Correctional Professionals: Misconduct and Responses (Chapter 13)
several typologies that define the ways in which correctional officers’ abuse or otherwise mistreat inmates. One typology divides the bad behavior into three categories: malicious or purposeful abuse (beating, rape, theft, harassment, humiliation), negligent abuse (negligent denial of care, failure to protect, etc), and systemic or budgetary abuse (system-wide issues such as overcrowding, use of isolation, inadequate medical care, etc).
Sexual abuse in correctional facilities is a most serious problem, and aggressors are both officers and inmates. Female officers initiate sexual encounters with inmates at the same rate as male officers, though the study cited does not indicate how often each gender’s encounters were consensual or coercive. Even consensual encounters between officers and inmates are unethical and a violation of prison rules (as well as illegal in some states). Inmates are presumed not able to give full consent due to the dependent relationship.
Throughout much of American correctional history, the sexes were kept apart, but in the 1970’s, female officers challenged the rules that barred them from working in men’s institutions. The result was that men could also work in women’s institutions. Today, male officers are assigned to all areas of women’s prisons, putting them in a position of power over the inmates and making abuses possible.
The chapter documents other types of correctional officer misconduct, including smuggling items in and out of the facility for inmates. Low salaries, high turnover, and low hiring standards (due to the need to fill positions) are cited as factors that contribute to misconduct. Other instances of abuse mirror some of the tactics seen at Abu Ghraib.
Misconduct is not limited to the correctional officers. Treatment professionals may withhold needed services, even intentionally. Some subscribe to the philosophy of “penal harm,” believing the inmates deserve to suffer. Parole boards and probation offices have also been known to be home to bribery and other misconduct.
How do correctional employees become abusers? Factors resemble those found in law enforcement. Some employees come to the job already corrupt; others are influenced by a lack of organizational support for ethical behavior. Stress and burnout are occupational hazards and can leave one susceptible to the temptation for misconduct. Failure of leadership and less than adequate training and discipline have also been cited as factors. A correlation exists between age and the willingness to tolerate misconduct (older officers are less likely to support the use of force) but race and sex had no effect. Unions have also been criticized for defending abusive officers and being concerned with individual employee rights rather than what is best for the institution or system.
Stanford University researcher Philip Zimbardo conducted a famous study, where he used student volunteers to simulate a prison environment. Students designated to be prisoners were “arrested” and taken to a makeshift prison, where other volunteers were playing the part of correctional officers. As Zimbardo wrote, “Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.”
The author suggests that good treatment from administration has the effect of influencing good treatment from the officers. This “trickle down” effect can pass along bad treatment as well. Managers should implement policies designed to prevent corruption and misconduct, including measures to investigate wrongdoing, psychological screening of employees, and improved working conditions. Souryal cites positive factors such as in-service training, monitoring by professional associations, and educational requirements for new hires.
An interesting factor to consider is the fact that many employees plan to seek promotion and a continued career within their institution. This kind of career ambition is not consistent with whistle blowing or resisting the organizational culture. Thus, ambitions of advancement might cause an otherwise ethical employee to turn a blind eye to corruption and misconduct.
The chapter ends with a look at restorative justice and “peacekeeping,” both of which are recent and current trends in corrections. In some cases, particularly those involving juveniles and nonviolent offenders, a restorative process benefits both the offender and the victim. These “reintegrative” efforts are meant to bring the offender back into the good graces of the community. The relationship to the topic of abuse is simply that restorative processes do not create the adversarial subculture that other correctional processes do.
Sexual abuse in correctional facilities is a most serious problem, and aggressors are both officers and inmates. Female officers initiate sexual encounters with inmates at the same rate as male officers, though the study cited does not indicate how often each gender’s encounters were consensual or coercive. Even consensual encounters between officers and inmates are unethical and a violation of prison rules (as well as illegal in some states). Inmates are presumed not able to give full consent due to the dependent relationship.
Throughout much of American correctional history, the sexes were kept apart, but in the 1970’s, female officers challenged the rules that barred them from working in men’s institutions. The result was that men could also work in women’s institutions. Today, male officers are assigned to all areas of women’s prisons, putting them in a position of power over the inmates and making abuses possible.
