Interview with Former Gang Member Carlos T. Ramirez Jr., About the Texas Prison GRAD Program (Gang Renunciation and Disassociation)

Carlos has spent a good deal of his life in prison. He is an exceptional writer, artist, and educator. He is currently in the G. R. A. D. program in Texas, and has denounced his involvement in street and prison gangs. Once the leader of one of the most notorious prison gangs, he speaks out about his gang lifestyle, and tries to educate young people that this "is not the way to go." In his own words, from his prison cell in Texas, Carlos tells us like it is. His story is fascinating, true, and hearbreaking at times, and this is one interview you won't want to miss.

(Part #1 in a series of gang related articles to come)

Carlos, can you give us a bio of yourself, and your life growing up

My name is Carlos T. Ramirez Jr, I was born in El Paso Texas on September 19th 1964. My parents are Carlos and Elvia, I've got 2 younger brothers and a sister. My family was of very low-income trying to survive in the deep poverty conditions of what i call barrio (neighborhood) jumpers. Living from one barrio to the other, trying to climb up the ladder to achieve to become a middle class family, but only finding the same barrio problems, and poverty, regardless the poor barrio that offer the same old struggles, pain and miseries.

One day my father decided to purchase a piece of land and put a used trailor house on it and start a new life. As my mother also worked at the Levi's clothes factory to help somehow improve our family conditions in our environment. There was no water, no gas,no electricity, no sidewalks, no street signs, no neighbors, we were the first ones to start the birth of a new community-that was named Junta (The Gathering).

I remember having to use a wooden made shed to use the restroom outside, taking showers with salt water, pumping water everyday from beneath the earth, and living in total darkness, with a flash light or small petroleum lamp, we had to go miles away for food and clothes supply.

In my early years of life, we had a pretty Mexican Indian girl maid but later on I became the one to do a lot of the households, in order to help my parents out. This is how I learned to do some good cooking as I cooked for my two little brothers (my sister wasn't born yet). After school I washed the dishes, cleaned the entire 3- bedroom house, washed some of the clothes, did the outside house yard work and helped a lot of my neighbors with their house yard work. To us, this was climbing up the ladder from being a poor family to become a middle class family.

Soon, I started school. when I started to have friends that came from broken homes or broken families, from single mothers or still living in deep poverty. This kind of survival only made me want to be part of their struggles, miseries and dreams. So I started to defend the poor people, by fighting the middle class students. I became a real good street fighter, that when I was in junior high school the high school boys looked me up wanting to achieve my first loss against the middle class students, but it never happened.

My criminal life did not start in this barrio that I myself gave the name of Soco Loco Rebeldes 13. But my struggles for the poor people or others did start here. When I started a lowrider bike club named the Warlords, we stole all the bikes we could from the middle class children just so we the poor kids could fix them up into nice lowrider bikes and ride in style. Sometimes, we cruised through several barrios just to show others that the poor kids had something to be proud of, not realizing that it was all achieved through crime. But we as children only saw a struggle of survival. Soon other poor kids from other barrios started to do the same as we were and would join us in our lowrider bike caravan across the streets of the city.

People started to know who the Warlords were we had jackets with our bike club name. Our biggest error was when we started to use graffiti on city walls to promote what some said was a children war, some of the poor children had declared on the middle class or rich children or their families and even communities. None of us intended for it to be a violent war, nor did we see it that way, we called it survival.

The violence didn't start till the gangs from the poor side of the city started to call us a threat. So soon it was a hard struggle between poor Us poor or a lowrider bike club Vs other barrio gangs. This kind of encounter forced the Warlords to become a social club, we called it "The Chucos Unides" referring to United Reformers. But being the late 70's the word "Chuco" was now seen as a different term under a gangsta image. So to the barrio gangs, we were not united reformers, but united gangstas. We only had intentions to want to help one another or others, especially the poor people, but became involved in the gang barrio warfare.

Because of my full devotion in responding to such gang attacks towards us, I was soon baptized with the nickname of El Famouso Loco Sir Alcartaz. There was a rumor that the city cops had planned to not intend to arrest me so I could get killed by another enemy gang because I had increased so many enemies, and had done a lot of damage everywhere. At the age of 13, I was already telling my mother to" start saving money and prepare yourself to bury me before I turn 15."

The youth crimes were too many, arson to a public school, drive byes, burglaries,robberies,arson on a catholic church, graffiti wars, drug deals, stealing cars, fights, gang rumbles, and we even got accused of flipping a train out of the railroad tracks. Just to name some of the youth crimes I got accused or connected to, but one problem existed, no evidence to prove anything on me. These kinds of crime activities earned me power and respect to where on my back, I tattooed the words "Controla" (control) in huge old english letters to show others that as long as I was alive, and I could go into any barrio, and do my damage and walk away, I was in control.

