Thursday, December 11, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Cover story: Now hiring

Latino inmates operate an extensive hidden economy in Nevada's prison system, and they're looking for new recruits

By Joseph Allen

Tax dodgers might as well have been killers for the three weeks new convicts spent in the fish tank. A felon was a felon. The prison subjected each fish to medical, dental and psychological examinations before designating his institution. Some would be transferred to maximum security--Ely or High Desert. Others would get medium; some would join the general population here at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center.

"My dad had been there before," Isidrio says. "He had told me a little about it."

Isidrio P. was 18 when he was incarcerated for trafficking--first offense, 12 to 36 months--and was sent to the fish tank, the reception unit for all new inmates in Northern Nevada. He was released in October. Now 21 and readjusting to public life, the scent of myrtle precedes him and a gold crucifix hangs outside his sweater.

"In the fish tank," he says, "you don't see daylight, except out your window. For those three weeks before you're classified, the only way you connect with people on the outside is through porters. They take messages everywhere."

Two porters swept and mopped the fish tank, and delivered and picked up food trays three times daily for new inmates. Next door to the fish tank was the hole, where a Latino convict inside instructed the Latino porter to find out how many new Paisas had arrived.

The convict in the hole squinted through his narrow window as the porter asked Isidrio in cell No. 12: "Paisa o que?"

"Paisa" or "paisano" means "countryman" in Spanish. To call another paisa implies loyalty and trust. The word has a second, upper-case connotation: It refers to the most lucrative organized crime syndicate in Nevada, rooted in the state's prison system. The organization now operates both inside and outside the clink, but prison administrators, after a decade, scarcely acknowledge its existence.

"Si. Quien tiene las llaves? (Who has the keys?)" Isidrio responded--a way of asking which Paisa lieutenant was in charge at NNCC. Isidrio is Chicano--American-born Latino--but has aligned himself with a gang comprised largely of Mexican nationals. During his time in prison, on behalf of the Paisas, he would expand his index of felonies to larceny, assault and battery.

When you run with the Paisas, not only do you join a statewide organization with chapters in most of the system's 10 prisons and eight work camps; you join a family. If you're young, Latino and headed for the pen, you may, like Isidrio and many of Nevada's 1,500 Latino inmates, deem membership the expedient choice.

The Paisas won't harass you if you don't join them, Isidrio says, "but in the long run, if you get into some type of trouble--look at someone bad--no one will help you out. If you run solo, people want to pick on you." He says that if your bank account is empty and you lack a benefactor outside, you have to steal, gamble or prostitute yourself for commodities.

Isidrio never faced that dilemma. "The Paisas--whatever you need, they'll hook you up."

Thriving market

Prisons and gangs are inextricably linked. Each tries to control the other. In this state, the prisons think they're winning, because the Nevada Department of Corrections adequately deals with the kind of feral, ink-marked gang bangers featured on television. A Security Threat Group (STG) unit exists for that purpose.

The corrections department, however, is not ready for the Paisas. Their skin does not betray their alignment; their intention is not to mark turf; their politics do not involve fighting rivals. Paisas want money. Within the prison system's walls, they have established a hidden economy. Some members net more per month than most readers of this newspaper make per year. And their endeavors are subsidized by taxpayers.

Two-thirds of the Paisas, along with suspected gang members and associates, are not included in the department's estimate of 650 Latino prison gang members statewide. Either the prisons don't know or they don't care. The Paisas, after all, are more of a boon than a menace to the prison system.

Although Latino prison gangs are swelling--now at 65 percent of the total--inmates by and large stay pacified. The Paisas, and other gangs, keep each other stoned, fixed and fucked. Whites, blacks, Indians and Latinos barter stamps, coffee or cigarettes, or pay from their bank accounts for drugs, alcohol and sex, so they stay as placid as cows.

In a way, Isidrio says, the gangs need each other.

"But Paisas are most powerful," he adds--a statement of logistics, not boasting. Because of strong connections with Mexico, they control the sack--the drugs, the most profitable racket. The economy they have established supercedes the larger U.S. economy for many Latinos, once released from prison. Given the choice between washing cars in the George Bush world and owning a BMW in the Paisa world--flip a two-headed quarter.

