--- title: American Prisons: How to Combat Gang Violence description: Explaining the gap between presidential success and party weakness down the ballot, why the BRICS nations are getting organized and more. canonical: https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-24T16:01:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:51.019Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Fight Prison Gangs by Breaking Up Big Prisons og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Fight Prison Gangs by Breaking Up Big Prisons twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Fight Prison Gangs by Breaking Up Big Prisons by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jun 24, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jun 24, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**America’s biggest prisons are factories exporting prison gangs. Break them up.**](http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/end-prison-gangs-break-largest-prisons-000034) By David Skarbek and Courtney Michaluk in Politico **2\.** [**Find out why demographics and a charismatic leader still aren’t enough to make a majority party.**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122062/obama-gap-case-study-electoral-failure) By Suzy Khimm in the New Republic **3\.** [**Denied a seat at the table of global power, the BRICS nations are building their own table.**](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/cooperation-major-emerging-economies-by-shashi-tharoor-2015-06) By Shashi Tharoor in Project Syndicate **4\.** [**With an implanted treatment that blocks a narcotic high, one doctor wants to end addiction.**](http://mosaicscience.com/story/blocking-the-high) By Sujata Gupta in Mosaic Science **5\.** [**Your next insurance inspector could be a drone.**](http://technologyadvice.com/news/blog/companies-using-drones-for-inspections/) By Cameron Graham in Technology Advice  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/"},"headline":"Fight Prison Gangs by Breaking Up Big Prisons","datePublished":"2015-06-24T16:01:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:51.019Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/","keywords":["Innovation","russia","Congress","Demographics","brics","Addiction","Drone","Prison"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3933801/fight-prison-gangs-by-breaking-up-big-prisons/","name":"Fight Prison Gangs by Breaking Up Big Prisons"}}]}] ```