The chapter documents other types of correctional officer misconduct, including smuggling items in and out of the facility for inmates. Low salaries, high turnover, and low hiring standards (due to the need to fill positions) are cited as factors that contribute to misconduct. Other instances of abuse mirror some of the tactics seen at Abu Ghraib.
Misconduct is not limited to the correctional officers. Treatment professionals may withhold needed services, even intentionally. Some subscribe to the philosophy of “penal harm,” believing the inmates deserve to suffer. Parole boards and probation offices have also been known to be home to bribery and other misconduct.
How do correctional employees become abusers? Factors resemble those found in law enforcement. Some employees come to the job already corrupt; others are influenced by a lack of organizational support for ethical behavior. Stress and burnout are occupational hazards and can leave one susceptible to the temptation for misconduct. Failure of leadership and less than adequate training and discipline have also been cited as factors. A correlation exists between age and the willingness to tolerate misconduct (older officers are less likely to support the use of force) but race and sex had no effect. Unions have also been criticized for defending abusive officers and being concerned with individual employee rights rather than what is best for the institution or system.
Stanford University researcher Philip Zimbardo conducted a famous study, where he used student volunteers to simulate a prison environment. Students designated to be prisoners were “arrested” and taken to a makeshift prison, where other volunteers were playing the part of correctional officers. As Zimbardo wrote, “Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.”
The author suggests that good treatment from administration has the effect of influencing good treatment from the officers. This “trickle down” effect can pass along bad treatment as well. Managers should implement policies designed to prevent corruption and misconduct, including measures to investigate wrongdoing, psychological screening of employees, and improved working conditions. Souryal cites positive factors such as in-service training, monitoring by professional associations, and educational requirements for new hires.
An interesting factor to consider is the fact that many employees plan to seek promotion and a continued career within their institution. This kind of career ambition is not consistent with whistle blowing or resisting the organizational culture. Thus, ambitions of advancement might cause an otherwise ethical employee to turn a blind eye to corruption and misconduct.
The chapter ends with a look at restorative justice and “peacekeeping,” both of which are recent and current trends in corrections. In some cases, particularly those involving juveniles and nonviolent offenders, a restorative process benefits both the offender and the victim. These “reintegrative” efforts are meant to bring the offender back into the good graces of the community. The relationship to the topic of abuse is simply that restorative processes do not create the adversarial subculture that other correctional processes do.
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In 1971, Dr. Phillip Zimbardo conducted an infamous experiment on the grounds of Stanford University designed to explore the effects of power. In this experiment, college men were arbitrarily assigned to be correctional officers or inmates, and a mock prison was set up in the basement of a building on the campus. The changes in both groups were so profound that the experiment was cancelled after six days. Zimbardo (1982) noted that about one-third of the correctional officers became brutal and authoritarian, and prisoners became manipulative and exhibited signs of emotional distress and mental breakdown. Zimbardo realized even he had been corrupted by the experience of being “warden,” and his decision making began to be based on that power. Even more shocking than the brutality exhibited by some “guards” was that others, clearly uncomfortable with the gratuitous cruelty, did nothing to stop them. If college men who knew the experiment was artificial succumbed to the temptation to inflict their will on the powerless, the inescapable conclusion is that the environment itself causes people to act in ways that they would not otherwise.
Although Zimbardo’s conclusion that power corrupts has been criticized, periodic scandals in prisons seem to reinforce the findings of the Zimbardo experiment. Small groups of officers in some prisons routinely abuse inmates, and others ignore their actions. For instance, a group of correctional officers (COs) known as the Cowboys worked the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of the Bureau of Prison’s supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. In the mid-1990s, the group retaliated against defiant, violent inmates by routinely beating them and then fabricating stories about why force was used. The group eventually attacked not just violent inmates, but troublesome inmates who were only verbally defiant as well. The Cowboys also threatened other officers, at one point promising that any officer who snitched would be taken out to the parking lot and beaten. The group’s alleged themes were: “Lie ‘til you die” and “What happens in SHU stays in SHU.” Years after the group broke up and were transferred to other prisons, they were investigated. The ensuing FBI and Department of Justice investigation described 55 acts of beatings, intimidations, and lies. At trial, despite several of the correctional officers’ admitting their activities and testifying for the prosecution, the jury acquitted four officers of all charges and convicted three others of only some of the charges (Prendergast, 2003).
