a clear attestation that surviving incarceration and gang membership were intrinsically and inevitably tied to each other. Of particular salience was how prisoners articulated their masculine and gang identities, which almost always intersected with narratives of racialization and social exclusion both inside and outside prisons. Interestingly, these narratives and “prison stories” of gang involvement and exploits of power and violence were more pronounced among minority prisoners, which in themselves hold much theoretical significance for the current investigation. During this phase, the author, through necessity, resorted to mental note-taking (thus rendering data loss unavoidable) as it was neither possible nor permitted to physically record the observations especially given the fact that the author was operating both in a totalitarian institution and “naturalistic” environment. The author’s identity as researcher was made known, and his intentions to observe, report, and publish eventually an account of prison life were communicated to participants, especially minority inmates, with whom the author was able to build a trusting relationship given the cultural and ethnic proximity between the researcher and the researched.

This initial acquaintance with prison life and the understanding of how racialized and gendered that experience was to so many prisoners precipitated an interest to further examine the social organization of the prisons and the role of minority gangs in it. Through informal and personal contacts, the author conducted in-depth interviews with eight Sara Jumbo members including its founder, 11 Omega members, and 10 CSS members in both the “free” and “prison society” as part of the second phase of data collection. These interviews were done between February 2004 and September 2010, and the relatively long period of data collection was primarily due to problems of access to and arranging interview sessions with gang members who were “unusually suspicious” (Berk & Adams, 1970, p. 61). In this phase, a further six interviews were done with ex- and current police and prison officers for the purposes of data triangulation and documenting the “institutional” viewpoint. For the third phase of data collection, participant observation was carried out for about 6 months in 2013 at a working-class Indian pub located in the Serangoon Road area (also known as Little India) where members of Sara Jumbo usually congregated. The method allowed for a more intimate involvement with the members and provided an insight into their values, norms, and worldview. The fieldwork was completed in the first quarter of 2014. Because it is a protracted and small-scale study, the results cannot be considered definitive. Nevertheless, they provide an overview of contemporary prison life and the role of gangs in the prisonization process. Importantly, the study was able to document the lived experiences of (ex)prisoners as classed, raced, and gendered subjects and their relationship with gangs in prisons. Following the argument that it is impossible to understand the emergence of minority prison gangs without an appreciation of CSSs, the following section discusses the historical role played by the latter in the control and distribution of illicit services in the illegitimate society.

Findings

CSSs and Minority Gangs

Historically, CSSs, based on the Triad organizational strategy, were instrumental in maintaining control over the Chinese immigrants to Malaya. For the greater part of the 19th century, they existed as an intermediate layer of extra-legal jurisdiction in regulating the social, economic, and political life of these immigrants with many of the powers and functions of the colonial government wielded by them (Blythe, 1969; Trocki, 1979; Turnbull, 1996). Freedman (1960) argued that these societies were “a response to external government” that conferred on the local migrant community some form of autonomy and protection from the experience of the modern colonial state (p. 46). The power and domination of the CSSs resulted

in governmental attempts to eradicate them though from the statist point of view, as the dual function played by secret societies as a coercive regulatory body governing everyday life, as well as a grassroots organization that provided social welfare, made it a complicated entity to discipline. (Kamaludeen, 2014, p. 3)

After State attempts at co-option, infiltration, and affording the secret societies some form of autonomy of self-governance failed to curb the influence of these societies, the Societies Ordinance was introduced in 1890, which effectively criminalized all forms of Chinese secret organizations. Since then, a series of legislative measures such as the Banishment Ordinance were experimented with, but it was not till 1955 that the colonial authorities enjoyed some supposed success in the suppression of CSSs when they introduced the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance (Ganapathy, 1995).

Fundamentally, this law allowed the authorities to detain a secret society member without trial for an indefinite period, and the relative success of this law was seen in the decline of secret-society-related incidents from 416 in 1959 to 13 in 1977 (Police Life, 1977). The total number of detainees under this Act, which was renewed for the 11th time in 2004, had also dropped from 1,260 in 1988 to 463 in 1998 to 290 in 2008 (Ganapathy, 2012). Although it is tempting to attribute the apparent success to the deterrent effect of this law, it is equally important to acknowledge the existence of a symbiotic relationship between the police and the CSSs, which evolved to address the problem of policing marginal occupations and geographical locales that attract criminal elements (Ganapathy & Lian, 2002).

