Transparency Talks
Dive deep into the power of honesty, openness, and authenticity. The Federal Bureau of Prisons first ever podcast, Transparency Talks, will pull back the curtain on real stories, tough conversations, and the truth behind corrections. Transparency isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a way of life. Join us and discover how clarity can enhance communication and build stronger connections with the public and community partners.
Transparency Talks
S1E9 | Inside The BOP’s National Gang Unit
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Note: Joshua J. Smith served as Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time this interview was recorded.
The most dangerous part of prison gangs isn’t only what happens on the yard, it’s what can happen quietly through a contraband cell phone. We’re joined by Amy Kelley, Chief of the Federal Bureau of Prisons National Gang Unit, for a clear look at how gang intelligence is built, analyzed, and turned into decisions that protect staff, facilities, and the public. We dig into the real scope of federal prison gangs, including why gang influence shows up at every custody level and why the Federal Bureau of Prisons must constantly “move the chess pieces” to prevent conflict.
Welcome To Transparency Talks
SPEAKER_00All right, we are back with another episode of Transparency Talks. I think this is the most transparency that anybody has ever seen coming out of the Bureau of Prisons. And today's topic is, I think, as interesting as any of them have been. It's something very important to our agency. And I enjoy highlighting things that I don't think many people get to have
Amy Kelly’s Career In Intelligence
SPEAKER_00real understanding of. They don't really get to see an understanding. So who are you? What do you do? Tell us a little bit about how you started with the agency.
SPEAKER_01All right. My name's Amy Kelly. I'm the chief of the National Gang Unit. I started my career in the Bureau of Prisons in 2012 as a correctional officer. I came in the doors when I was 25 years old. Had previously worked for Colorado State for a couple of years, right out of college, and started working at Orange as a correctional officer, worked my way into the Special Investigative Services office there in Florence as well, and really got my feet wet into the intelligence world. From there, I moved up as a lieutenant, took the plunge, one of the most thankless jobs in this agency, one of the most important jobs in this agency. And every lieutenant out there that does that job has done that job. And then from there, I was fortunate enough to become an intelligence officer. Staying in the intelligence world within this agency can be challenging. There's not many pathways to stay in the intelligence world from the SIS department. So I was fortunate to become an intelligence officer with then Sacramento Intelligence Unit, kind of when it was fading out of existence and into the national gang unit, which I represent now today. And from there, I took the plunge out to DC. I came out as the intelligence investigations unit chief when that first was commenced, I guess, in history. We uh opened that unit up. Um it came out to DC and I did that for about a year and a half. Policy training, um, oversaw shops right after COVID. Um, tried to get all of our staff trained up as best we could coming out of that. Um, and then I got to kind of come home, as I say, and back into the gang unit as a chieftown.
SPEAKER_00So tell me a little bit about what the gang unit, what does the mission look like for the gang unit? Because I don't think people understand how many. I mean, we we have a lot of gangs. Uh you you you have a very busy job.
SPEAKER_01We do. This agency, you know, holds the worst of the worst, and the upper echelon of gang members, cartel members, you name it, we have them. As far as the gang unit goes, uh, we were founded back in 2021. Like I kind of mentioned the Sacramento Intelligence Unit, that unit had been around since 1990. Um, that's kind of what we were bred from. Um, our unit essentially is the oversight, right? The oversight for all national gang level things going on in this agency and in the country. So our mission is to collect that intelligence from all over the country through all our field offices through our SIS departments. They are the greatest resource of intelligence for us. So we take that intelligence out of the SIS shops, we look at it on a national level, and we try to provide that to decision makers, right? So that this agency can make proactive
The National Gang Unit Mission
SPEAKER_01decisions based on intelligence and based on what we know these gangs are doing and what they're not doing. Along with that, we we leverage that information with our partners, right? And then we use that information to kind of close the gaps on the intelligence that we have, not only in our agency, but out on the streets in other countries. Um, that I guess if I'm looking at it from 10,000 feet, that's that's our mission.
SPEAKER_00And do we have a lot of gang activity inside of BOP?
