To whom...,
The prison gang story here is a key example of how police relate to the underclass. Poor people are presented with a false choice between violent, harassing police presence or abandonment and indifference by police to predation by criminals on the poor. Either way the problem is an ineffective and alienated police force.
The "conspiracy" on the police side is actually small-scale, commonplace, and more sociological than political - the police simply become another gang. That happens everywhere there is an alienated security apparatus in a violent environment. The political conspiracy is higher up and generally unconscious, I think. Politicians like Giuliani use the crime issue to get elected and stay in power. They empower the police to use strong-arm methods that are only effective in the short term and when they become ineffective and/or there come the inevitable scandals and public disorder (riots, demonstrations that get out of control), the middle class elect a liberal administration that only succeeds in sapping the morale and initiative from a police force that is still mired in a culture of violence.
That's why the "throw the bums out" attitude that the left has adopted against the police is more valid than it would seem. Obviously there's a need for police and those who don't grasp that just aren't thinking, frankly. The point is that the police need to be cleaned out and re-staffed with people who integrate the police force with the community.
Then, criminals have to be put in places where they learn to re-integrate with the community as they're punished rather than places where they join murdering gangs. Lawlessness in prison is even more inexcusable than the lawlessness police allow to thrive (and encourage with brutality) in poor neighborhoods.
peace