How UK prison gangs actually work, according to a former gang member
Leroy Smith was a member of the African Crew prison gang in the UK during the early 2000s.
Smith became a hit man and a drug dealer for the African Crew during his time as a category A inmate in the Full Sutton, Frankland, Long Lartin, and Whitemoor high-security prisons. He speaks about serving 20 years in prison for the shooting of two Metropolitan Police constables in Brixton, South London, during the early 1990s.
Smith speaks with Business Insider about the violence and weapons within the prison system. He talks about smuggling contraband, selling drugs, and being a hit man. He covers staff corruption, such as guards accepting bribery, as well as the role of some media outlets in sensationalizing prison-gang culture in the UK and promoting the narrative of "Muslim gangs" in British jails.
After his release from prison, Smith became a mentor and a public speaker. He is the CEO of the community charity Out of the Box and the author of "Out of the Box: The Story of Leroy Smith."
Smith became a hit man and a drug dealer for the African Crew during his time as a category A inmate in the Full Sutton, Frankland, Long Lartin, and Whitemoor high-security prisons. He speaks about serving 20 years in prison for the shooting of two Metropolitan Police constables in Brixton, South London, during the early 1990s.
Smith speaks with Business Insider about the violence and weapons within the prison system. He talks about smuggling contraband, selling drugs, and being a hit man. He covers staff corruption, such as guards accepting bribery, as well as the role of some media outlets in sensationalizing prison-gang culture in the UK and promoting the narrative of "Muslim gangs" in British jails.
After his release from prison, Smith became a mentor and a public speaker. He is the CEO of the community charity Out of the Box and the author of "Out of the Box: The Story of Leroy Smith."
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00My name's Leroy Smith. I spent 20 years in prison in the UK.
00:04I was a hitman and a drug dealer for the African crew.
00:08This is how crime works.
00:13Whoever's in the biggest gang in that prison at that time is more likely going to win that war.
00:18There's no guns, but they've got knives and hot oil.
00:22I did 20 and I just about managed to come through the other end
00:26and I'm just about managing to live my life.
00:31I was in Belmarsh from 1995. I got my sentence.
00:40When walking into Belmarsh prison for the first time, I went straight into the unit.
00:44That's a prison inside the prison of Belmarsh.
00:47It feels very claustrophobic, keys knocking everywhere and clanging doors.
00:53Everything's electric and there's cameras everywhere, so you feel spied upon.
00:59I was in high security estate as one person and I would defend my own self and do what was right for me.
01:08When I joined with the African crew, I had a team of people to think about instead of just me.
01:17The African crew got that name because most of the people in the crew were African.
01:22I met them in Belmarsh and we come from the same area of South London.
01:28Out in the streets, there was a full-blown gang doing what they do.
01:33So drugs and firearms.
01:35They had money and resources, so it was more comfortable for me to be around them also.
01:42No recruitment initiation process.
01:44We were just mutually from the same area and we had vested interests to be together.
01:53I've been stabbed in my neck, I've been cut before.
01:56I've been in the segregation on numerous occasions for stabbings and violent assaults on other inmates.
02:05I feel like I just did just enough to survive.
02:08And when you're scared and you want to survive, you can do a lot of stuff.
02:16And now, I'm polite and civil, but I've got a confident energy inside me
02:23where I don't think you can just take my soul that easy.
02:27No one can just come and take my life.
02:29Violence in dispersal prison is totally different from violence anywhere else.
02:35It's clinical and thought out and planned.
02:39People will sit down and plan things and make sure that it works in their favour when they go to execute it.
02:47That's why most people, they make sure they wedge their door so no one can't come in in the morning
02:52and then they get up, put on their trainers and they're up and ready when the door opens.
02:56I've seen inmates knock out staff, like two, three staff in one go
03:03and another staff grabbing onto the bars to stop himself being dragged into the cell,
03:08screaming, staff, staff, with his life depending on it.
03:12The weapons used in prison fights, when I was in prison,
03:15were a piece of metal shaved into a spike with a wooden handle on the end
03:20or oil, what they used to sell to cook food.
03:24So you've got people who ain't got money and they might make knives and sell it to other people
03:29so you know you can go to that person and get a knife and pay them for it.
03:33Or you might have like two or three knives between five people
03:38and everybody knows where it is to go and get it.