Entrepreneurial spirit

A black plastic bag blended with the night as it cleared the razor ribbon crowning the fence; it thudded on the ground beside a Dumpster in the Indian Springs Conservation Camp. The bag contained bleach jugs filled with whiskey and vodka, cartons of cigarettes, heroin, crank, weed. At 5 a.m. a cook would retrieve the bag and smuggle the goods from the minimum-security camp to the medium-security Southern Desert Correctional Center. Then, via money order, Isidrio would get paid four times what he'd get on the outside.

"Out here a gram of meth is about $50," he says. "In there it's $200."

He had thrown the bag from the back of a passing pickup truck on Cold Creek Road, his older brother at the wheel. Using this modus operandi, Isidrio had trafficked to Nevada camps and prisons, from Southern Desert to Tonopah to Lovelock, since age 15.

"If he was someone like me," says Roberto Nerey, "an immigrant who felt that he had no opportunity in this country--then I could understand. But this guy is American-born; how did he fall through the cracks?" Nerey is director of Unlimited Intervention, a Reno nonprofit group devoted to educating the public about gangs and providing alternatives to gang life.

Having been incarcerated at Ely State Prison, maximum security, in the early 1990s for participating in Reno's first documented drive-by shooting, Nerey's bond with the system is intimate. He is not a gang member but has ties with Paisas and Surenos, another Latino gang. For nearly a decade, the gangs were suspicious and threatening of Nerey. Though generally agreeable, he occasionally has had to mobilize his imposing girth and throw chingasos with his meaty fists. One way or another, most former adversaries have been persuaded that he seeks to improve social conditions for the next generation of Latinos.

"You have kids aligning with the Paisas in anticipation of going to prison one day," Nerey says. "That's the sort of future they see for themselves." Beginning at age 8 or 9, Isidrio would steal stereos at night with the street gang Echo Park (EXP), because his older brother was a member. Even though he did not join EXP and eventually ended his association, he learned the particulars of drug trafficking from the gang. It was a lucrative option and his introduction to the Paisas.

The Paisas recruit young Latinos like Isidrio in prison and train them in covert communication, weapons manufacturing, knife fighting and other defense techniques. They return to the streets more effective criminals who remain loyal to the gang and bolster their enterprise.

Classified misinformation

During the late 1970s Aryan Warriors and Black Warriors vied for domination of Nevada State Prison--then Nevada's maximum-security institution. The volume of inmate murders and attacks against correctional officers compelled the governor to hire former San Quentin warden George Sumner to reform the facility. After identifying the gang leaders, Sumner threw some in the cooler--for years--in disconnected units to hinder communication; he sent others out of state. It worked. To this day, white and black prison gangs have not viably reorganized.

Tattoos were the giveaway. Now as then, gang badges remain the major criterion in member identification. "We don't classify someone as a gang member just because they say they're a gang member," says Jeff Swan, supervisor of the Security Threat Group unit. "They have to have indicators."

By the corrections department's assessment, Isidrio--who wears no tattoos, who stole from and attacked other inmates on behalf of the Paisas, who exited prison more violent than when he entered, who remains loyal to the Paisas outside of prison--is not a gang member. He is not a "security threat."

"You're going into an area that can get you into a lot of trouble. They'll sue you," says Swan of classifying an ethnic group as a gang. A 20-year employee of the corrections department, Swan says he lectures on prison gangs throughout the United States and has served as an expert witness in court.

Correctional officers hear "Paisa" every day in a number of contexts, Isidrio says. "That's one of the reasons they don't think it's a gang. It's not a bad word."

"Gangs have learned from the past," Nerey says. "People don't walk around wearing bull's eyes like they used to. The gangs don't want to be as visible as before, but the prison administration doesn't get it. They're ignorant in regard to the growth and organization of the groups inside their walls.

"Latinos now are running things inside--this much they know, but they are clueless as to how deep it goes. Power is power, with or without tattoos. And by continuing to send Latinos to prison, they're only making us stronger. And maybe it's time that they look into some alternatives, because sooner or later this travesty is going to blow up, more so than it has already."

The few, the proud...

¥ Buy an extra toothbrush from the commissary. With a lighter, melt the end and stretch it to a sharp point. If no lighter is available, scrape the plastic on the concrete floor.

¥ Pour sugar smuggled from the kitchen into a pan. Melt until viscous. Pour into a newspaper that has been rolled into a cone. The dried product is a dagger as hard as glass.