Seen from this perspective, the CSSs play a functional role in offering protection to the vulnerable and marginalized population (subscribers) in return for gaining territorial monopolization and control of both illegal and legal economic activities generated within these territorial, extra-political spaces while respecting the “rules” enshrined in this symbiotic relationship (Ganapathy & Lian, 2002). The exclusiveness of the relationship between the police and the CSSs serves to preserve social order in the illegitimate (criminal) society, first, by evicting headmen of secret societies who are not compliant with the police from the symbiotic participation, and second, by preventing new gangs, that is, street corner and secret society types from gaining a foothold in the criminal underworld and potentially upsetting the institutional symbiotic relationships between the CSSs and the police. The low number of recorded secret society incidents cited earlier should be understood in the context of this historical and institutional symbiotic relationship.

The stability of this relationship could be attributed to two factors. First, because the organizational characteristics of the CSSs promote their economic motive—which has been the case since colonial times—through a subscription to what are often considered “mainstream” values of financial gain, competitive success, elitism, and long-term planning and investments, there is no real need for these societies to challenge the symbiotic arrangement, as it would be against their own economic interest to do so. As studies on organized crime have shown, the stability of illicit markets rests on the extent to which organized criminal groups successfully embed themselves in both the illegitimate and legitimate societies fundamentally achieved through a symbiotic relationship with enforcement agencies (Chambliss, 1989; Hobbs, 1988; Lowman, 1992; Reuter, 1984; Smith, 1971).

The second factor contributing to the resilience of the institutional relationship is the CSSs’ subscription to an ideology that apparently de-emphasizes ethnicity among its members. Notwithstanding the provision of sociocultural and structural mechanisms by which younger Chinese—by virtue of their ethnicity—could gain access to the illegitimate opportunity and learning structures should conventional means fail, the CSSs in Singapore had to historically adopt an ideology of “brotherhood” and “blood-oath of loyalty” where ethnic allegiance among members had to be downplayed. This adaptive strategy arose from the need to recruit members from an ethnically heterogeneous community comprising Indian and Chinese emigrants of various dialects and the native Malays to boost their membership, when numerous secret societies additionally existed and competed for members to flourish (Musa, 2003). As Wynne (1941) noted,

. . . in order for Chinese secret societies to safeguard their imperium in imperio within the context of a multi-ethnic, migrant community such as Singapore, it was crucial for Chinese secret societies to ideologically de-emphasise ethnic allegiance. (p. 254)

Also, the overrepresentation of Malays in the police service in Singapore at least till the 1970s compelled CSSs to recruit Malay members to play the frontline role of dealing with and bribing the police officers to overlook the activities of CSSs (Ganapathy, 2000; Musa, 2003). As Wynne (1941) observed,

. . . the Malays were always a tool in the hands of the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Chinese Secret Societies, engaged to do the dirty work that the Chinese did not want associated to their own Chinese societies. The differentiated status between Chinese and Malay members of Chinese secret societies was marked by a difference in the entrance fee of Chinese members which was three dollars and sixty cents, compared to the one dollar and sixty cents paid by lesser members of Chinese secret societies, namely Malays. (p. 228)

A more significant reason for this adaptive strategy of “inclusive membership,” however differential it was, was its carefully nuanced compatibility to the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) political ideology of “multiracialism.” Multiracialism, as an ideology, is committed to the equal treatment of all races in Singapore, and this worked well for the corporatist state whose legitimacy rests on the articulation of the nation as a consensual and organic community (Lian, 2006). Politically, “multiracialism” as an ethnic/racial policy was seen as the cornerstone of Singapore’s social stability and economic prosperity. The “moral symmetry” between the CSSs and the PAP is thus witnessed in “[their] structure . . . namely their multi-ethnic composition, the ideology of PAP’s equality which parallels the ideology of brotherhood in Chinese secret societies” (Hanif, 2008, p. 116).

