State prisons face new breed of violent gangs

Maurice Vasquez dances in his prison cell to blaring rap music, wearing a straw hat and designer glasses.

- BY MATTHEW ORMSETH

Los Angeles Times photo illustration

"Only motherf-in here with these $1,200 Cartier frames," Vasquez says in a video filmed on a contraband cellphone.

In other clips, he displays a thick gold "Tiffany and Company," he and drinks prison-distilled lichain claims quor.

Vasquez isn't the first California prisoner to enjoy forbidden luxuries. The Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood and other gangs have long trafficked drugs, alcohol and, in more recent years, phones, which enable inmates to carry out shakedowns, gambling rackets and killings on the streets of L.A. County.

But Vasquez is a new breed, law enforcement officials say, one whose organization has thrived in a system intended to protect vulnerable inmates. His group, the Riders, is largely composed of men who have renounced membership in other gangs.

California houses tens of thousands of inmates in protective housing. Some are sex offenders or informants, while others are former gang members who "dropped out" and cannot live safely in the general prison population.

Transferred to protective custody, some inmates started new crews. Vasquez's Riders are one of the fastest-growing and most dangerous of these socalled dropout gangs, according to law enforcement officials, who say the group is responsible for stabbings and contraband smuggling behind bars and for robberies, shootings and drug sales in Northern California.

Dropout gangs pose one of the most vexing problems for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

CDCR created the first dropout yards the official term is "sensitive needs yard" in 1999. Authorities predicted gang members would be more likely to reform if they knew they could serve their time peacefully and away from past associates. Although intended to be a refuge from cutthroat prison politics, dropout yards have become just as violent as general population, CDCR's inspector general found.