¥ Triple up three socks and drop a three-pound padlock inside. Or throw a weight from the gym or a can of soda into a pillow case.

¥ Fabricate nails from the metal shop and distribute them on the futbol field during a game, being careful not to let the guards notice.

When you become a soldado for the Paisas, this is a portion of the arsenal available to you. As an active member, you'll enjoy a sense of security and camaraderie and other perks--gifts like a button-up shirt and pair of khakis to wear when your girlfriend visits to smuggle meth; a chance to earn respect, climb the ranks and walk any yard in Nevada, fearless.

But beware: You must not disrespect another Paisa, or they give you una calentisa--a warm-up. That is, they beat you.

Wendellyn Saldaña is a Latino mother who would rather not think about this. Nerey has prepared her for the life her son, 17, will face in prison. In the process of being sentenced for burglary and robbery with a firearm, Saldaña's son--whom she vehemently contends is innocent, based on the evidence--has no past gang affiliations, she says.

"Now he hardly has a choice but to join," Nerey says.

The pattern is not uncommon. These kids are products of a template. It's always the same: A week after Isidrio had been transferred to general population at Northern Nevada Correctional Center, the Paisas assigned him a mission.

"They'll say you have to go PC somebody up," he says, meaning protective custody, "like a snitch or a thief." On such a mission, a sargento organizes a group of four soldados. Two steal the target's belongings--radio, TV, shoes, everything. The other two attack him.

This is easier than it might sound, Nerey says. Northern Nevada Correctional Center is filled with young men who still have shiny futures, old men and newly classified fish--all weak targets. Security is so lax that when the convicts are on the yard, cells are left open and often unattended by officers.

Ideally, the victim will turn himself in and request protective custody, which is tantamount to solitary confinement. Locked up all but one hour a day for exercising in a tiny yard separate from the general population, PC effectively isolates the target. If the target doesn't turn himself in, Isidrio says, the Paisas continue attacking him until he does.

Corporate ladder

Earn the esteem of other Paisas not only by running sorties, but by accomplishing objectives unnoticed. Import drugs; help the organization profit. Keep your word. Those who demonstrate stealth, cunning, intelligence and integrity, as well as a penchant for beastly confrontation, will climb the ranks.

"Gangs are not just using people to commit violence on others," Nerey says. "They find their talents and place them where they belong."

Structured similar to the Paisas are the Surenos. However, Isidrio says, the Paisas are more mellow. "We usually stay away from them [Surenos], but if something big goes down--like if we're fighting the chanates [blacks]--we unite."

Surenos and Nortenos--one claiming blue, the other red--have been fighting each other for 35 years in California. The crucial difference between Paisas and those two Chicano gangs is that Paisas do not condone Chicano fighting Chicano.

Their color isn't blue or red, but green: the dollar. Their equanimity relative to other gangs is probably a key reason they have gone unhindered by Nevada's prison system. They haven't monopolized all prison rackets, but they do control the largest market share by maintaining instant access to classified information, prostituting fellow inmates, communicating effectively throughout the statewide system and trafficking drugs and contraband. Nerey emphasizes that compliance of accomplices is aided by knowledge of what failure entails--viciously unpleasant consequences.

Clerks are usually white. Polite. Don't speak out of turn. They are in prison because of a mistake, not because crime is a dominant factor in their lives. Unclaimed television? Pay the clerk $15--it's yours, legit.

They have 9-to-5s, like the prison staff with whom they work in the intake office or elsewhere, but they sleep behind bars. They are amphibious creatures who do paperwork for guards and administration yet face the same pressures as other inmates.

"Sometimes those folks are neutral," Nerey says, "but the reason why they're respected and left alone is because they cooperate by giving information."

Clerks have access to everyone's jackets, which contain each inmate's personal information. The Paisas have told the clerks that whenever a Latino enters the system--especially a Mexican murderer in for life, Nerey says--he should inform them immediately so they can begin recruiting efforts.

Wired

In lieu of telephony or Internet, transferred prisoners fly kites--written messages--from shot callers in one institution to the upper echelon in another.

"That happens all the time," Swan says. "You're not going to stop it. Gangs have their way of communicating, just like we (NDOC) have our way of communicating."

Everything's done by schedule, Nerey says. "You'd be surprised how fast information travels inside."