I guess the cops got tired of waiting to see someone kill me, so when I was 17 years old they used another way, to try and stop me somehow, and I got sent to the prison system for the first time. I arrived as a leader of "The El Paso Tips" in 1982, that later on would become known as Barrio Azteca or Barrio Aztlan, and become Texas's most wanted prison gang, because of it's 3 sinister wars at the same time with the most oldest and organized Texas prison gang, the largest and another huge Latin gang. Not to mention the secret Aztlan war, as it was called among our own prison gang, between those that defend it's culture foundation against those that had been transforming it into a cartel criminal gang.

By this time, I had been in prison 4-times, became an enhanced criminal at the age 26 years old, but at 27 years old got habitual in-prison for a crime done to me. I got stabbed while asleep in my own prison cell, but because the attackers left the same shank (prison made knife) behind my prison cell, I was charged with possession of a deadly weapon in a penal institution, which carries 2- to 20 years, but i was given 40 stacked on my 12 years, making my sentence into 52 years, which at the moment i got 19- years flat, but over 26 years inside a prison cell. It was a terrible miscarriage of justice, I was the only victim but got treated as a criminal.

(may I note that Carlos did many years in Administration Segregation, called ADSEG, which is also known as solitary confinement). Together we did a petition against the use of these cells which can be viewed here)

I have never been married, but did accomplish to get a GED certificate and some college hours for Psychology studies.

All my life, I have asked myself, was I truly a sinister criminal that lost control, losing some of the valuable values, morals, principles on standards my family, close friends and society tried to teach me, so I could join them being a law abiding productive citizen? Or was I only a good gangsta defending the poor people that honesty thought that everything I was doing, was crime related because crime became my best weapon to use on what I called a war of survival, against deep poverty, oppression, racism, and painful struggles, that will soon blend into your criminal mistakes because we got programmed to believe that the gangsta life, should be respected or accepted, only by force, ignorance and a selfish gangsta pride.

I soon realized that instead of improving such conditions you do worsen them. I could not continue to live on both sides of the railroad tracks, thinking it was one side against the other, between poor vs the middle class or rich. When it actually became the gangsta side against the productive side, so I had to quit my prison gang in 1994 because I knew that there was a much better way to survival.

After years of confinement in solitary cells you have been transfered to a different Texas prison and your now in the GRAD Program. What exactly is GRAD?

GRAD means Gang Renunciation and Disassociation.

It's a prison program inside the Texas Prison System that has existed since 2000 to give ex-gang members an opportunity to work with more productive ways to help them change and correct some of their past errors not only when these prisoners joined a prison gang but, were involved in a criminal addictive cycle.etc...

The GRAD program does offer in-cell videos courses for 60 days. lt has class sessions in the Phase 2 part, where it offers Cognitive Intervention class, Anger Management, Substance abuse treatment or Spiritual guidance lt. helps such ex-gang members readjust not only back to the prison general population, but for society. It's a (9) month prison program, that has a 85% rate of ex-gang members staying longer in society than normal prisoners do.

In July 2008 It welcomed the 100th group at the Ramsey 1 Unit, each group consist of 16 ex-gang members, a total of 1600 ex-gang members have participated in the GRAD program only about 10% had to be returned back to Administration Segregation, lock-down for disciplinary reasons, this doesn't include those ex-gang members already in the prison population before there was a GRAD program it doesn't include those on the GRAD waiting list which consist of about 800 ex-gang members or the 500 or so still being monitored, not to mention those that continue to quit month after month. In 1994 when I quit my prison gang there were about a 100 ex-gang members in the Texas prison system, today mm of 2008 there are over 2,000 ex-gang members.

I'm not sure if the state of Texas is the only one with such a program for ex-gang members but, I do know that other caring prison officials like Captain Torres,Captain Humphrey Madeline Ortiz , Senator John Whitimire, Rosey Rui, Sigifredo Sanchez,Hitaji Aziz to name some of the ones trying to create other kinds of prison programs that can give prisoners especially ex-gang members en opportunity to contribute back to society, especially by getting involved in such new prison programs still in the process of being fulfilled and started.

One of the main problems that has slowed the process has been the prison budget issue. But, there is several trying to find the proper end legal solutions or resources I can say that the Texas Prison System has realized that some of these ex-gang members that truly do put the determination and hard effort to change can be given the opportunity to make a difference inside and out of the prison system.

One of the problems in the GRAD program has been that even if these prisoners have truly abandoned their prison gangs some are yet struggling to abandon the criminal lifestyle. So, (9) months should become an entire sentence of self improving programs.