SPEAKER_01We do.
SPEAKER_00Can you give just some color to what that looks like?
SPEAKER_01So pretty complex. The landscape and the agency is very complex when we talk about gangs, the different groups, who gets along with who uh on any given day at any given institution. We're looking at over 80 gangs just that we track and monitor, right? That's not to say that we don't have more, you know, and they're at varying levels. So we have them at all custody levels, they're not just at penitentiaries. And I think that that might be, you know, what people think they might know versus what is actually happening. We have a lot of gang members at low-level institutions and are at our mediums, even at our camps that exist. Um, but but these gangs are extremely active every single day. We are, you know, we're we're managing and monitoring the best that we can with the resources that we have, and they are continuing to conduct their gang activity to the best of their ability.
SPEAKER_00You know, I got a call from another state, won't say where, but they they have two different gang leaders. Uh one they've already shipped out of state, one they still got in state, and they just said we need help. They're literally conducting with uh um the cartel right now, and it's a totally different gang. And and and they're they're while they're in prison, conducting an entire network outside of prison. Uh we're about to inherit these people. I tell them we've got some special places we can we can put them, but talk about how important that is, and then maybe even, I mean, cell phones. I mean, what what has that done to change everything and and and how bad is it?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Double parts there. So that state is not unique, unfortunately. I think those are the same problems that they have, are the same problems that we have, and those are the same problems that probably other every other jurisdiction has. Cell phones, game changer, right? These individuals that want to continue their criminal activities, right, making a ton of money through those phones, through their continued gang criminal organization on the streets, um, they're able to do so. You know, as the federal government, the Bureau of Prisons, we are the spear, right? So we want to make sure that we are leading the charge in stopping
The Reality Of Prison Gang Activity
SPEAKER_01this activity. Um, that's part of what our team's charged with. That's what the SIS shops do every single day on the front lines, trying to dismantle these organizations and thwart their activities, but it's an uphill battle, right? Every single day, these guys have 24 hours a day to figure out how to beat us, right? And our job never stops. Our job is day and night, every single day, trying to combat what these individuals are doing. And it's not just in our jurisdiction, like I said, it's across multiple jurisdictions, multiple states, multiple countries sometimes, where we're looking at these groups.
SPEAKER_00You know, I've been impressed being able to see a behind-the-scenes look at what you guys do and you know, even some of the investigations that are right now working with our law enforcement partners in other states, in other prisons, literally from cell phone to cell phone, from prison to prison, state to federal to people out in the street. How bad. Or what would it look like if cell phones didn't exist in prison?
SPEAKER_01It would be incredible. Cell phone use leads to so many things that we can't control. Cell phones in the hands of, you know, an individual that wants to go back out in the community, be productive, maybe not so much of a big deal. But we know that that's not what is happening. When we look at these cell phones, there are large-scale, like you said, organizations being run. Um, and we put individuals next to each other that have pipelines already, right? So we put cartel members next to maybe a gang member who has a pipeline through a certain part of the country. And now we just connected these two individuals and organizations to each other to create a pipeline for narcotics to travel across our country. Not intentionally, of course. And they're going to take advantage. If they have a cell phone in their hand, they're able to conduct money transactions, uh, communicate without us being able to know about it. But if we really forced them back onto our phone system and had the technology to be able to follow what they do day in and day out, it'd be a game changer as far as how we conduct ourselves and their investigations.