This pattern of a small group of officers who use violence to retaliate against and/or control inmates has occurred periodically over decades in both prisons and jails, and in both state and federal facilities. These practices seem to be most likely to emerge when conditions are optimal; for example, a wave of inmate violence against officers spurs focused retaliation against the violent inmates, but then CO violence becomes more widespread and used against all inmates. Also, such groups generally have had tacit administrative support or tolerance. More importantly, the culture of the prison tends to protect and support this illegal violence and juries are not inclined to find guilt, setting the stage for the next scandal.
Misconduct and CorruptionThe major types of corruption by correctional officers and other officials in institutional corrections have been described by numerous researchers. Under misuse of authority, McCarthy (1991, 1995) lists the following:
Bomse (2001) identifies different types of prisoner abuse:
Brutality, smuggling of drugs and cellphones, and sexual abuse of inmates are reported with depressing regularity. Some scandals live in infamy, such as the gladiator fights in the mid-1990s orchestrated by correctional officers in Corcoran prison in California. Correctional officers coerced inmates to fight in the prison yard, betting on the winner, and sometimes shot at fighters who wouldn’t stop, killing at least one inmate. Despite the litigation and criminal prosecutions that followed from the California scandal, correctional officer–coerced “gladiator fights” have been alleged in the Denver jail, in juvenile detention facilities in Texas, and other locations. Other scandals, such as smuggling rings where correctional officers bring in cellphones, drugs, and other contraband for inmates, are so similar when they appear in various states that it seems only the names of the individuals and prison gangs involved are different. Officers are often tempted by large sums of money, or coerced by inmates who tell the officers they know where they live or where their kids go to school.
Physical AbuseOfficers have the right to use physical force to subdue an inmate, and officers on guard towers can stop inmates from fighting or escaping by tear gas or, if needed, bullets. What officers cannot do is use more physical force than necessary to accomplish a legal purpose, or use physical force as retaliation. However, some officers are known for their abuse. In some prisons, the abuse is such open knowledge that the COs have a name like the “beat down squad,” or the room where beatings take place (usually because there are no cameras) have nicknames, like the “boom boom room” (Alexander, 2017a, 2017b). The In the News box describes how DOJ investigators found that Alabama’s prisons had a culture that allowed excessive force against inmates.
In the NewsAlabama at FaultIn 2020, the Department of justice released a report that described how Alabama COs routinely used excessive force on prisoners. One prisoner who died after being beaten had intracranial bleeding, nose and eye socket fractures and six teeth knocked out. COs said the injuries resulted when he fell from a bunk bed. Another inmate was struck 19 times with a baton, even though he was handcuffed. The 28-page report on the Alabama prison system described numerous beatings and uses of force that were clearly excessive. Alabama’s prisons have long been known as overcrowded and understaffed and the target of civil rights and prison reform advocates. This investigation from the Department of Justice confirms what many had been saying for years. Federal investigators believed that episodes of excessive force had been under-reported or not reported at all and that there was a culture where unlawful uses of force were common. Alabama’s governor responded to the report by saying she was committed to improving prison safety through necessary infrastructure investment, increased correctional staffing, comprehensive mental-health care services, and effective rehabilitation programs. The Department of Justice may sue the state to effect change in the prison system or enter a mutually agreed upon consent agreement detailing change. However, the Attorney General of Alabama said that the State will not, under any circumstances, enter into a consent decree with the federal government to avoid a lawsuit.
Source: Vigdor, 2020.In a New York prison, George Williams was believed to have cursed a guard, although it might have been someone else. For this offense he was removed from his cell by three guards and taken to a day room where he was kicked and beaten with fists and batons. He was heard by inmates two floors below pleading for his life. He was beaten so badly that he was taken to an outside hospital where doctors inserted a plate and six screws in one of his legs. The three officers were charged with assault and each received a one-year conditional discharge after pleading guilty to a single charge of official misconduct. They were allowed to keep their pensions (Robbins, 2015a; Robbins and D’Avolio, 2015).