Although the CSSs professed equal opportunities and treatment for all their members through the adoption of the ideology of sworn brotherhood (Mak, 1981), the reality of the situation was that ethnic minority members were structurally confined to positions in the lower echelons of the secret society as promotional criteria essentially depended on the ascribed characteristics of the members. As one ethnic minority member of a CSS stated plainly:

. . . you have to be a Chinese to run a Chinese secret society. My loyalty to the society is not enough . . . your skin color must be the same as them. (emphasis added)

Unlike the CSSs, there is no evidence to suggest that early South Asian migrants in Singapore had formed organizations, formal or informal, to protect their interests (Mani, 1993). One of the factors that might have contributed to this was that early migrant Indians who came to Malaya to work in the plantations and as laborers in the public works were recruited by British companies with the help of the colonial authorities in Malaya and India (Arasaratnam, 1979). This offered them greater security and protection of interests, often bypassing channels that could be extra-legal. In contrast, Chinese labor was organized by independent Chinese commercial interests that relied on clan associations and secret societies to recruit and control the large numbers of cheap indentured laborers from Southern China (Elson, 1992).

The Malays, on the other hand, had organized themselves into ethnically exclusive Malay secret societies since the 1830s. The two prominent Malay secret societies documented in the Malay States were the Bendera Putih (White Flag Secret Society) and Bendera Merah (Red Flag Secret Society) whose origins could be traced to the political circumstances surrounding the Siamese occupation of Kedah (Blythe, 1969). The attacks at the Siamese were seen as a “jihad” and pointed to the way Islam functioned as an ideology to unify the Malay Muslims against the “infidel” Siamese (Musa, 2003). Ritual elements were enshrined in the recruitment and organizational process of these secret societies where members were made to take the oath of secrecy by swearing on the Quran (Musa, 2003). However, by the 1950s, these societies were largely disbanded by the colonial authorities for organizing political and “jihadist” campaigns to oust the Chinese and Indians from Malaya fundamentally over issues of Malay rights. Consequentially, many members of Bendera Putih and Bendera Merah left to join the CSSs, as its extensive and deeply embedded network afforded their members better protection and economic privileges.

Arguably, ethnic minority gangs and their members, in the context of the “free society,” historically experience a “triple-crisis”: first, the absence of an historically inherited “ethnic minority” adult criminal network equivalent to that of the CSSs in which younger members of ethnic minority groups could gain access to the market of illicit opportunities and learning structures (the following section deals with this in detail). Second, these gangs are disproportionately subjected to surveillance by the State due to their ideology of ethnic/racial exclusivity, which seeks to assiduously depoliticize ethnicity and presents a potential threat to the PAP government’s nationalist ideology of multiracialism. Third, and as a consequence of the second, ethnic minority gangs are excluded from the institutional symbiotic relationship which the CSSs historically have enjoyed with the police. Being excluded from the institutional arrangement meant that ethnic minority gangs do not have the structural access to gain territorial monopolization and control of licit and illicit economic activities. The net effect of this “triple-crisis” is the (continued) marginalization of ethnic minority gangs in the illegitimate society. It is this marginality that ethnic minority members react to and ethnic minority gangs in prisons are based on. The disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities in prisons, coupled with the prevailing discourse of racialization, promotes the proliferation of minority gang membership in prisons.

Ethnic Minority Prison Gangs

Lyman (1989) defines a prison gang as

an organization which operates within the prison system as a self-perpetuating criminally orientated entity, consisting of a select group of inmates who have established an organized chain of command and are governed by an established code of conduct. The prison gang will usually operate in secrecy and has its goal to conduct gang activities by controlling their prison environment through intimidation and violence directed toward non-members. (p. 48)

It is noteworthy that the founding of the Omega and Sara Jumbo gangs has been by individual members through “accidental” circumstances in the prisons that stand in sharp contrast to the CSSs where the latter had historically enjoyed a strong institutional and organizational structure. In this regard, it becomes particularly imperative for ethnic minority gang leaders to articulate personal charisma to ensure their gangs’ expansion and sustenance. The discourse on the origins of these gangs, not surprisingly, is often couched in recognition of the mystic, masculine, and invincible powers of their founders. As the founder of Sara Jumbo mentioned to the author,

