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>Nuestra Familia
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>https://www.insideprison.com/nuestra-familia-prison-gang.asp#:~:text=Nuestra%20Familia%3A%20Prison%20Gang%20Profile.%20La%20Nuestra%20Familia,and%20developed%20prominent%20ties%20in%20Colorado%20state%20prisons.
Nuestra Familia: Prison Gang Profile
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La Nuestra Familia was formed in Folsom State Prison around 1968, constructed as a force that could combat the existing oppression of the traditionally dominant Mexican Mafia. Since then the Familia has moved eastward across the United States and developed prominent ties in Colorado state prisons.
According to Robert Koehler (2000), an ex-convict and past member of the Nuestra Familia, the Family operates as a "mutual aid society," committed to providing commissary goods to fellow Familia members in prison at inexpensive or "face value" costs, and providing commissary goods to members placed in administrative segregation. This is considered "welfare" The Family operates a "capitol," or "power base," in the Limon Correctional Facility in Colorado, considered the most concentrated facility housing the longest-serving Familianos and Familiano leaders in the state.
According to Koehler, in Colorado prisons, the Familia is an attempt to protect and preserve Chicano culture in the face of a majority white culture saturating both Colorado prisons and the American criminal justice system. The Familia operate with a "cause," an ideology that places great emphasis on the psychological and physical protection of its members as well as the preservation of the Familia culture itself.
In 1997 an FBI investigation revealed that top-ranking Nuestra Familia leaders were creating new recruits and turning them into organized criminal operatives upon release, also known as "wolfpacks." From their thrones in California's Pelican Bay State Prison, they controlled the intra-prison drug and sex trade, while communicating with their members on the outside, ordering hits and organizing smuggling rings. One Neustra Familia leader recently released from Pelican Bay was ordered to kill a member of his own gang, top-ranking Salinas, California gang leader Michael "Mikeo" Castillo, who was in charge of Sonoma County's drug operations. Five days after Castillo was released from a short, DUI jail sentence, he was shot at close range in the head.
The FBI task-force, dubbed "Black Widow," was the largest investigation into prison gang activities in California's history. It soon became a multi-agency endeavor, including the FBI, the California Department of Corrections, and the US attorney, operating out of their command center at a downtown high-rise in Santa Rosa, California.
Location
The Nuestra Familia have a strong base in Northern California, Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Santa Rosa, Windsor, and San Jose. Ukiah became a meeting place for gang leaders in March of 2000, including the 3 "highest-ranking" Nuestra Familia leaders in the Bay Area. Northern California, or Norte, is the original homeland of the Familianos. In the 1970s, many Familianos migrated to Colorado, where they were later incarcerated and subsequently developed prison gangs in Colorado's prison system. As the Chicano prison population grew in the 1970s and 1980s, so too did the Familianos, and their influence within the prison subculture. The Limon Correctional Facility, whose purpose was to house the more dangerous and violent offenders serving the longest sentences, served to concentrate the Familianos under one roof, strengthening their power within prison.
The Nuestra Familia share allegiances with their Northern California-area affiliates the Nortenos, rivals of the Mexican Mafia's affiliated Surenos, which operate out of Southern California. Pelican Bay parolees were reported by informants in 2000 to be instructed by their Familia captains to "re-energize" the Nortenos in Sonoma County.
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