By Karina Biondi and John F. Collins

The Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC) is a Sao Paulo prison gang that since the 1990s has expanded into the most powerful criminal network in Brazil. Karina Biondi's rich ethnography of the PCC is uniquely informed by her insider-outsider status. Prior to his acquittal, Biondi's husband was incarcerated in a PCC-dominated prison for several years. During the period of Biondi's intense and intimate visits with her husband and her extensive fieldwork in prisons and on the streets of Sao Paulo, the PCC effectively controlled more than 90 percent of Sao Paulo's 147 prison facilities.

Available for the first time in English, Biondi's riveting portrait of the PCC illuminates how the organization operates inside and outside of prison, creatively elaborating on a decentered, non-hierarchical, and far-reaching command system. This system challenges both the police forces against which the PCC has declared war and the methods and analytic concepts traditionally employed by social scientists concerned with crime, incarceration, and policing. Biondi posits that the PCC embodies a "politics of transcendence," a group identity that is braided together with, but also autonomous from, its decentralized parts. Biondi also situates the PCC in relation to redemocratization and rampant socioeconomic inequality in Brazil, as well as to counter-state movements, crime, and punishment in the Americas.

Chapel, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 194p.

By George M. Camp and Camille G. Camp

The study obtained data from a literature search; a survey of the 50 State prison systems, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons; structured onsite interviews in 9 jurisdictions; and document analysis. Data on the extent of prison gangs encompass the aggregate number of prison gangs in the Nation, the number of gangs in each State, and the number of gang members. A review of the history of prison gangs in the United States traces their beginning to Washington State in 1950 and then describes their development in other regions and States. A discussion of the nature of prison gangs focuses on their general structure and operation, including initiation requirements, leadership characteristics, gang member relationships with nongang inmates, and gang activities within prisons. Some prison gang problems identified are drug trafficking, intimidation of nongang inmates, strong-arm extortion, violence, conflicts between gangs, and contracted inmate murders. The study found that no prison system methodically identifies, tracks, and maintains ongoing intelligence on prison gangs. Data also indicate the frequency with which corrections systems use each of 13 identified strategies for countering prison gangs and their activities. Major recommendations include (1) the development of a policy position on prison gangs and procedures for detecting early signs of gang activity, (2) the construction of smaller prison facilities, (3) the establishment of prison gang task forces, and (4) a systematic debriefing of former gang members to obtain useful information. The report also recommends that prison systems share with one another models of gang control that have and have not worked in their jurisdictions. Appendixes contain extensive information and tabular data. A 48-item bibliography is included.

South Salem, NY: Criminal Justice Institute, 1985. 220p.

By Southern Poverty Law Center

Within the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and United States Courthouse here is a courtroom called the “Nuremberg room” for its resemblance to the famous chamber in which 22 leaders of the Third Reich were tried in 1945 and 1946 for crimes against humanity.

Both halls of justice have three-tiered docks where multiple high-profile defendants are shackled to anchors in the floor by chains hidden from view behind tables and podiums. Like the docks in Germany’s Palace of Justice 60 years ago, the docks in Santa Ana this year have filled with self-avowed Nazis, Aryan warriors, and followers of Hitler.

But the Nazis standing accused in California are Nazis of a wholly different strain than Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal defendants like Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess. They are white supremacist pimps, drug dealers and backstabbing shower-stall killers, glorified thugs with swastika tattoos. They covet power and oversee a criminal empire, but they are motivated less by furthering their die-hard racist ideology than satisfying their crude greed. They are the leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), the most notorious, powerful, and violent prison gang in America. Also known as the Brand or the Rock — a reference to the Shamrock tattoos AB members favor in addition to Nazi insignia — the gang in recent years has established criminal networks outside prison walls in cities, small towns, and suburbs across the country.

Atlanta, GA: Southern Poverty Law Center,

By InSight Crime and American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies - CLALS

Over the past thirty years, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) has emerged as one of the most powerful criminal organizations in South America. From its founding in São Paulo’s prison system, it has spread rapidly across southern Brazil, contested trafficking routes in Brazil’s northern and northeastern regions, and become a potent force in Paraguay. Drawing on a variety of case studies developed from research in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the report describes the origins of the PCC, its unique model of organization, and its ability to regulate criminal markets in the areas it controls. The report analyzes the forces that have facilitated the PCC’s rise and expansion, as well as the constraints to its further spread, including increased law enforcement, the rise of rival organizations, and the organizational challenges of expansion. We conclude that although the PCC is facing unprecedented challenges, the organization is resilient to many law enforcement pressures, and the PCC “model” of criminal organization is increasingly being emulated by other criminal groups in the region.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime and CLALS (American University), 2020. 66p.

By Steven Dudley and Juan José Martínez d’Aubuisson

El Salvador’s prison system is the headquarters of the country’s largest gangs. It is also where one of these gangs, the MS13, is fighting amongst itself for control of the organization.

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2017. 20p.