SPEAKER_00You know, that's one of the things that when Director Marshall and I came in, uh, because you know, some argue, hey, we're using cell phones to keep in touch with our family. We've had a limit on our minutes for a long time. So we raised those limits uh up uh pretty substantially. And we're even hopeful with the tablets that'll be coming uh hopefully this year,
Cell Phones Change Everything
SPEAKER_00that it'll increase even more. So then we can differentiate from what's really, you know, give people the ability to communicate with their families, but also a way that can be monitored and tracked rather than just the cell phones and the damage that they cause because it's a problem. Tell me a little bit about some of the programs you guys have. I I think this is I think this is interesting. Some of the work that you guys do behind the scenes almost.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So, first the gang dissociation program. We have over 20,000 gang members in our custody at any given time, out of 155,000 or so inmates in our custody. That program provides an opportunity for these individuals who oftentimes have been gang members since childhood to drop out completely from their game gang lifestyle. Um, of course, they have to meet certain criteria for us, and there's a process by which they have to go through. It's an intelligence gathering process. So we don't just allow anybody who wants to because maybe they created a debt or something like that. They have to come to the table with something to offer by way of intelligence. We sit down with them, we go through that process with them. Oftentimes we have outside law enforcement heavily involved in that, whether it might be their resting agent, it might be AUSA in their case, any other parties, dependent upon what gang it is, will come out and sit on site with us for days at a time and talk to that individual. Once they're able to drop out of that program or drop out of their gang through that program, we'll put them in a safe location where they can actually program gang free.
SPEAKER_00You know, I've I've had a chance to travel a lot of prisons uh over the years and even see former gang members now negotiating out gang members from gangs and and seeing how that how that all can work. Because some do get to that place where they don't want to be in that anymore. Uh unfortunately, I think sometimes you would you and I'd agree. Uh it working in a some of the higher-level prisons, they don't have that choice sometimes very easily. It's it can be very difficult. You know, I gained a lot of respect for you and your team when we were out in Victorville. You know, we got to work together a little bit there. Pizzagate, you know, it'll be forever famous.
SPEAKER_01I didn't get a slice.
SPEAKER_00Hey, you didn't get a slice of it.
SPEAKER_01I didn't get a slice.
SPEAKER_00Neither did some of the people on Facebook that uh like to to roast it. But one of the things that, you know, that we did out there is we we sat down and talked to some of the gang leaders. That's where I worked with some of the, you know, the influentials or whatever you would you would call it. And, you know, I really appreciated because I, you know, sometimes I guess I thought you guys were really behind the scenes, but you're you're out talking to these gang leaders. You're they know you, you know them. When it was the conversation of, you know, are we giving up anything secret here? I mean, you guys are this is your career, this is your job. You go out and interact with them. What what what does that look like?
SPEAKER_01I you're right, they know who we are. And speaking about doing this podcast, right? That was one of the things that came up. These guys know who the National Gang Unit team is. They know who I am, they know who my deputy is, they know who my team is, whether they're embedded in an institution or in our office and central office. Um, you know, at the end of the day, there's a level of respect, right? You're speaking to another human being, and that's how we approach this. There's a level of respect that we have to have for one another. Um, and so when we're talking to these inmates, and a lot of times, like I said, these guys are 30 years into this organization. I'm 14 years into my organization, right? So when I'm talking to these individuals, they chose this in their life, whether it how they grew up or whatever the decisions were before prison. They join this gang or they join this gang in prison. Um, we're gonna approach them with a level of respect. They're men, right? They have dignity, they have integrity. It might not be what we want it to be in, but they have their own level of how they operate and how they how they conduct themselves. And we're gonna conduct ourselves and meet them with respect head on. Um, that's the one thing that we try to teach to all of our SIS schools and all of our SIS
Dropping Out Through Gang Dissociation
SPEAKER_01techs is you can approach anybody and have a conversation with them. You probably saw us out on the compound. We walk straight out of the compound with 800 of those guys standing out there. That's our job, right? If we can't go out there and have a respectful conversation, they're gonna go and do what they're gonna do. They're gonna go try and have their hustle. They might get on their cell phone after I leave and write a message, and that's fine. But we're gonna approach them with respect. And if they do something wrong, we're gonna hold them accountable, right? Our job is to ensure that we're stopping their behavior to the best of our ability and for paving a way for other folks that are trying to do the right thing in these facilities to build a program. And if that gang lifestyle is getting in the way of that, that's our job, and that's where we step in and make sure that those individuals are no longer able to do so and be an impediment to those other inmates.
