For nearly 15 years, Gabriel Sanchez and Charles Mancillas were sworn enemies and they didn't even know each other. That's because at the ages of 12 and 13, the two joined opposing streets gangs, the Norteños and Sureños, in California. The two Latino gangs harbor a brutal rivalry that dates back decades. Had the youths ever met, they probably would have tried to kill each other.

But today, the two men, now in their 30s, sit next to each other at a steel table in cell pod 5C at the main jail in San Jose, Calif. They joke and laugh. They talk about playing cards. They even compare tattoos.

"If we were in a regular prison, we would be enemies," Mr. Sanchez says. "Over here, we are human beings."

The two men are part of an unusual program aimed at breaking one of the most pervasive - and violent - influences behind bars and on the streets of urban America: gangs. In a quest to overcome deeply ingrained and often fatal differences, the initiative brings together former rival gang members in one cell pod to eat, sleep, and live.

The program, "Breaking Barriers," offers counseling and courses - from substance abuse to poetry readings - to help overcome the causes of gang fealty and drug addiction. The goal is to get inmates who move through the Santa Clara County central jail to permanently sever ties with gangs, and thus reduce violence, when they transfer to a state prison or return to a life on the outside.

Experts consider it one of the only local programs of its kind in the country. While the initiative is still young - only two years old - it has already shown some success in rehabilitating individual lives. "It's given me a second chance with my family," says James Barnes Jr., an inmate whose former affiliation with a Latino gang is evident in many of his tattoos. "You learn to open up."

Gangs are nothing new to prison life, but over the past four decades their presence has increased dramatically. One national study found that, of the nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the US, more than 43 percent associated with a gang. "Gang numbers are growing in the streets and they grow in the facilities," says Edward Cohn of the National Major Gang Task Force.

The gangs found inside prisons mirror those on the streets. Most are divided along racial lines and controlled through a strict hierarchy. Inmates who enter prison already affiliated with a gang have it easy: They simply continue their allegiance and receive protection. Inmates who are considered independent must decide whether to go it alone - and often quickly become targeted for assault - or cave to the status quo. "It's the culture of prison," says James Houston, a criminologist at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich. "It's one way to feel safe, to get material things, to have ... a sense of autonomy."

What's difficult to determine is how much of the violence behind bars is gang-related. While inmates involved in melees rarely reveal that orders came down from a gang superior, experts say much of the violence in prisons is planned attacks by gangs, not random acts. And the easiest way for wardens to avoid mayhem is often to house inmates together based on their affiliation.

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