Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    The Prison Guard With a Gift for Cracking Gang Codes

    by Eric Jankiewicz Oct 28, 2013 4 minutes

    Former correction officer Gary Klivans doesn’t want to be photographed more clearly for fear of gang retaliation.Gary Klivans

    As a corrections officer at a Westchester County, N.Y., prison in the 1990s, Gary Klivans was a one-man gang unit. Members of The Latin Kings and the Bloods made up a sizable part of the prison population. Klivans learned quickly that to handle them, he needed to understand them, and that meant understanding the code they used to communicate. Klivans taught himself to decipher their messages. He became one of the most sought-after code-breakers in the country. (Also see the related Facts So Romantic post, “View From the Inside: How Gang Members Use Secret Codes.”)

    Even in retirement, his skills are in demand: Klivans

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus10 min read
    The Ocean Apocalypse Is Upon Us, Maybe
    From our small, terrestrial vantage points, we sometimes struggle to imagine the ocean’s impact on our lives. We often think of the ocean as a flat expanse of blue, with currents as orderly, if sinuous, lines. In reality, it is vaster and more chaoti
    Nautilus7 min read
    Lithium, the Elemental Rebel
    Inside every rechargeable battery—in electric cars and phones and robot vacuums—lurks a cosmic mystery. The lithium that we use to power much of our lives these days is so common as to seem almost prosaic. But this element turns out to be a wild card
    Nautilus13 min read
    The Shark Whisperer
    In the 1970s, when a young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg was researching a new movie based on a novel about sharks, he returned to his alma mater, California State University Long Beach. The lab at Cal State Long Beach was one of the first places

    Related Books & Audiobooks