Business is a pleasure

Paisas pimp gay inmates as surrogate women for straight convicts. It creates a win-win situation, Nerey says: The homosexual doesn't mind the yoking, and the Paisas provide protection for him in exchange for a cut of his prize.

"Sexual activity happens everywhere," he says, "in the recess, the bathrooms, under lockdown--everywhere. It's the reality. There's actually people who are married in there."

Married or not, he says, "Most gay inmates have owners." Some owners just sell them, while others use them as mules.

Homosexuals are most amenable to hiding condoms full of drugs or miniature bottles of alcohol in their rectums, Isidrio says. Besides gays, Paisas use blacks and whites, men and women, to seem less conspicuous. In most cases a liaison is arranged by letter between Paisas in prison and relatives or associates outside.

"It has been a problem over the years," Swan says, "but not right now."

Despite Swan's comment, the three mules involved in this article have trafficked for the Paisas in the last few years.

Two of them--Angelina Montano, 27, and her recurrent boyfriend since juvenile detention, Cutty F.--did it like so:

Montano bought a burrito from the vending machine and popped it in the microwave in the visitation room at Nevada State Prison, now medium security. She already had gone to the bathroom and removed the balloon of heroin from her vagina.

"You can't refuse to take your shoes off, or open your mouth," she says, "but you can refuse a cavity search."

Blond hair, blue eyes, Latino blood. Mi vida loca (my crazy life)--three triangulated dots, often the first tattoo a Latino receives--is inked between her pale thumb and forefinger, accompanied by her name in cursive. "I got it when I was 13 or 14," she says. "I've always kicked it with the Mexicans."

She sat down with Cutty at the table in the middle of the room. He had already been imprisoned, for trafficking. He didn't join the Paisas until he got to the fish tank, Montano says.

"He's a very classy guy--a pretty boy," she says, adding that his skin is free of tattoos. By corrections department's criteria, Cutty, like Isidrio, is not a gang member. "But he's been in a series of fights because of the Paisas--one where he spent six or eight months in the hole."

They conversed across the table until the burrito had cooled enough to touch.

"I always made sure that the packages were a neutral color," she says, so they would blend with the burrito, popcorn or pudding.

As she palmed the package from her coat pocket, a door thundered open. She tried to eat the balloon; a guard slapped down her hand. Another grabbed Cutty. The guards had been observing through a porthole.

"Our visitation rights were terminated forever."

Montano served time and is now free. Though Cutty was originally convicted for mere trafficking, he won't be eligible for parole for another decade.

As a Paisa, you accept that membership comes with no guarantees. You go in for six years--can be out in three--and you never come out. Thousands--not just Paisas-- have accepted this tradeoff, and thousands will die of old age behind bars.

Tradition of excellence

The Paisas are founded on a half-century of organized crime. Surrounding states, especially California, have set the precedent for Nevada. Paisa organization is derived from California's Mexican Mafia, or La Eme--progenitor of all gangs Sureno.

La Eme's identifying tattoos: an eagle grasping a snake in its beak and talon, taken from the Mexican flag; the numeral 13, often written "XIII" or "X3," which represents M, the 13th letter of the alphabet; the words "Southern United Raza" or "SUR Trece."

These signatures have made it simple for prison authorities to identify and sequester the Mexican Mafia. Many leaders are locked down in San Quentin.

Yet their power has not diminished:

Los Angeles, September 1993: Amid internecine strife, La Eme leaders ordered Sureno street gangs to stop killing bystanders and each other lest they suffer consequences upon entering prison. Latino gang killings immediately dropped 15 percent.

At the same time, the power of Nevada's first Latino prison gang, Los Aguilas, or Mi Raza Unida (MRU, My United Race), had peaked. A decade after white and black gangs had been suppressed, gang activity made a comeback. Latino clout had emerged.

"The Aguila built strength and loyalty among Hispanic prisoners in Nevada," Swan says. "Prisons never started to have problems with any Hispanics until then."

In 1991, Nerey says, "They hit me up to be a founding member."

He declined, and the Aguilas antagonized him not only for the duration of his prison term but for several years after his release. He feels lucky to be alive, he says, because the Aguilas were cold and ruthless. "They weren't considerate and respectful to their own people, and in return they received no respect."

Surenos and Paisas have demonstrated Nerey's sentiment. For several years in the mid-1990s, after he had been released, both gangs warred against the Aguilas.