In 2013, Kevin Moore received five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and shattered facial bones in an incident with five New York correctional officers who said that he had attacked them. Moore’s dreadlocks were ripped out and one of the officers kept them as a “trophy.” He spent 17 days in the hospital. In 2016, federal prosecutors charged the officers involved with civil rights violations and fraud. Prosecutors alleged that one of the officers hit another to create an injury to justify the beating. Two officers pleaded guilty and three officers pleaded not guilty (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2016). In another case, a New York CO put Ramon Fabian in the hospital because he was talking during count. The CO had him face the wall, spread his legs, and then kicked him in his testicles. He was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery but lost part of his right testicle. The guard denied kicking him and was still on duty a year later despite facing criminal assault charges (Robbins, 2015b).
In a Florida prison in 2019, Cheryl Weimer was ordered to clean a toilet and she objected, trying to explain that she had a hip condition that caused her pain and made her unable to get down on her knees. When the officers became confrontational, she declared a mental health emergency, which required medical personnel to be called. Instead, the officers allegedly slammed Weimar to the ground and beat her. Then they dragged her “like a rag doll” across the prison as her head bounced on the hard ground, evidently breaking her neck. They allegedly continued to beat her in an area outside the view of surveillance cameras. Today she is still in prison, bedridden and dependent on catheters, mechanical breathing assistance, a tracheostomy and feeding tubes. Her family filed a federal lawsuit and the state of Florida agreed to a $4.64 million settlement. One of the men involved had been promoted to lieutenant, despite being the subject of complaints by female inmates who said he sexually harassed them by kissing and groping them. He was also accused of dousing female inmates with chemicals. In November 2020 he was arrested on unrelated charges of sexual battery and child molestation after a 16-year-old said he had been abusing her since she was 6. The Florida Department of Corrections finally fired him. Another CO involved has also been arrested on a charge of domestic violence. He has not been fired (Gross, 2013).
Inmate DeathsIn some cases, physical abuse leads to death. Several suspicious deaths of inmates were reviewed in an expose of the Florida prison system in the Miami Herald. In 2009, Bernadette Gregory supposedly hung herself in her cell sometime during the 11 minutes between observations, despite being handcuffed and in a wheelchair. A few days before her death, she reported abuse and a threat by a correctional officer (Brown, 2014a). In 2012, Darren Rainey, a mentally ill inmate, was found dead in a shower in a unit for inmates with mental health problems. Inmates stated that he had been screaming for two hours, and that the shower was set at a higher temperature than other showers and was used by COs to punish inmates. Reports indicate that his skin sloughed off his body and his body temperature was so high it could not be measured by a thermometer. Only after the newspaper exposed the incident did his death get investigated by local police, and the conclusion was that his death was accidental. His family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit and won a $4.5 million settlement (Brown, 2014a, 2014d, 2017; Gross, 2020). Randall Jordan-Aparo died after being gassed with chemical agents so severely that pictures show an outline of his body with the yellow chemical agent covering the wall behind the spot where his body lay. Reports written by the officers after the death falsely claimed that he had been involved in a prison disturbance. Four investigators with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Inspector General’s office subsequently filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the chief inspector general, Linda Miguel, claiming there was a cover-up to thwart their efforts to expose and punish the officers in 2013 (Brown, 2014f; Brown and Bousquet, 2014). Latandra Ellington was found dead in October 2014, supposedly of natural causes, after she sent a letter to her family saying that a sergeant at Lowell Correctional Institution was threatening to kill her. Her family hired an attorney and paid for a private autopsy, which showed she suffered blunt-force trauma to her stomach consistent with being punched or kicked (Brown, 2014b).
After the Miami Herald series in 2014, 32 correctional officers were fired (Associated Press, 2014). Mike Crews, the head of the Department of Corrections at the time, also fired or forced into retirement several wardens and deputy wardens and attempted a series of reforms (Associated Press, 2014; Brown, 2014c). Crews also created an ombudsman to monitor the care of inmates with mental illnesses and warned the healthcare provider Corizon that it must rectify serious deficiencies in its medical care (Brown and Bousquet, 2014).