03:41CCTV is just on the landing, it's not in your cell.
03:46So anything in your cell, in the showers, is private.
03:50The searches are random and DST, dedicated search team,
03:55come and they've got dogs and they sniff around and look around for things.
03:59But it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
04:02You can have one person who will keep it on their person while someone else is getting searched.
04:06So everyone's working with each other for a common goal of keeping weapons in their possession.
04:12People have been kidnapped inside prisons and inside dispersal
04:16but it's mostly like two people want to go to the block
04:20or want something from the governors and they ain't getting it
04:24and then they'll keep them in the cell.
04:26Or someone's got a parcel and they ain't got no gang around them or no power
04:32and rob them and then gone to the Seg after.
04:35That's the way it would happen.
04:42I spent 20 years in prison because I was a career criminal
04:46and a gunman and a drug dealer
04:49and this culminated in me shooting two police in South London, in Brixton
04:54and I got 25 years for shooting one of the police officers, 18 for the other,
05:0014 years for armed robbery on the jewelers,
05:035 years for unlawful shooting and 2 years for escaping from prison.
05:07I was on remand in Leicester prison and I escaped from the prison
05:11when I was on escort to Brixton so I became wanted
05:14and then I went to Jamaica, started importing drugs
05:17and came back home and was on my way to collect some money
05:20from someone in Brixton and got stopped by police.
05:23I had a firearm on me and drugs so I tried to make good my escape
05:29and in the process the two police officers got shot.
05:33I was just determined I weren't going to prison
05:35and I just rolled the dice.
05:37It happened in a split second and I made good my escape.
05:41I escaped from them and went to America
05:44and was eventually arrested by a FBI SWAT team a year later.
05:48Yeah, I've got lots of regrets because I wasted my life sitting in that cell
05:53and I could have been like the rest of my brothers
05:56with my own house and a family and now I've just got a big void
06:00because a big chunk of my life's just gone.
06:08Between Franklin, Fawcett and Whitemore and Long Larton
06:12I would get moved every 18 months or so back and forth
06:16to one of the four prisons.
06:18Most people that go to high security prison,
06:21they are sentenced to more than 10 years
06:24and they are deemed by the government to be dangerous,
06:27meaning access to firearms, money.
06:29This small niche of people, they're all put into a tight, small situation
06:35where you would not be going anywhere apart from these four prisons
06:39so it is easy for a gang member in one prison
06:43to make a hit on another person in another prison
06:46because everybody knows each other
06:48after five years of being inside that system.
06:51When I was in prison, I never had money.
06:53My family abandoned me and everything what could go wrong went wrong.
06:59I became a hitman in prison because of financial situation.
07:03There'll be times when people in there have got enemies
07:06and they don't want to confront them themselves.
07:08If someone said to me,
07:10oh, here's five grand, stab this person.
07:13If it was something I thought I could do and get away with, I would do it.
07:17But what I could do is I could take the money
07:20and subcontract that hit through someone else
07:23who's even more unscrupulous than me,
07:26who doesn't care about just doing it and going to the block
07:29and sitting in the block for drugs or whatever they want.
07:32But some of these hits go wrong
07:34because I've seen people with my own eyes put a hit on someone
07:37and a hitman, after he does the hit,
07:40he turns around and tells the person he done the hit on
07:43who paid him to do the hit
07:45and then they reverse it now, put a hit on that person.
07:48So it can go wrong because it's a cage and you're not getting out.
07:56Contraband kept the prison running,
08:00kept people high or stoned
08:03and makes the time fly
08:06and it generates money for people and power and influence.
08:10Chris Grayling is an MP in the United Kingdom
08:13who decided to take away tobacco
08:16and books from prisoners in the prison system.
08:20This has had a detrimental effect on the prison system
08:25and has now made tobacco an illicit substance of great value.
08:32So a packet of tobacco which was worth £12 in the canteen
08:36is now worth £1,000 to an inmate who has it in his possession.
08:42Now it's spice.
08:44This is a chemical, a drug.
08:47It's supposed to make you high.
08:49They spray it on paper and they smoke it.
08:52When I was in prison, it was cannabis and heroin
08:56and alcohol was the main intoxicants.
09:02All of them prisons have got spice in there
09:05destroying the prisoners right now as we speak.