It was to come sooner or later. For years, the Indians were beaten up, sodomised in prisons mainly by the Chinese inmates because they have the power and they have the backing of the Chinese SS (secret societies). They are everywhere in prisons and they bring their “shirt” (prison jargon for secret societies) when they come to prisons. For Indians and also Malays, we are not like them and we are not protected by some prison officers although some of the wardens side us. I founded the gang on 1 January 1996, one day after I fought a “one-to-one” (single unarmed combat) fight with 12 Chinese inmates in the housing unit. There were only 3 other Indians in the housing unit. They were fighting too. I was bleeding all over my face but I defeated one by one till all 12 Chinese fell to the ground. That was the day when one senior Chinese Headman of this very powerful secret society which controlled the prison shook my hands and told me that from this day, all Indians in prisons will not be disturbed anymore. I named the gang SARA JUMBO which means STRENGTH, AMBITION, RIGHTNESS, AIM—JUSTICE UNDER MURUGAN BROTHER ORGANIZATION (The word “Murugan” here refers to one of the Hindu deities worshipped mainly by Tamils of South Indian origin).

Similarly, the origins of Omega also had such a history attesting to the bravery and valor of the founding members who came to be known as the “Seven Wonders”—at least among the second-generation members of Omega. Formed on 23rd September 1989 in the former Chia Keng Prison (a prison institution in the north-east of Singapore) in the aftermath of the “Seven Wonders” defeat of the Chinese gangsters who were “controlling” the prison then, Omega’s primary objective was to protect the interests of the Malay-Muslim inmates. There are several acronyms including a religious one for the word Omega, but two remain popular: “ O rganisation- M artyrdom- E ncroachment- G allantry- A dmittance” and “ O nly M alays E nter G angster A rea.”

Understanding such performative acts of manliness has to be contextualized within the broader economic and social structures. As Messerschmidt (1993) argues, social structures situate young men in relation to similar others so that, collectively, they experience the world from a specific position and differentially construct cultural ideas of hegemonic masculinity—that is, dominance, control, and independence. He further contends that young minority males living in economically dislocated communities, in this case the prisons, “are typically denied masculine status in the educational and occupational spheres, which are the major sources of masculine status available to men in white middle class communities and white working class communities” (Messerschmidt, 1993, p. 112). This denial of access to legitimate resources creates the context for heightened public and private forms of aggressive masculinity (Joe & Chesney-Lind, 1995).

Similarly, leaders of Sara Jumbo and Omega having been denied access to “success-goals”—which is primarily defined in terms of economic success and material status—in both the legitimate and illegitimate societies engage in what Katz (1988) called “street elite posturing.” In the context of the prisons, it involves displays of defiance, toughness, and public aggression, and is an essential gender resource for young minority men to accomplish masculinity (Sim, 1994). As Scraton, Sim, and Skidmore (1991) note,

. . . the acts of violent men in prison, sustained by a culture of masculinity which idealizes and equates personal power with physical dominance, reflects the world outside. Inside, the dominance can be total with nowhere to hide from the bullying of other prisoners. It is concentrated within a totality of masculinity, the ground-rules heavily underlined by official male authority. Prisoners’ violence is often part of the symbol, ritual and reality of a hostile male environment. (p. 67)

This is exacerbated by the nature of the “total institution” where it strips off the individual normative facets of masculine identity associated with the “free society.” As a prison officer remarked,

. . . you can be somebody outside but you see in prison, whoever you’re or whatever you’re doesn’t count. This is a dog eat dog world. You must learn to survive here and the moment you show weakness, someone will be fucking you up.