In New York, Leonard Strickland, a schizophrenic, was beaten to death by a dozen guards in 2010. Security video footage shows Strickland, in handcuffs, barely conscious and being dragged along the floor by officers to the prison medical office. He lies face down on the floor, not moving, while guards can be heard shouting, “Stop resisting.” He is motionless for 11 minutes before someone begins CPR (Robbins, 2015a; Robbins and D’Avolio, 2015). Samuel Harrell died in 2015 after a dozen officers, known as the “Beat-up Squad,” beat him and allegedly threw him down a flight of stairs. The officers were observed to have punched, kicked, stomped, and jumped on his face, head, neck, back, and legs. He was evidently already unconscious when he went down the stairs. A criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the Dutchess County District Attorney’s office resulted in no charges being filed and the officers involved have not been disciplined in any way (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2015b, 2016; Weisner and Schwirtz, 2017; Nicholas, 2020). In many cases when COs are prosecuted for inmate assaults or deaths, juries refuse to convict them.
SmugglingAnother common type of corruption in prisons is smuggling of drugs or cellphones. Smuggling can be quite lucrative for COs, adding tens of thousands of dollars annually to their income. Inmates will use both carrots and sticks to entice COs to bring in contraband. They will offer bribes, but they also may threaten the officer or the officer’s family. Once the officer does it once, then they are subject to blackmail and would find it impossible not to continue if they wanted to keep their job. Sometimes whole shifts in some prisons have become corrupted. The most infamous smuggling case was in a state-run jail in Baltimore. Although the original scandal occurred in 2012, the In the News box indicates that Maryland is still having problems.
In the News Corruption in MarylandOne of the most infamous smuggling schemes occurred in the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC), a state-run jail. The investigation ended in indictments and sentences for 25 people, including 13 guards in 2013. The COs were all women, and many were engaged in sexual relationships with the inmates who were members of the Black Guerrilla Family. Cellphones, drugs, and other contraband were smuggled into the jail and the guards also tipped off inmates when jail staff were planning searches and acted as lookouts when inmates were having sex with guards or beating up other inmates. The ringleader bragged about making $15,000 a month by the smuggling operation. He had sexual relationships with an unknown number of female COs and fathered babies with at least four of them. Fourteen high-ranking administrators were transferred or retired after the indictments were announced. Those involved faced charges of drug conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and/or racketeering. Many pled guilty. The facility was closed completely in 2015 but evidently re-opened.
Smuggling incidents continued in other Maryland correctional facilities. In October 2016, 80 COs and inmates were charged with smuggling heroin, cocaine, cellphones and pornography into the Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset County on the Eastern Shore. Seventy-seven people were convicted, including 16 COs. In 2017, a sergeant was arrested for allegedly running the Crips street gang inside the walls. He pleaded guilty to state charges of participating in a criminal gang. In January 2018, 18 people, including 2 COs, were charged with smuggling heroin, cocaine, and cellphones into Jessup Penitentiary. Also, in that year, three COs were charged with running a smuggling ring which included heroin, cell-phones and pornography-loaded flash drives in exchange for sex and wire payments.
COs in Maryland have also been arrested for other types of misconduct. In 2019, 25 members of the Baltimore Central Regional Tactical Unit, a group of COs responsible for maintaining order in state facilities, were indicted on 236 separate criminal counts, including first-degree assault, participation in a criminal gang and misconduct in office because of their alleged use of excessive force, intimidation, evidence tampering and other criminal measures within state-run jails. This brings the number of corrections officers, inmates and civilian accomplices who have been criminally charged in prison corruption cases in the state to 200 between 2015 and 2019. Authorities argue that the arrests of COs show that they are diligent in rooting out corruption in the prison and jail system.
