When someone goes to prison and they are not a gang member they have to join a gang for protection and once they belong to a gang they are then expected to fight for their particular gang and race. Getting in good favor with your particular race’s gang in prison is likely the only way a non-gang member can survive prison life.
The gang members who run prison life are those inmates that are doing life imprisonment without any chance of parole. If the inmates who have a chance for parole do not do what the “lifers” tell them to do then the “non-lifers” will suffer the consequences because the “lifers” control everything in prison and they essentially have nothing to lose.
Basically, the “lifers” turn the “non-lifers” into racists, killers and thugs like themselves which destroys the lives and psyche of too many inmates who never intended on becoming racists, killers and thugs which, in turn, is the basis of an argument for the death penalty. Inmates believe if they did not have to deal with and succumb to the rules and mentality of the “lifers” when the “non-lifers” go to prison then many “non-lifers” would likely not have turned to gang life and racism to survive.
If “lifers” are not executed by the state for the crimes they have committed then, conceivably, “lifers” and other pre-prison gang members should be segregated from the general inmate population who are not gang members and have not yet succumbed to gang life and the gangster mentality.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: MSNBC TV LOCKUP: RAW APRIL 14, 2012