Swan contends the attacks were due to an affront: The upstart Aguilas were inking La Eme's eagle tattoo on their skin, but without La Eme's permission.

This explanation reduces history to folklore and the gang members to stereotypes, Nerey says. "Worse, it makes light of the situation."

In a tacit partnership, a crew of Surenos and incipient Paisas suppressed the Aguilas, Isidrio says, because "everyone feared them"--white, black and Latino; because "they were sticking [stabbing] their own people [members]"; because "they would charge rent to their own race [newcomers--fish--were required to pay for protection]."

Prison became a battleground, as when the whites and blacks had ruled the yards. To stem the violence, the Department of Corrections locked down insurgents; Surenos, Paisas and Aguilas were faced off in the same cell blocks, Isidrio says.

In the showers, he says, "The first thing [the Paisas] would do is stick [the Aguilas]." The corrections department would remove the wounded from their peers and place them into protective custody. In this manner, Isidrio says, the Paisas diluted the Aguilas' strength and increased their own.

"COs were staging the confrontations, I believe, on purpose," he says, referring to corrections officers. The system blamed the Aguilas for recent mayhem, he says, as they had a monopoly on illicit activities in all the yards in Nevada--extortion, gambling, loan sharking, prostitution--and they sought their goals cruelly, imprudently.

"It was good politics for the prisons," Nerey says, "because it brought everything back to normal. Then the Paisas were punished--you couldn't put it on the COs or say that it was allowed to happen. Some vatos locos doing two- or three-year sentences are now facing life because of that. But they're respected by everybody. Now they're on top."

Swan says most of the Aguilas are still locked down at Ely but denies that officers staged any confrontations between them and other Latinos. Whether the corrections department arranged it or not, suppression of the Aguilas resulted in less hostile behavior throughout the system. Corporal punishment, however, remains a useful tool.

Work-related dangers

A lieutenant got sent to the hole.

A rat had squeaked.

A kite arrived from Ely stating the snitch's identity. It was a new Paisa. "We told him, `You have until 7 o'clock. We don't want to see you no more,'" Isidrio says. The snitch was supposed to request protective custody. Deadline passed; the snitch remained. "So the next morning they sent a few guys."

Besides new fish, all inmates know not to talk. Many have witnessed the consequences firsthand: broken limbs and open wounds, and a snitch jacket--a file, accessible by clerks, that makes it unsafe for the traitor to walk any prison yard in Nevada.

"The guy stayed a week in a coma," Isidrio says. Then, protective custody.

It didn't end there for Isidrio.

He had been the rear eyes. As the others pocketed their weapons and fled, Isidrio lingered to ensure that the trail was clear. An officer saw him; he was transferred to High Desert for a week while under investigation.

Some Paisas would have had to prove they had kept quiet when the heat was on. Not Isidrio. His sponsor vouched for him. As a fresh Paisa, a sponsor will guide your development. Maybe he's from your high school. Or a carnal of your older brother.

Isidrio's sponsor was in his mid-20s and already second in command--a lieutenant, the same one who got sent to the hole. He had been in prison for several years.

"You grow up fast in there," Nerey says.

Another lieutenant, a veterano released in the 1990s, says he is doing all he can to ensure that the next generation of Latinos don't have lives like Isidrio and Isidrio's sponsor. His name is Javier C., and he has never met Isidrio. Mid-40s. Plain-looking. Before you would guess he was a shot caller in organized crime, you might guess another fact about him: He's a father.

Javier has no contact with his teenage son, he says. He's decided the best way to protect his son is to provide for him financially but remain an unseen force in his life.

"We [Paisas] want our children to live their lives in a different way," he says in staccato, turbid English. "We want our lives to be a lesson to our children. That's how I want to make a difference." He contributes to the community, he says, by anonymously paying legal fees for Latino youth. "We are what we are, you know, but we do have a heart."

At first he impulsively avoids eye contact.

"He's out of his realm," Nerey says. "The fact that he's willing to have this conversation shows a lot."

Javier becomes more comfortable after 30 minutes, and parts by shaking hands.

"Crimes and gangs," he says, "that ain't going to stop. But if you can make a difference to even one kid or family, that's still a difference, you know. The only way to help them is to teach them, open doors for them, offer them something--"

"Which is hope," Nerey says.

Limited liability

Corrections department inspector general Pat Conmay disagrees with the notion that the system does a poor job of detecting and controlling illegal activities: "As you would expect, I'll tell you that we do a good job."