SPEAKER_00You know, we were out there for I think four days, five days. And I think, you know, after, again, the Pizzagate, after we all were meeting, you know, what people don't talk about is I I took I talked to them about the carrot and the stick. Uh I let them know that we're not gonna play around. Those that are intent on continuing to lead and do these bad activities, we do have another level of institution that we can send them. I let them know we're gonna fill those beds up. And but also said, hey, we want to create a different environment to where it can't be, it it you can actually have a choice. So you can't say you're trapped into these things. And then uh fast forward back to the meeting we had of the download a few days later, kind of just seeing is anything we're doing making a difference. I thought it was very interesting. You guys already had heard and knew what was going on on the compound. And I thought that was fascinating because it wasn't one of those what we thought just happened in the meeting, you guys had spent time with these gang units after that. Tell me about those conversations, and you can even I I'd like to, it was fascinating hearing you comment what you thought of that because we are trying some new different things. We are trying to tackle this differently. If we make a create create a safer environment for our staff, I'm willing to try peach. I don't care. We'll try whatever. Um uh what were your thoughts on that? How did you get that information and then maybe even speak to what that information looked like?
SPEAKER_01You know, inmate.com, right? So uh as soon as we step foot on that compound and they saw who was there, I think there was a level of this is different. This is a different situation where this agency is not just promising something and not taking action. Um, if I could say one thing about the Victorville, that was the take-home message is that these inmates really saw that there was change on the ground. It wasn't just a team of NGU there to go and walk and talk with inmates. There was every level of this agency on the ground addressing issues on the spot, right? I mean, when you saw the roof guys up on the roof, that was one of the things that some of the gang leaders told us on the confound. They're like, what are you guys doing on the roof? Yeah. So that's what we're here for, right? We're not gonna fix the gang problem overnight, we're not gonna fix the cell phone problem overnight, we're not gonna fix the roofs overnight. But when they see effective change on the ground and people not just making promises, but moving dirt, right? Putting in the work, that gains a lot of credibility and a lot of respect. Um, and that was one thing that I took away after you guys had had your meetings the day before, and we pulled all the leadership out onto the yard and we talked to each group. We talked to each group collectively and their leaders, um, and got their two cents on what was going on because they've been in the system long enough to know is this another dog and pony show or is this something that's legitimate and they
Victorville And Credibility On The Yard
SPEAKER_01want to effectuate change?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was I tried to be very clear, let them know that it was gonna be both. In fact, I talked to the uh warden out there not too long ago, a couple that we're gonna send up to ADX and let them know, hey, we're serious. But then also, you're seeing some real pasta thing. The president commuted some sentences uh here just a couple weeks ago. One of those being a lifer. And what what message, when the president does something that big to somebody that like an Alice Johnson before, that that everybody's sitting there assuming they're going to be there forever, what does that do for the safety of that institute? What does that do for the gang? What tone does that set?
SPEAKER_01Hopefully it just reinforces the fact that if you are doing the right thing in our institutions and you're trying to program, you're trying to be positive, you're not picking up a knife every day, you're not going and putting in work for a gang or another organization, that there's real outcomes, right? There's there's light at the end of the tunnel for you. Um and at the end of the day, it brings the temperature down. And we talked a lot about that at Victorville of how do we bring the temperature down specifically at penitentiaries, right? Our mediums and our lows have their own set of problems. Our penitentiaries are where extreme violence happens, where we have some of the top echelon of these gang members, cartel leaders sitting there and effectuating very violent acts against different groups, each other, whatever it might be. So, how do we insert ourselves collectively, not just the gang unit, not just the SIS shop, not just Victorville, but how do we collectively work together to bring that temperature down? And I think you touched on it. Yeah, there's some bad actors we have sick out there. And we surgically will take those individuals out of there that want to continue introducing contraband, making it mandatory for certain groups to carry knives. Um, those are things that we heard reverberated back to us when we were there of, hey, the temperature is going down here. What you guys are doing is working when we can actually strategically work to remove those individuals.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I told them there's some non-negotiables that matter. We'll we'll we'll run through it until we do, but we'll also look to see how do we give them the best chance of being able to take this, uh uh create an environment that's safer for everybody. Some will never get out. But but again, we're looking at things. How do we make it a safer place for our staff? This is, you know, people think about inmates and they just say we want the inmates to be in the most toughest, difficult places. But then we have staff that work.