Sources: CBSDC.com (Links to an external site.), 2015; Fenton, 2010; Gray, 2014; Toobin, 2014; Rector and Davis, 2019.In 2016, an FBI undercover investigation called Operation Ghost Guard, resulted in the arrests of 130 current and former Georgia prison guards, civilian staff, and inmates. The correctional officers thought they were being paid thousands of dollars to protect drug smuggling operations for a high-level trafficker, using their status as correctional officers to protect them from a vehicle search if they were stopped by police. The investigation also uncovered contraband smuggling and criminal activity in the prisons. Officials began the investigation after discovering a telephone scam—people received phone calls saying they had missed jury duty and they could either pay a fine or be arrested—traced to Georgia prison inmates using cellphones. When agents investigated how the phones got into the prison, they identified guards in nine different prisons. When these corrupt guards were given an opportunity to protect a purported drug trafficker, they agreed to wear their uniforms to transport the drugs. Ironically, some of the correctional officers arrested were on the Department of Corrections’ COBRA tactical team which investigates drug trafficking inside the prison (Brumback, 2016).
Interestingly, one of the reasons cited by COs for injuries sustained by inmates is the officer’s own corruption. COs indicated that trafficking creates hostility between inmates and COs that could potentially result in attacks. While many attacks on COs are random, e.g., by mentally ill inmates or inmates who attack any officer to get into segregation or because of a gang initiation, if the attack is intentional, it is sometimes a business dispute. Officers can obtain hundreds of dollars for a cheap cellphone and some do, causing problems for their fellow COs, and, sometimes, themselves (Goulette, Denney, and Crow, 2020).
Sexual AbuseAs noted in the last chapter, one of the results of cross sex supervision is sexual relationships between COs and inmates. Sexual relationships are always illegal and unethical, even if they are consensual. For instance, in 2015, in Florida, an assistant warden was allegedly sexually involved with several female inmates and gave them special protection; they were immune from discipline from COs. When a correctional officer searched a female inmate’s cell who was a favorite of the assistant warden, the assistant warden threatened to beat up the CO, who filed a police report against the assistant warden. After an investigation, the assistant warden was fired (Brown, 2015a). In 2016, after the Miami Herald published a series of articles describing sexual exploitation in several women’s prisons, six correctional officers were arrested (Brown, 2016). In 2020, the Department of Justice released a report detailing many instances of sexual abuse and assault by custody staff in Lowell Prison. In one case, a sergeant raped a woman in a storage area; in another case, an officer forced a woman to have sex in a bathroom in exchange for a drug that treats opioid withdrawal. The report noted that of 161 incidents of sexual or physical abuse investigated by state prison officials between 2015 and 2019, only eight resulted in the officer’s arrest (Pickett, 2020).
News stories across the country report instances where female inmates have been coerced to have sex with prison or jail correctional officers who threaten to plant drugs on them or write them up for disciplinary infractions if they do not submit (Coherty, Levine and Thomas, 2014; Owen et al., 2008; Plog, 2014; Stein, 2015). A Justice Department investigation of the Julia Tutwiler prison in Alabama found rampant sexual abuse with officers allegedly forcing women to engage in sex acts just to obtain basic sanitary supplies. Male officers openly watched women shower or use the toilet, staff helped organize an inmate “strip show,” they received a constant barrage of sexually offensive language, and those who reported improper conduct were punished, according to investigation findings. Allegedly, at least one-third of the 99 officers at Tutwiler had sex with prisoners and the highest-level administrators knew about the rampant sexual abuse. The state agreed to a federal monitor and a wide range of changes that would prevent sexual misconduct in the future (Coherty, Levine, and Thomas, 2014; Stein, 2015; United States Department of Justice, 2014).
It is often the case that a sexual predator engages in numerous incidents of sexual coercion. A lawsuit in New York identified five COs who allegedly raped numerous female inmates. The lawsuit also alleged that their actions were covered up and protected by others, that sex abuse was rampant, and any inmate who complained was retaliated against. The lawsuit detailed allegations of forcible sexual intercourse, other forms of sexual misconduct, verbal threats, harassment, and voyeurism in several prisons for women. The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages but demands court oversight to put in place policies to address sexual misconduct, including changes in the investigation and discipline process (Weiser, 2016b; Marcius, 2020).
