I kept thinking of the above quote – from Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl in his seminal work Man’s Search for Meaning – while reading Gary Mulgrew’s recent bookGang of One

The book details his time in a high-security Texan jail. Of course, I know Gary – he was my boss for nearly five years during my less-than-successful foray into banking. And I guess that’s what prompted me to read his book.

Yet it’s not what prompted me to write about it. That came from, firstly, being impressed by his writing style and candidness – two aspects of book writing I hold in high regard (for obvious reasons). But it also came from his Frankl-like observations of prison life. Here he was, an observant and articulate man at – after war – probably the sharpest end of contemporary life. Having been at the top of Abraham Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs, Mulgrew had fallen to its floor – concerned only for survival and basic needs in a hostile environment.

Certainly, it’s rare to get such insight from an educated and articulate man experiencing life in the human basement. Frankl was an Austrian psychologist so was able to opine on the psychological impact on both himself and those around him. Mulgrew was a banker, and leader of large chunk of the old NatWest Markets. He too could offer a rare insight into the impact of such privation on the human spirit.

So here’s what I noticed from my reading of Gang of One – the 10 things that Gary’s book told me about surviving the Darwinian pit.

1. The need for gangs. The first and most noticeable observation is, indeed, how Darwinian life becomes. One’s very existence is under threat, and certainly basic needs such as food and water are paramount. Revealingly, the guarantee of survival in this near-primeval existence comes from an unexpected collectiveness. The rugged individual of American lore could not prosper in a high-security Texan jail, it seems – especially one located only an hour or so from the banditry of the US-Mexican border. The unit that matters is the gang. Indeed, Gary is constantly pressured to “run with” one gang or other – hence the book’s title – as only through such a pack, it seems, is the inmate afforded any form of protection from existential threats.
2. The racial divisions. A second observation has to be the power of race when it comes to the make-up of the gangs. The entire prison is segregated along strict racial lines. Such divisions are not officially sanctioned – the large rooms of bunks (known as “ranges”) are mixed. But, left to its own devices – in the food hall or TV room or exercise yard – the prison population immediately divides emphatically along racial lines. Here Gary’s dilemma is that he feels no affinity with “his race”, which is organized into the ludicrous and offensive “Aryan Brotherhood”. Indeed, he seems most at home with the Native Americans, although they are unwilling to be joined by someone from outside their ethnic pool. It’s all so primitive: groups guarantee survival and those groups divide emphatically along racial lines.
3. Tattoos. Yet it’s not just race. This close to Mexico the Hispanics are a clear majority of the prison population – especially given the war-like levels of drug-gang rivalry occurring nearby. And this leads to tattoos being the primary marker of differentiation between rival groupings. Indeed, the prison authorities recognise this demarcation, with tattoo specialists noting various markings with anthropological zeal. Of course, the wrong markings can have fatal consequences, but that’s the point: tattoos are an immovable badge of affinity – a statement that, once in the gang, that’s that (especially when the tattoo’s on your face). This was a Faustian compact at the foot of the Maslow’s hierarchy: in return for the gang’s protection the gang demands your absolute loyalty – to the point where you’ll happily disfigure your face to prove it.
4. Hierarchy is crucial. The prison authorities are noted by their absence – leaving the prison accommodation blocks to, pretty-much, run themselves. And run themselves they do, via a complex hierarchy involving “shot callers” from each gang. Such an elite co-operates to the point where regular meetings are held to settle disputes and keep the place ticking over. In fact, this set up is way too structured to be considered “informal”. It’s universally accepted, with the inmates happily deferring to the “shot callers” and the guards staying largely out of the way. Even Gary’s “which gang” dilemma is d
   iscussed at the “shot caller” level, with – amazingly – his notion of forming his own one-man gang requiring a quasi-formal approval.
5. That humans remain human. When I knew Gary, we were both investment bankers, which meant life became irritating if our business class flight was delayed by an hour or our hotel room wasn’t quite to our liking. Yet here he had to endure the heat, noise, squalor and privation of life in a prison “range” – involving scores of hardened criminals living in close quarters without respite. And yet life became tolerable. More than tolerable: something in the human soul found laughter, joy, dignity, kinship and even privacy. These are more than the rudiments of existence – they are the very human qualities that put us above the animals. And, even here (as they were in Frankl’s Auschwitz), they were sought, sourced, relished – and respected by all.
6. Kindness. One episode involves an inmate helping Gary change out of blood-soaked clothes in order to avoid his mistaken implementation in a gang beating. His aid put himself in considerable danger to help Gary, yet it was done instinctively and unquestioningly. Despite the privations – or maybe even because of them – the inmates help each other in all sorts of ways, big and small. Deeper than the layers of machismo that pervade the block’s every interaction there’s a kindness towards each other. Indeed, reading Gary’s daily tribulations reminded me of the more Golding-esque aspects of school life. Yet the prison was far from infantilised – adult civilities and even goodwill survived.
7. Ratting. That said, in one respect prison and school are exactly aligned. The greatest crime is in being a “rat” – a “grass”. Gary’s worst moments come from the concern within his prison block that his comparatively light sentence was somehow won via betraying his accomplices. It concerns both his immediate friends – such as the Native Americans – and the gang hierarchies, including a particularly menacing character ironically named Angel. No matter what, ratting is beyond the pale – as he witnessed via the beatings handed out to the “rats” that entered the open-plan range.
8. Sexual tension. Other than the rats, the lowest level of prison life is the “chomo”, or sexual offender. This group are subjected to a level of violence seemingly-sanctioned by both formal and informal authorities, although – as Gary points out – this seems more to do with finding outlets for anger and frustration than due to any sense of natural justice. That said, singling out sexual deviance was odd as a sexual tension seems to pervade prison life. Indeed, the prospect of rape was a major concern for Gary, as it would be for any self-respecting person thrown into such circumstances. He survived, although the prison’s obsession with sex answered a classic question regarding Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: does the primary physiological level include sex as a basic need? From my reading of Gary’s book, yes appears to be the answer.
9.  The Aryan Brotherhood. Gary makes a great deal of rejecting their invitations, which – if true – was a brave move in such a racially-segregated environment (there being no other white gang to join). That said, they stand out for their ridiculousness, which included the gentle addition of swastikas for those facial tattoos. Even in such an asylum, it’s the Aryan Brotherhood providing a negative benchmark for others to measure their sanity. Most laughably, was their claim for racial superiority despite the fact they were clearly the most educational deficient of all the groupings present.
10. Menace as a policy. Gary resists giving lectures – offering instead a personal and therefore unprejudiced insight into his experiences. Yet, in his final analysis, he couldn’t help questioning what seemed to be the official sanctioning – even in its passive acquiescence – of the brutality around him. Indeed, the treatment of the chomos and the rats, and even those that stepped out of line with respect to gang law – and the fact such treatment is ignored by the prison authorities (to the point that prisoner-on-prisoner brutality appears to be part of America’s deterrence towards criminality) – has to be worth questioning. As Gary rightly asks: is this a legitimate form for punishment for a civilised society? Add to that the fact 2.3 million Americans are currently in jail (more than one percent of the male population), with a further 5 million on parole, and America’s claim to be a moral beacon for humanity is surely undermined.