SPEAKER_01We put our staff in the toughest, most difficult, dangerous places.
SPEAKER_00So at Victorville, we took and met with some of these shot callers, right? Or these influential, what do you call them? Influential inmates, influential inmates. Maybe sometimes I don't like shot callers, but they do call some shots for sure. And you know, we didn't know what to expect. I just knew I got to do something different. And I felt like my history and and and me being in prison before could be at least a conversation piece, right? They would be able to look and go, wait a minute, somebody is yeah, it's different. And you know, we have a goal and mission of just saying, how do we change this? We we've got what 15 USPs, right, across the country. It as we're talking about this mission to change, first tell me tell me a little bit about the landscape of the prison system, these 15 USPs on how I mean people can't just all be put in the same place. There's all kinds of reasons why. Tell me a little bit about why that is.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I guess gang history lesson for for everyone would be going back to the 1950s. Our landscape in the Bureau of Prisons is formed over decades, decades long, spanning back to California Department of Corrections and Texas Department of Corrections, where these gang alliances, uh, gang enemies have been formed. Uh, you talk about uh some of the historic groups like the Mexican Mafia, the Aryan Brotherhood, uh, the Texas Syndicate, groups like that that we publicly talk about openly are some of our biggest and most notorious gangs that we house in the Bureau of Prisons. And the things that they did back in the 1950s, 1960s, when they were first coming to fruition, has shaped our really complex landscape in the Bureau of Prisons and how we have to house certain groups with each other, not with each other. You know, so it creates a sense of we kind of have to move the chess pieces around a lot of times. And then, of course, if we have a new incident that occurs between any of these larger groups or very influential groups that could impact other smaller groups, we have to work real diligently to ensure that one, we're stopping the violence, we're stopping the things that are going on, and then trying to figure out how to fix them. Um, and that's not just a us problem, that's a them problem too. That's that is also a part of these gangs. Some of them want to fix stuff, and some of them don't. Some of them have stood on that since 1950 when they've when they've made these enemies with each other and they do not want to fix it in our system. So it it really creates a complex landscape for us to be able to navigate as an agency when we're looking at gangs, their influence, and where we house them at.
SPEAKER_00You know, so back to Victorville. I've already been getting calls. So as inmates have been transferred out of Victorville, they're sharing what happened there when I was there, when we were all there for several days. Uh, you guys are sending it. You're seeing it on phone calls because I've been sent some of the phone calls coming out of some of the influentials. Where what are you seeing some of the conversations look like?
SPEAKER_01I think hope. Again, they're not seeing, oh, we're sending a team in, they're gonna make some notes, they're gonna do an audit. They saw boots on the ground, they saw real conversations happening, they saw real work happening. They saw us walking and talking, they saw you and the entourage walking and talking and having really powerful, meaningful conversations. conversations about how do we change this, right? Even if you're not going to step out of your gang and we talk to a couple groups and some leaders when we're there of even if you're not going to debrief with us, right? How do we make your life sentence safer? How do we make the next guy's 20-year sentence safer? How can you be influential as a life, you know, serving a life sentence as whatever kind of gang member you are? How do we make that better so that these guys can leave here in one piece and hopefully better? That's a hard bill of order for a penitentiary just because of how high the prison politics and the gang politics are at those locations. But I think they really saw people wanting to change on our side and nothing outside the box.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which is hard, right? And I'll tell you people, you know, gave me a lot of criticism, which I I'll take I it doesn't matter to me. I'll try something different. And and can I just be honest, didn't know how that week was going to go. I just said what what can we lose? It's not going to get worse. And and then we were able to take and use some of the tools that President Trump gave us in the First Step Act, right? Allowing wardens to make step downs into time sentences credit with those that are programming, that aren't you know, that aren't going by the regular politics of prison and and those things. And and they got to see it firsthand for the first ever. In fact, even so even though that the First Step Act has been law for several years, the BLP has never not once approved one reduction sentence based on that. I don't know if you know that or not. No. At Victorville, that was the very first one. And in front of those shot callers, those influentials, we had somebody stand up and they left prison that day. It was a powerful example, right? That's an impact. And and then we I think there were a few that got several years credit, right? Now they can lose that if they don't act right. And now the rumors since have I mean we let a bunch of people out of prison you know we gave her you know as it goes I've heard some of the phone calls you know gosh they walked out the whole visiting you know everybody they were meeting with. As I did that we worked that week one of the things we
