Photography Portfolio-: Lockdown Behind Bars

The California Department of Corrections (CDC) houses approximately 162,000 inmates, the most dangerous of whom serve their time in Level IV maximum-security facilities. Behind the cement walls of these prisons, an unspoken code of respect and pride for one's race and gang rules. Gang affiliation supersedes family, love and intimate human contact. The bond with one's gang is the very breath that gives life to each day.

Every gang has a hierarchy, and those who are gang affiliated follow orders from the leaders who are deemed gang validated. Only the most feared and brutally confident inmates reach validation status. Leaders of gang hierarchy manage daily operations such as murders, assaults and narcotic trafficking inside the prison.

Because racial tensions are so high at Level IV maximum-security facilities, validated gang members and other residents of AdSeg spend their exercise time in 15 x 7 foot cages, called "dog runs." Even though inmates are segregated and separated by the cages, they refuse to exercise simultaneously. Instead, inmates alternate their workout routines, waiting until gang members of the other race have finished.

Since 1999, the CDC has seen a dramatic increase in requests from inmates seeking special protection for dropping out of prison gangs. Those who drop out have decided that the demands of prison gang life are unjustifiable. The exclusive units inside Sensitive Needs Housing provide a safer environment, free from gang activity.

Photographer Mark Allen Johnson

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