Acts of intimidation and gang violence by Omega and Sara Jumbo members are not simply an expression of the competitive struggle in prison, but a means for affirming self-respect and status. The prison, then, becomes both a battleground and a “theater” dominated by young men doing gender (Connell, 1987), albeit in racialized ways. As the founder of Sara Jumbo noted,

To me, first and most, I am an Indian. We are one family and because of this every Indian is my brother, every Indian who enters prisons is Sara Jumbo. The membership is automatic. Whenever they have problems with other inmates, I will go in and if I do, at least 10 people will be on the floor. That is the target I set for myself. The prison officers know this and that’s why they don’t try funny things with me. They will call me “yogi kudu” for my fighting abilities. Only I can see the SOP (Superintendent of Prisons) anytime and for a long time I never allowed them to shave my moustache and beard. If I remove my moustache, I am no longer a Man, no longer an Indian . . . .

A pertinent characteristic of Sara Jumbo and Omega is the ethnic affiliation, solidarity, and self- identification among the members, thus pointing to gangs in prisons as a racialized phenomenon. This is crucial to the origination of a discourse in prisons, which racializes the socio-economic marginality of ethnic minorities in both the wider society and CSSs. As mentioned earlier, one cannot appreciate the formation of these gangs in prisons without understanding the racial dynamics operating in the wider society and the perceived repression by ethnic minorities as far as policing organized crime is concerned. To many of these members, prison is the ultimate semblance of their marginality—physically, socially, economically, and politically. To the many ethnic minority inmates as well as ethnic minority prison guards, the overrepresentation of Indian and Malay members of CSSs in prison attests to the exploitative structuring in the CSSs where ethnic minorities are relegated to low-level and frontline positions such as “Gi Na Kia” (fighter) or “Gina” (recruit). As these positions render higher visibility, they are more vulnerable to detection, arrest, and subsequent incarceration. As a former senior member and former headman of the Indian wing of CSSs recollected their respective experiences,

It is a pity that we Malays have been taken to be fools working for the Chinese; we call them masters and devote everything I have to them. I personally help to expand the SS using my name and it was the Malay members who were contributing to the expansion. Say my name, they know who I am. But I must say that they did take care of us, pay all of our expenses and recognized us . . . But only thing is that they ask me and my members to do all the dirty things like whacking people and controlling businesses . . . the Chinese never wanted to dirty their hands . . . Soon the police put me in prison. I am actually surprised that police can find me so easily. I suspect that it was the General Headman who “powtao” (inform) me to the police because I was becoming too powerful for them. (Incarcerated Malay member of a CSS)

From what I know, the police are only searching for Indian or Malay members of Chinese SS (secret societies). They somehow forget that we are theirs (Chinese secret societies) and a lot of the senior people are Chinese. I know that the police are bias people, only disturbing us and turning their heads away whenever the Chinese do things. Many Indians are put in (incarcerated) under CL (Criminal Law) for gangster activities. In my case, they say that I am the headmen. Yes, I am for _________ but I was doing the business for the Chinese, I just get a small share of the profits and my guys control the Indian prostitutes in the area. But the police did not look for the big guns who are the Chinese . . . they cannot touch them. But they can show all the evidence that I am the headman. I remember that when I wanted to surrender I did not even have ten dollars in my pocket. Am I the real headman? (Former Headman of the Indian wing of ______ Secret Society)

Inter- and intra-ethnic relations of minority gang members

Observations of and interviews with members of Sara Jumbo revealed that a more accommodating and “inclusive” relationship existed between them and Indian members of CSSs in prisons. This was perhaps attributable to the operating ideology of Sara Jumbo where it positioned itself as a racially inspired self-help organization to meeting the needs of all Indian inmates. Indian members of CSSs are therefore allowed to “suspend” their “wearing of Chinese shirts” (meaning gang membership) before they become default members of Sara Jumbo during their period of incarceration. However, there is a strategic advantage to having Indian members of CSSs admitted into Sara Jumbo as the former could then operate as a “conflict-reduction mechanism” to mediate conflicts that arise between the CSSs they were part of and Sara Jumbo (Mak, 1981). Reciprocally, members of Sara Jumbo also tend to ease tensions between Indian members of warring CSSs, as the following field observation notes reveal:

. . . There was this low level gang member from _____ who was boasting about his exploits of his secret society. _____ is the name of the Indian wing of the Chinese secret society called ________. He talked so much about his S.S. that it upset two members of _________ from the Taman Jurong area (a historical stronghold of the society) who began to indulge in their exploits too. Things got built up that they agreed to settle their differences during yard time to see who was “bigger.” At about this time, a respected member of Sara Jumbo intervened to remind them that they had “suspended” their “shirts” and that they are now Sara Jumbo members as long as they are in prisons. He made the CA3 member apologize to them not as a secret society member but as a fellow Indian.