Gang Politics And Housing Chess Moves
SPEAKER_00realized that kind of surprised us is wow the inmates I mean this changed the motivation I've heard from Victorville leadership. They're saying they're lined up outside of their offices going, hey, wait a minute, how do I program? What does that look like? Freedom is a motivational thing. But I think the other side of that is we've got staff, right? Staff that and they've had to deal with this for so long this same way the challenges from the gangs and the fear of retaliations and the the safety issues and all those. And and you're somebody you're you you've you've started at the most difficult level that we've got. Speak to that I mean you're you're one of them right you're you're one of them that would look and go, I don't know can this change or or those hey it can't change. What are we looking at when it comes to staff and and how do we how do we impact that differently I guess or what would they what would they be surprised to hear from this this uh experience that we're working on?
SPEAKER_01So I've never been a pessimist. I think we come into this line of work hopefully to affect change in whatever avenue that we decide to take our career in. I come to work every single day and the folks on my team come to work every single day to make it safer for our staff to hopefully affect change through the inmate population. I would just say that doing the same thing every single day, right? That's insanity and expecting a different result is that the quote yeah we got to do something different right we have to be energized. We have to if if we're constantly anticipating that it's going to stay the same way without ever putting a new idea forward then it's always going to stay the same and this is just going to be a cycle that we continue over and over and over. And what I will say is what opened my eyes right I'm not formally trained in gangs. I don't think anybody really is you don't go to school saying I'm going to go be an expert in gangs. I went to school for marketing I got into this and what what really turned me into hopeful instead of a pessimist when we're looking at prisons because it can be dark, dreary, sad, violet all those things is when I watched an individual several times, but a couple different individuals drop out of their gang as top of the top right 34 years in a gang, 26 years in a gang, founding level members drop out of those gangs and sit in front of us and have those impactful conversations that were sometimes
Hope For Staff Safety And Change
SPEAKER_01emotional for them especially where they're grieving this past life and really showing remorse and they see the end of that life that they were leading for so long and turn that leaf it gives you hope. It really shows that people can change whether I I believed them at the time or not when they signed the paperwork I will tell I was a pessimist on a couple of them. But when I have individuals that I met as a rookie that wouldn't say two words to me at the door wouldn't say two words to a rookie at the door and 10 years later he's jumping up and down saying I'm so glad you're here and you're going to be the one to debrief me from this gang. Wow. What hope right and that's when we do this yeah we deal with the bad guys we deal with the high caliber gang members every single day and the horrible things that do occur inside of our prisons and outside at the hands of gang members. But when you have examples like that where people step away, it really gives you hope in what you're doing to hopefully maybe turn that conversation. And again, they might not drop out but we might be able to have those conversations like we did at Victorville where these guys aren't going to drop out but they see that there's change coming. They see that we're trying our best outside the box and hopefully give them a better life with their life sentence and maybe the other gang member sitting next to them who gets out in 15 years that ability to program safely wow I'll tell you I say it all the time there is no agency in all law enforcement or inside of federal government that is more impactful on public safety than this Bureau of Prisons.
SPEAKER_00It's one thing to go out and arrest them it's a whole nother to deal with them every day day in day out seven days a week 24 hours a day and and I appreciate the passion in which you and many of our staff do that with because you are the key to public safety. I mean when you get that right when you get those debriefs when you when you have those conversations those are many times people going back out to our communities and uh it's a really big deal. So thank you so much for being willing to do this today. Thank you for what you do and I'm I'm looking forward to working with you even more.
SPEAKER_01Sam you very much
