NCJ Number
198630
Journal
Intelligence Report Issue: 108 Dated: Winter 2002 Pages: 8-17
Date Published
2002
Length
10 pages
Annotation
In order to show how members of racist gangs are recruited in prison, this article tells the story of Leo Felton, a member of the racist gang Aryan Unit One.
Abstract
The author introduces the reader to Leo Felton, who was recruited by members of Aryan Unit One while he was serving time at Northern State Prison in New Jersey. The author explains how Felton was a disturbed teenager who had several arrests for thefts and violent offenses. Felton did not have racist attitudes, however, until he was serving a prison sentence for a drug offense. During this prison term, he met members of Aryan Unit One, who harnessed his anger and violence and directed it toward minority members and Jews. Ironically, unbeknownst to members of the Aryan Unit One, Felton was half Black, having been born to a light-skinned Black civil-rights activist and a white ex-nun. According to the author, Felton played basketball with his father and five Black half-brothers and had Black friends before going to prison for the savage beating of a taxi driver in an apparent road-rage episode. That stint in prison led Felton to become an active member of the racist gang and to plot the eventual destruction of all minorities. The goal, explained Felton in a letter, was to insight a revolution and to establish a “natural order” on the continent. This natural order would mimic Hitler’s. The author tells how Felton met a young woman named Erica Chase, who would eventually move in with Felton in Boston after his release from prison. The two plotted an Aryan terrorist attack before being arrested by police for passing counterfeit bills. Once in prison again, the Boston papers revealed Felton’s racial composition, leading him to attempt suicide. The point of the story of Felton is to illustrate how racist gangs are recruiting members from within prison walls and then sending them out upon release to hatch their violent plots.