Confrontations involving Chinese members of secret societies whether with minority gang members or with other Chinese are markedly rare in the context of the prisons. In fact, interviews conducted with Chinese members of secret societies revealed that they preferred to take on a “low profile” role in prisons. For many of the affiliated Chinese inmates, imprisonment was seen as a “passing phase,” as one mid-level member of a CSS stated:

. . . To me, I come to prison because of loan sharking activities. I just spend my time in prison relaxing…no point getting into trouble. I know a lot of Malay people and “kiling kia” (referring to Indians) make a lot of noise here. You only get a lot of attention from the prison people (prison staff). I like to keep to myself. When I am released I have a job . . . I have to go back to my loan sharking activities. They are my friends . . . My boss got tell me that I can get promotion (in the syndicate) also . . . I must quickly get out from here to make money. No point being a hero in prison.

This is an important assertion as it meant that many of the affiliated Chinese inmates by virtue of their ethnicity could (re)gain access to a criminal network monopolized by the CSSs after imprisonment. This seems to have an impact on their conduct in prison to a large extent. John Hagedorn’s (1997) investigation of White and racial minority youth groups in Milwaukee found similar processes occurring although the context was the streets. African American and Latino gang members “matured out of the gang at a slower rate than Whites, who found steady employment in much greater numbers” (Hagedorn, 1997, p. 11). White youth had access to legitimate resources with which they could construct a particular form of hegemonic masculinity and, therefore, be able to age out of crime. Most racial minority boys similarly wanted to age out of crime, Hagedorn (1997) found, but the racial divisions of labor and power limited access to such resources. For the Malay and Indian inmates in this study, however, the prisons become a contested arena symbolically and materially as they attempt to mobilize their marginal labor to promote and sustain self-help in the context of perceived institutional repression. The statistical superiority of ethnic minorities in prisons thus poses a strategic lead for the minority gangs to organize themselves.

The expansionist policy of the ethnic minority gangs

Between the two key ethnic minority gangs, Sara Jumbo and Omega, the latter is more aggressive when it comes to the procurement of its members and has, for ideological and structural reasons, adopted a proselytizing strategy. This is manifested in the religious elements incorporated into the organizational principles of Omega, which take the form of swearing on the Quran as part of their initiation rites, the adorning of a secret number of “535” signifying the Islamic practices of praying 5 times a day, and last but not the least, using a semantic structure where common enemies of the gang and street gang warfare are being described as “infidels” and “Jihad,” respectively. These findings revealed an affinity with the Bendera Putih and Bendera Merah of the previous century when the two societies staged attacks on the Siamese in Kedah. The target of the proselytizing approach of Omega is both the unaffiliated Malay-Muslim inmates and Malay-Muslim members of CSSs. The latter is pursued in view of the relegation of Malay-Muslim members of CSSs to low-level positions. Thus, the conversion is both symbolic and instrumental in that it does not only represent a shift in loyalty from one secret society to another but a religious “conversion” for the many Malay-Muslim members to reaffirm their allegiance to Allah. As one “converted” Malay-Muslim member stated,

. . . I was at peace only when I found my religion back. Omega made it happen for me. I ate pork, pray to Chinese gods, attend their 7th month Hungry Ghost festival . . . you know I did what all Chinese did . . . I even got go to the Chinese cemetery to pray. But when I was caught and put in jail, I turned back but saw no one. I was taken to be a fool. Here, in prison, Omega tells me I am “bodoh” (Malay word for stupid) to work for Chinese people. They tell me that the Chinese are making use of the Malays to do their dirty job. When I think about that I realize it is true and I feel ashamed because I have left my religion. Now, I am at peace . . . I can hold the Quran now . . . Omega must live to the end.