09:09When I was in prison and I was getting drugs to sell or to smoke,
09:14I sold cannabis in my little circle
09:18and I took cannabis and I took Class A drugs as well in prison.
09:22I've had a phone in prison.
09:24Someone brought it up for me on a visit
09:26and I just literally had sellotape wrapped around it
09:29and I just literally cheeked it.
09:31I put it in the crease of my anus
09:38and brought it back into the prison.
09:40When I got past the first sets of searches,
09:43I just took it and put it in my pocket and walked back to the wing.
09:46And I had it for a few months and I sold it and bought a Rolex
09:51because it's valuable.
09:52A phone's worth from £1,500 to £5,000.
09:57So in each cell, it's got a vent system,
10:01but people mostly talk through that.
10:04Category B prisons, these are prisons that are mostly in the city
10:08and the person controlling the drone, if he knows how to fly it properly,
10:12can bring it right up to the person's cell window
10:15with the contraband on a string
10:18and then the person can just literally hook it in from the cell window
10:21and that's it.
10:22It's hard for them to really stop it from happening
10:25because obviously a drone could be up in the air
10:28and deliver and be back down within 20 minutes.
10:30And it's circumventing all of the systems
10:33because it's going direct to the source.
10:35The government spent £100 million
10:38on stopping contraband coming in the prison.
10:41I just simply don't believe that
10:43and I don't understand where that money went if they did spend it.
10:46And if they paid me even £10 million,
10:49I would stop it better than what they've stopped it.
10:56I made money from drug dealing, from hits.
11:01I was just making money to live and to live my life
11:05how I wanted to live it in prison.
11:07Buy clothes, buy a watch and have food to eat every night
11:11and cook food, which is expensive.
11:14But I couldn't put a finger on it, but I made money in prison.
11:19And I've had times when people, like I've gone to Belmarsh
11:23and just from covering for someone and protecting them,
11:27they've given me £5,000, literally in cash,
11:30dropped it off at someone's house.
11:32Literally.
11:33In dispersal, everybody is sitting there for the next 10, 20 years.
11:37If you've got some weed, they will just get someone
11:40to send the money or drop it off at someone's house outside
11:44and it's done because you're all living together
11:46and no-one's going anywhere.
11:48The average week, you might generate a few hundred pounds at least,
11:53enough to facilitate your situation and survive
11:58without needing anybody outside to sponsor you
12:01or pay for your living, your standard of living.
12:06So, in what I saw, there's no structure, i.e.
12:11you have two main people who call all shots.
12:16Like, for example, when I was with the African crew,
12:19they didn't have a leader.
12:21As an example, it was just members together doing a sentence.
12:25The African crew had six people in prison,
12:28but the driving force would be what they did on the street
12:32If you're a brother and you're on religion,
12:35then you have ultimate, like, leverage
12:42because that supersedes street gangs.
12:45If you're a brother, you're going to automatically have protection
12:49because everyone looks out for everyone
12:53and it's on the back of keeping everybody safe
12:57and it's on the back of keeping everybody safe and peace.
13:02And then on the downside, you've now picked up their baggage as well.
13:07Now, if their enemies come to prison, you're now in that trap
13:12because you've assigned yourself to be in a part of that circle.
13:16If you come to prison and you're not in a gang
13:18and you're not religious, it'll be a bit hard for you.
13:22And you might be able to get by and be as quiet as a mouse,
13:26but one day, something might happen somewhere along the line.
13:29It could be something very simple like you could go in the shower
13:32and forget to have a box of shorts
13:34or you might go in the kitchen and lean over someone's food.
13:37And if you want to fight back now,
13:39that's how you become into politics in prison.
13:42And then it starts and never ends.
13:44Religion is nothing to do with street gangs.
13:49People come to prison and get religious
13:54because it suits them to find inner peace
13:58and to live out their sentence without problems.
14:04That is the dynamics behind it.
14:08I am a Muslim. I took shahada in prison.
14:12My connection with brothers in the prison
14:15is just a normal connection of faith,
14:19learning surahs and Islam and going to pray at Jummah.
14:25There is no banner called Muslim gang.
14:29I've never come across a Muslim gang in my life.
14:34And I served 20 years in UK prisons.
14:37So this thing is a myth.
14:40The African crew's main rivals were some other guys from South London.
