Abstract
Abstract This paper examines whether an unofficial strategy of using prison gangs for prison control in the Philippines correctional system could ever be considered an effective and appropriate management tool. Contemporary literature on prison gangs usually deems them as detrimental to an inmate’s prospects for rehabilitation and disruptive to the smooth running of penal institutions. However, from ethnographic research conducted by the authors on prison gangs in New Bilibid Prison (NBP), the largest maximum security prison in the Philippines, an alternative perspective on prison gangs is provided. Based on the authors’ unique access into the Philippine prison system, they argue that prison gangs in this system have become functionally important to both inmates and prison administrators. Despite serious prison rule violations, prison gangs in NBP provide a system of self-governance, prison order and a network of social support in the overcrowded and deprived prison conditions. Keywords
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