The overtly aggressive recruitment policy of Omega compounded by its antagonism toward Malay members of CSSs (who are seen as betrayers of Islam) leads to an almost institutionalized conflict between the two gangs in prisons. The conflict is particularly marked when it comes to the Sio Kun Tong secret society where there is a sizable representation of Malays. Although at one level, the hostility could be explained as a logical consequence of the rivalry that exists between different gangs in prisons, it is interesting to note how members of the “prison society” have come to ethno-racialize the phenomenon at another level. As this Omega member observed,

. . . don’t you see a conspiracy? Malay whacking Malays in prison!, we are the children of Allah and yet we are killing each other. How can I explain it? I can only explain that there is a Chinese conspiracy. They make brothers enemies because they promise the Malay members in their gangs all the money, connections and successes of life and all the “bodoh” (stupid) Malays follow them. These fellows think that they are big because the Chinese have given them a table or two for their Hungry Ghost Festival. They feel so proud to smoke, eat pork and gamble just like the Chinese. Some will also kill brothers just in the name of the society. Even here, they fight with the Malays and target the Omega members who are actually telling them that the Chinese are making use of them. In the end, Malays whether they are from the Chinese SS or Omega get into the PC (punishment cell) and it is the Malay race that gets destroyed—both inside and outside the prison. What a waste and a conspiracy!

This invocation of race consciousness (thus by definition, religious fervor) compounded by the statistical superiority of the Malays contributed rapidly to the expansion of Omega both inside and outside of prisons. Thus, although the Omega gang was initially “prison-inspired” and its members “state-raised,” there exists a strong symbiotic relationship between the prisons and streets. As Moore (1978) in her study of the Chicano prison gang found out, “The Mafia attempted to use its prison-based organization to move into the narcotics market in East Los Angeles, and also, reputedly, into some legitimate pinto-serving community agencies” (p. 115). From an informally organized self-protection group at its inception, Omega, over a span of two decades, has established a structure equivalent to the CSSs with an elaborate system of networks, relationships, and offices akin to a criminal enterprise. The gaining of a foothold both in the illegitimate society and prisons was made possible by adopting a strategy of extreme violence as witnessed in some high-profile cases, which had commanded the headlines of local newspapers. Three of these include the Duxton and Kallang murders in 1999 and 2000, respectively, and Newton Food Centre in 2004 when members of the Omega staged a pre-dawn retaliatory attack armed with samurai swords (Ganapathy, 2012). The use of violence is, as studies of organized crime have revealed (Kelly, Chin, & Fagan, 1993; Maltz, 1976; Smith, 1971), necessary, at least initially, for the survival and continuity of criminal gangs especially if they are market-driven. Similarly, in the Singapore context, the employment of violence by Omega was instrumental in breaking the monopoly held by the CSSs over the illicit markets. Due to its historical antecedents, Omega ventured into taking control of the drug trade, and by the mid-1990s, the local drug trade had begun to show features of a transnational criminal enterprise (personal communication; Ganapathy, 2012). The case study of Omega is a remarkable attestation to Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) conceptualization of differential access to criminal opportunities and networks in that it documents how a group of incarcerated drug addicts with an initial “retreatist” outlook had risen to the status of an established criminal subculture through extreme violence. Appreciating the historical and structural circumstances, which have led to the birth and subsequent rise of Omega, has been the focus of this article. Omega has since become a household name for many Malay youths as it provides, especially for those marginalized, an exclusively Malay “ethnic” criminal network in which they could gain access to and realize status goals that exist in the illegitimate society.

Sara Jumbo, however, has largely remained “retreatist” over the years without any professed economic motive. At the time this article was written, its founder was remanded for drug consumption, and it is likely that he may be committed to a long-term imprisonment regime known as corrective training where he may be incarcerated for no less than 14 years. Although Indians in prisons have historically commanded legendary status, it is doubtful whether Sara Jumbo can still operate as a “gang” under the current penal regime. Incidentally, Sara Jumbo has been classified as a defunct association by the prison authorities at the time of writing. However, one can argue that as long as Indian members feel marginalized and “make sense” of it racially, it may still be possible that Indian inmates transform their structural inadequacies into a form of “ethnic consciousness,” which in itself may provide a reason for gang sustenance within the prison. Whether this leads to a revivalism of Sara Jumbo or formation of a new “ethnic” Indian gang remains to be seen.