14:46Most of them was from Jamaican backgrounds.
14:48So they're English with Jamaican parents.
14:50They had like a 10-year war together.
14:52It's all resolved now, thank God, and been put to bed.
14:58But it was very serious and people have died on both sides.
15:02There's no loyalty amongst thieves.
15:04Your allies can be whoever at any different time.
15:09So you might be in one prison with a set of people
15:12and you're cool with them people.
15:14But when you move, another set will come,
15:18it rotates and it can change, basically.
15:22The African crew was connected to Turkish people
15:25because obviously there was a lot of conflict
15:28and there was a lot of violence.
15:30The African crew was connected to Turkish people
15:33because obviously they were getting their funding from selling drugs.
15:37And when I did meet Turkish people in prison,
15:40which what society calls Turkish Mafia,
15:43they were in there for loads of heroin,
15:46but most of them have gone back to Turkey now.
15:48The IRA is an Irish Republican army,
15:52and they were in high security estate
15:55and they were very respected inside that system.
15:58I was in Belmarsh with some of them on remand
16:00and then we went to Fort Sutton.
16:02They've got a structure, but their structure is in Ireland
16:05and they are taking orders, they're soldiers.
16:08They don't get involved in prison beef,
16:10but they will back principled arguments,
16:13so they will push back against the governor
16:16because their word's respected.
16:23So the main rule in any gang or criminal organisation
16:27is not to be an informer.
16:29There's no other real rules.
16:31People do whatever works for them.
16:33When you share your criminal record with other inmates,
16:37if you've not been known or you've not been on telly
16:40so everybody knows who you are,
16:42then everyone can see that you're not a sex offender
16:46or some dodgy guy.
16:48Inmates who do things like this in prison
16:51will get hurt in multiple ways
16:55because no-one's going to like them.
16:57I've had scenarios where once in Fort Sutton
17:00this guy was in there and he was in there for rape and a murder,
17:04but when it came to light,
17:06the staff took him off the wing before we could find out
17:09and then it was in the newspaper, but he was gone.
17:16In England, most of the prisons are old Victorian prisons
17:20in the BCAT world in the cities.
17:23But the high-security prisons, dispersals, are new-ish prisons
17:27and they're sterile and of a high standard inside.
17:32Each cell's a single cell
17:34and it's got a bed, a locker, it's freshly painted.
17:38In the UK, you have Category A,
17:42which is the highest is Triple CAT A,
17:46and that is when you're in a unit on your own
17:49and there's no open visits and the helicopter and security
17:53to take you from location to court.
17:56After that, you've got Category B.
17:58Most people that go to prison are either a BCAT or under.
18:02And then you've got CCAT and then you've got DCAT,
18:05which is open prisons.
18:07That's the prison system in the UK.
18:09If I could change things now, I'd get spies out of the prison
18:13and I'd give them an opportunity for education
18:16or a job where they can get a wage, what is a real wage,
18:20so that they save some of it in their account
18:22for when they get released.
18:24Some of them are working in workshops.
18:26The company belongs to someone outside.
18:28That's slave labour, that's slavery.
18:36I was lucky enough to be around someone, my partner,
18:39when I was released.
18:41She was like a lawyer and someone, a professional person,
18:46and she inspired me to write a book.
18:50So I wrote the book, took a year to write,
18:52it's called Out Of The Box.
18:54And then this led to me being able to do public speaking in schools
18:59and talk to young people so they know not to waste their time
19:03going down this road of pain and misery.
19:06To be honest, I feel more guilty for the policeman what I shot
19:10because he's forgiven me.
19:12He's read my book and then reached out to me
19:17and then we met in the train station
19:20and I got to apologise to him face to face.
19:23And then he wrote his part of the story and he added it to the book.
19:26So it's, like, really humbling that someone could forgive you
19:31for such a serious thing.
19:33That was an emotional situation and I was grateful to him
19:37and we've been communicating ever since.
19:39And that's since 2016 till now.
19:42We do talk some podcasts together, so we meet up on those occasions
19:47and I've got his WhatsApp so we can communicate.
19:51I've learnt that life's a cycle and you was born with nothing
19:57and you're going to leave with nothing.
19:59And if you do good deeds, good deeds are more likely to come back to you.
20:04And if you do negative things,
20:06negative things are definitely going to come back to you.