I feel the GRAD program should not start after a gang member decides to quit, it should begin before any prisoner decides to join a gang, because even if the old sinister, prison gangs have slow down a lot, the new gangs are still growing once they become huge in members and feel some kind of prison power in their hands they will have ambitions to want to have a say so among other prisoners, gangs and in society which will continue the prison oppression, racism, and prison corruption, which usually will lead to violent and more prison or city crimes. These new gangs have a lot to learn about power struggles and the abuse of numbers as a whole, old gang members or prisoners can actually see the evidence of seeing these new gangs repeat some of the same gang errors, the old gangs have done, experienced or turned to worse struggles because a gang is a gang rather it kills steals, rape others, extort and yearn to have control of others.

It's a gang that can become very sinister if it builds the number's to be able to put fear and expand such criminal ways, not only in prison but in society. Numbers are the weapon of enforcement and do thing's by force. Most old gangs started to be able to defend themselves against; prison oppression, racism, prisoners rights, or resist Inhumane conditions or corruption. But, once they became big in numbers they themselves became the oppressors, racist among their own kind and very corruptive indeed.

What is a security threat group?

In the Texas Prison System this is what describes a Security Threat Group, meaning a prison gang. Any group of offenders that the prison system reasonably believes poses a threat to the physical safety of other prisoners and staff due to the very nature of said Security threat group.not alone the serious threat to society also.
The Texas Prison System recognizes (12) Security Threat
Groups:

1. Aryan Brotherhood of Texas
2. Aryan Circle
3. Barrio
4. Bloods
5. Crips
6. Hermsnos De Pistoleros Latinos
7. Mexicen Mafia
8. Psrtido Rsvolucionsrlo Mexlceno
9. Raze Unide
10. Texas Chicano Brotherhood
1 1.Texas Mafia
12.Texas Syndicate

Even if some of this security threat groups didn't intend to become sinister or abusive today some prisoners do join a prison gang in an effort to exert their influence and take advantage of other prisoners or citizens as well. They use any means necessary in their attempt to control their environment inside or out of prison, regardless who gets hurt. Some prisoners sometimes believe they need to join a prison gang for protection but, this is an inaccurate belief, by joining a prison gang they put themselves in more danger because now the enemies of their fellow gang members have now become their enemies.

How do gangs in prison recruit other prisoners?

There are various ways that gangs will attempt to persuade another prisoner to join, many use the leverage of protection or promote cultural struggles as a tactic to fool you into joining a prison gang, many join for financial support, others join in an effort to try to control their environment many join because they have a need to belong or to be accepted. Many prisoners feel that their families, friends, or loved ones have lost respect or faith in them due to being sent to prison. As a result the gang acts as a family, or supporter and gives these prisoners a false sense of belonging. Only when the prisoner is threatened or ordered to do something illegal does he/she realize what a prison gang really is about. So, to those that wish to quit for whatever reason or get thrown out of their gangs the Texas Prison System does have the GRAD program to help these ex-gang members somehow.

How are you helping others to understand what gangs are all about?

Every since I quit my prison gang in 1994 I have devoted myself to speak against these kind of lifestyle, attacking the root of it's rotten harvest of Alcohol, Drugs, Crimes, Gangs, uncalled violence, lust with no real love, and any kind of sin. I have written over 1,000 poems, short tales,articles,etc.. concerning a much better way to survive. I have written 10 Cultural Novels with a similar presentation plus, I have written some unpublished books, manuscripts that are anti-gang or anti-organized crime, present the gangsta life and poverty as the root of most problems connected to a self destructive life-style cycle. My manuscripts have titles such as Gangs of Thorns, The Ruffian Rumpus, Purpose of Power, The Aztlan Don, and have created a Myspace together with Dee so others can join in and work together to deal with such kind of failures. I have made about 30 prison made cartoon booklets that speak about a much better way to survival. I had some of my writings published, read on the radio airwaves, shared in youth workshops, outreaches, and have presented them ell over Europe, and the USA.

Carlos will be going up for parole soon. I feel this is one prisoner who has rehabilitated himself, and has paid his dues. I urge anyone who reads this to encourage the Texas Parole Board to grant Carlos parole. He will benefit society in his knowledge of gangs more on the outside, than in prison. He has a family that loves him, and prays for his return home.

Letters or calls to The Texas Parole board can be made at the following contact information:

Mr. Richard Aiello

Texas Parole Board

P.O. Box 13401

Capital Station

Austin, Texas

78711-3401

www.tdcj.state.txus/bpp/

Phone: (512) 436-5452