Besides failing to recognize two-thirds of Paisas, whose outlawed activities are clear, the corrections department itself perpetrates similar acts. For more than a decade, corrections officers on gang payrolls, in well-publicized debacles, often have been caught trafficking drugs and contraband. The majority have suffered no punishment other than loss of employment. In more extreme cases, officers, nurses and teachers have had long-term sexual relationships with inmates. Several have abandoned their partners to bed with inmates; at least two have married inmates. Several years ago, Northern Nevada Correctional Center warden Brenda Burns married convict Eugene Pizzetto. The prison soon hired a new warden.

Even though officers only lose their jobs, young Latinos are slapped with prison terms for first-offense trafficking.

On that note, Conmay rejects the premise that a young Latino, who was not formerly in a gang and has been consigned to prison for a first-offense, nonviolent crime, has no choice but to join a gang: "The Department of Corrections offers a variety of options. Education programs, job programs."

This is Conmay's solution to gangs. However, he has refused to clarify how such programs could mitigate the need for protection against hostile inmates and the desire for status within the prison and the security that group membership provides.

Of the Latino males in this article who have served time, the two who were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes joined the Paisas. To say they didn't have to join a gang disregards any instinct for self-preservation, Nerey says. "If [Conmay's] attitude reflects the attitude of the system as a whole, the situation is only going to get worse. Can he seriously look Wendellyn Saldaña's son in the eyes and tell him he has a choice?

"Law enforcement needs to do a better assessment before they sentence people. If they're not in the system because of violent crimes, give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves, and teach them how difficult it is to escape a life of crime once they become entrenched in it."

Conmay passes the blame: "It isn't the prison's function to decide if a particular punishment is appropriate. That's the courts' responsibility."

Swan, though, puzzles the gang quandary; he attempts a genuine but brute-force solution: "California was reactive for a long time--then they built Pelican Bay, which is a total lockdown facility. It's effectively proactive," he says, a feasible way of reducing violence. "Nevada doesn't have a facility like Pelican Bay, but Nevada's inmate population is growing."

What Swan doesn't address is a point central to this article--that while lockdown is for unruly inmates, gangs needn't be unruly to be successful. As the Paisas have demonstrated, they are most effective when they give hell sparingly. They have learned from others' mistakes--the Aryan Warriors, and the Aguilas, whose insolence made them despised by both prison officials and other inmates, even Latinos.

While a lockdown facility would be a quick fix, Swan acknowledges the real cure lies in educating the barrios, Latino ghettos. He and Nerey agree. They both cite how street gangs manipulate boys before they are even 10 years old. The boys commit crimes as hobbies, then go to prison where crime becomes an inescapable way of life. Isidrio is just another example.

In addition to education, Nerey says, the system needs an efficient way to sever communication between shot callers--by sending them out of state, for instance, as Sumner did.

"The Paisas have only been organized 10 years," he says. "Think what it will be in another 10. The prison system will try to say they didn't see it coming. But it's all right there in front of them."

Extended contract

The lieutenant who sponsored Isidrio was released in August.

"The other day he drove up in a Hummer," Nerey says, and adds that he made $40,000 in October. "Paisa strength has been consolidated. They're as powerful outside as inside."

He says Isidrio couldn't get out even if he wanted to. Paisas are everywhere, keeping each other in check.

But Isidrio doesn't want to get out. Any skill he learned in prison would contribute to the Paisa world, not to the George Bush world. The system did him no favors. He was not infused with a higher moral purpose. His sentence made trafficking no less advantageous. And now that he's been inside, he's not afraid to return.

When you run with the Paisas, you cannot stop. You begin by making the best of your circumstances, carving an identity for yourself in a realm where only strong egos survive. You know that illegal does not mean wrong. You tell yourself you are doing what you have to do, and you believe it. You have a baby to feed, and in one or two years you'll get to see him. Like Isidrio, and every other Paisa, you end by hoping this doesn't happen to your son.

Isidrio says that superficially prison rendered him more circumspect but that anger overwhelmed any benefit gleanedÑanger that the corrections department would imprison him for first-offense trafficking.

"Sometimes I think that as soon as I'm off parole," he says, "I'm gonna go back and get double the money I lost."

When asked how prison has redefined his persona, his response is brief: "I'm Paisa."