Discussion

In examining the two most important ethnic minority gangs, Omega and Sara Jumbo, this research accounted for the forms they have assumed in the context of the prisons in relation to history, structure, subculture, geography, and ideology. Data from the study revealed that these gangs, which have emerged primarily as a response to ethnic consciousness and racialization discourses engendered within the prisons, are a consequence of the triple crisis experienced by ethnic minority gangs in the context of the free society: first, the absence of an historically inherited “ethnic minority” adult criminal network equivalent to that of the CSSs; second, the “over-policing” of these gangs by the state police because their ideology of ethnic/racial exclusivity is antithetical to the ruling government’s nationalist ideology of multiracialism; and third, ethnic minority gangs’ exclusion from the institutional symbiotic relationship between the CSSs and the police. Being excluded from the institutional arrangement meant that ethnic minority gangs did not have the structural access to gain territorial monopolization and control of licit and illicit economic activities. As the data revealed, the net effect of this triple crisis is the continued marginalization of ethnic minority gangs in the illegitimate society, which provides the impetus for the proliferation of minority gang membership in prisons.

Theoretically, the case study reported here has attempted to bridge the deprivation and importation models of prisonization by emphasizing the need to historically contextualize the form the prisoner subculture assumes and appreciate why and how the minority gang members’ racialized adaptation to the prison experience is a direct consequence of the unequal power arrangement between the minority and majority racial groups in both the legitimate and illegitimate societies. Socialization into prison life is dictated by the prison experience, but the form the process assumes has to be traced beyond the boundaries of prisons and pre-prison behavior patterns of individual inmates and groups. As Jacobs (1979) has witnessed, it is possible “. . . both to speak of prisoners as a class or group and, at the same time, recognize this class to be internally fragmented” as a result of the influence of external statuses and power configurations (p. 21). At the structural level, the emergence of ethnic minority gangs in prisons, as the experiences of Omega and Sara Jumbo indicate, needs to be appreciated as a consequence of the class and race divisions of labor and power in both the free and criminal societies. As much as it entailed an analysis of the historical, social, economic, and political dynamics that exist in wider Singapore society and how they are reproduced and replicated, albeit in different forms, in the prisons, the genesis of minority gangs in prisons also revealed how the historical role of the CSSs and their symbiotic relationship with the state police is crucial to the regulation of illicit markets and distribution of race resources in the illegitimate society. Although there have been researchers who have documented the nexus between race and gangs in the prisons context (Crist, 1986; Davidson, 1974; Hunt, Riegel, Morales, & Waldorf, 1993), this study has importantly revealed the active role of legitimate institutions in maintaining a racialized criminal hierarchy in the criminal underworld, which has led not only to a structural relegation of minority members to low-level positions in the CSSs but also to the total exclusion of minority gangs from the market of illicit activities (Kamaludeen, 2014). As the data showed, it is to this marginality that ethnic minority inmates react to and organize themselves racially into gangs. While in prisons, physical violence as a resource is primarily used by minority members for masculine construction as much as it allows them to negotiate the severe class and race structural disadvantage. As one Sara Jumbo member declared,

. . . To be an Indian in prisons is a weapon in itself. Chinese can be powerful outside, but inside they must bow down to the Indians . . . for Indians here have a reputation for being fearless even in the face of death.

Conclusion

Prisons are where marginalized, ethnic minority inmates develop strong ties with members of their own race, persons with whom they are culturally acquainted and who they perceive to be like themselves. However, ironically, due to position in the social divisions of labor and power, ethnic minority prisoners compete with rivals of their own class and race for personal power as they adapt to their economic and racial powerlessness. The incessant conflict between Omega members and Malay members of the CSS, Sio Kun Tong, is an excellent case in point. For these young men, the personal power struggle even if they represent the collective interests of their gangs is a resource for constructing a specific type of masculinity—raw and racialized—which bound them to the world of the prisons.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Narayanan Ganapathy is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. His teaching and research interests are sociology of policing, deviance and social control, prisons and punishment and gang subcultures.

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