Editor’s note: This essay is part of “Stories from the Street,” a Police1 series featuring first-person reflections from officers across the country. These essays are about the lived experiences and moments that changed how officers think, lead and serve. If you have a story to share, we’d love to hear from you. Submit your story here.
By Sergeant Calvin Van Scudder
There’s a truth I carry with me from years on the job, one that’s stuck like a shadow: federal prison isn’t just a place of punishment — it’s a networking hub.
I remember sitting in an interview room with a young gang member once. He’d been arrested on a federal gun charge. I expected nervous energy, sweating, maybe some bravado. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, calm as if he were waiting for a weekend party. When I asked how he felt about going to the feds, he smiled. Just smiled.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said. “I’m excited to go. I’ll get hooked up with a paisa and get dope real cheap.”
I froze for a second. Let that sink in. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t regretting his choices. He saw federal time not as a consequence but as an opportunity.
A paisa — that’s what they call certain Mexican nationals in custody, often tied to cartels like Sinaloa or CJNG. In the federal system, these inmates run things with structure and discipline. They’re loyal to their crews and have direct lines to the outside world.
When a local gang member gets “blessed” by a paisa, it’s not a casual handshake. That blessing carries weight: protection inside the prison and connections outside that can include product, influence and credibility. By the time that same young man leaves the Bureau of Prisons, he’s often a completely different player. The kid who walked in on a gun charge may now be working directly for a cartel faction — running meth, heroin, or fentanyl through networks he couldn’t have dreamed of on the streets.
I’ve seen it enough times to recognize the pattern. Local gang members enter the system with no international ties. They leave with a blueprint for organized crime. It’s infrastructure-building in plain sight. And the most dangerous part? Most people outside law enforcement never see it.
“He saw federal time not as a consequence but as an opportunity.”
Sitting there in that interview room, I remember feeling a mix of frustration, disbelief and a little dread. I’d spent years chasing these same kids, teaching them lessons on the street, and yet inside federal walls, the system inadvertently becomes a boot camp for higher-level criminal enterprise.
It made me reflect on leadership in my own life. You can’t control every variable, and some lessons hit hard. That day reminded me that experience trumps authority — a lesson I’ve carried into every investigation and every training session I lead. It also reinforced something harder to swallow: the system, and the players in it, adapt faster than most of us do.
I thought about the officers mentoring rookies in the field, the detectives running interviews and surveillance, and the agents trying to anticipate what comes out the other side. It’s exhausting. It’s relentless. And if you don’t constantly recalibrate your understanding of the game, you’ll be caught flat-footed.
At the same time, I’ve learned to carry these moments differently. You can’t fix the system alone. But you can prepare the next generation of officers to recognize the patterns, anticipate the moves and intervene intelligently. That’s why I’ve made it part of my teaching philosophy: don’t just train for what’s in front of you — train for the ripple effects of decisions made years down the line.
“Local gang members enter the system with no international ties. They leave with a blueprint for organized crime.”
Every time I revisit that interview in my mind, I also think about resilience. Watching a young person so casually embrace federal time reminded me of how adaptable humans are — both the ones doing wrong and the ones trying to stop them. You learn to build patience, to pace yourself, and to approach each situation with a mix of caution and curiosity. It’s not always about stopping the next crime; sometimes it’s about understanding the system enough to see the next move before it happens.
So what do I take away from moments like that? For me, it’s a blend of humility and responsibility. Humility because no matter how much experience I accumulate, there will always be a level of sophistication and audacity that surprises me. Responsibility because I’ve got a duty — to my team, to the officers I mentor, and to the community — to translate those hard lessons into actionable knowledge.
“Don’t just train for what’s in front of you — train for the ripple effects of decisions made years down the line.”
If I could give my rookie self one piece of advice, it would be this: observe everything, assume nothing and never underestimate the ingenuity of people who operate outside the law. Treat every interaction, every interview and every classroom moment as a chance to see the invisible threads that connect street-level crime to something far larger.
And here’s the broader truth every officer I’ve trained needs to hear: what happens inside the walls doesn’t stay there. The connections, relationships and alliances you witness in federal custody echo far beyond the gates. Understanding that isn’t just intelligence — it’s strategy. It’s why we train the way we do. Why we teach pattern recognition, network mapping and multi-level disruption.
In the end, the lesson isn’t about being cynical — it’s about being prepared, reflective and intentional. It’s about asking yourself after each shift: What did I notice today? What patterns are emerging? And how can I use that knowledge to protect my team and my community tomorrow?
Because that’s the job. That’s the constant. And it’s a lesson that sticks, long after the doors close and the interview room empties.
About the author
Sergeant Calvin Van Scudder has spent over 16 years with the Dallas (Texas) Police Department specializing in violent crime, gang investigations and proactive enforcement strategies.
He currently supervises the Violent Crime Unit, provides training to law enforcement agencies nationwide, and is the author of “Gangs Uncovered.” He is also the owner and lead instructor of Sentinel Training Group, LLC.
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