New York has had prior cases where serial predators had operated with seeming impunity. One officer was investigated by the internal affairs unit four times between 2008 and 2012 on suspicion of sexual assault yet remained in his job. He seemed to feel so immune from any discipline for his actions that surveillance video recorded him having sex with an inmate and actually tipping his hat to the camera during the episode. The 65-year-old officer impregnated the 24-year-old inmate, but union contract protections prohibited the Superintendent from removing him. He was finally convicted of rape and the state settled a civil suit by the inmate for $895,000. In New York, between 2010 and 2015, attempts to fire 30 prison guards accused of abusing inmates resulted in only 8 losing their jobs because arbitrators generally ruled against the state. Another 80 cases did not even reach arbitration and were settled with lesser punishments, such as suspension (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2016).
Perhaps it is not surprising that internal affairs had difficulty investigating and dealing with sexual predators in the New York prison system because in January 2016, James Ferro, the former second-in-command of the corrections department’s internal affairs unit pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor coercion charge after being indicted for sexually harassing a male subordinate during a four-year period and threatening the employee if he reported the incidents. Ferro was also accused by a female employee of grabbing her and allegedly threatening that it would be a “bad career move” if she filed a harassment complaint against him. He was allowed to retire with an annual pension of $66,384 (Lyons, 2016).
In New Jersey, after a years-long investigation spurred by a newspaper expose of the prison, the Department of Justice released a report in 2020 detailing widespread, pervasive sexual abuse at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Female inmates were regularly sexually assaulted by guards and sometimes forced to engage in sex acts with other prisoners while staff members watched. A group of guards coerced a mentally ill inmate on suicide watch to dance naked for them. Staff members and guards regularly referred to inmates in vulgar, homophobic, and demeaning terms and regularly commented on the physical appearance and perceived sexual inclinations of the inmates. At least 16 women said they were beaten or sexually abused by a single officer who never faced criminal charges but did settle a lawsuit with six former prisoners for $75,000. The sexual abuse was pervasive and well-known according to federal investigators. Systemic deficiencies in monitoring, reporting, and investigation discouraged inmates from reporting victimization and allowed abuse to continue. Even after the investigation began, officers continued to sexually abuse female inmates; several were investigated and fired during the ongoing investigation. New Jersey responded by forming a task force and implementing changes such as having gender restrictions for some posts, more cameras, an early warning system to identify problematic behavior, more training on gender issues and reactivating a board of advocates (Benner, 2020).
Although in most prisons and jails, only a few correctional officers sexually victimize female inmates, more allow it to happen by setting the tone of the prison. Staying silent while other officers sexualize prisoners by ribald comments, allowing officers to demean and belittle inmates, and participating in conversations where women are referred to by their body parts allow the true predators to victimize. A prison culture that disparages and demeans inmates gives the green light to brutal individuals who wear a uniform. This situation is like the earlier discussion about rogue police officers who come to believe drug offenders and others are fair game for victimization because they do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us.
Corruption by Administrators. One of the perplexing elements of corruption scandals is that, in most cases, administrators had to know of the wrongdoing. Generally, one might assume that administrators did not want to expose the corruption because it would make reflect poorly on the administrator, but at least in some cases, the administrator is corrupt as well. For instance, in 2019, a former Louisiana prison warden, Nate Cain, in a plea deal, pled guilty to two counts of federal wire fraud related to gun purchases he made with state money. He was charged with 17 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. His wife who also worked for the prison system pled guilty as well, including to charges related to stealing $30,000 from inmate accounts. The couple were accused of purchasing over $150,000 of personal items like TVs, appliances, construction supplies, and groceries using state money in the prison budget. When prison employees objected, Cain threatened them. Cain is also under a state indictment for obstruction of justice stemming from a 2016 investigation by state corrections officials that found he undermined a probe into a rape allegation (Toohey, 2019).
James Crosby, appointed secretary of the Florida corrections system by Governor Jeb Bush, was forced to resign in 2006 after stories of alcohol-fueled parties and cozy relationships with prison vendors circulated. Crosby ended up in a federal prison himself for bribery. The investigation led to criminal charges against more than two dozen other employees (York, 2012). In early 2015, current and former prison inspectors testified that they were repeatedly ordered to ignore evidence of crimes committed by corrupt officials because doing so would give the Florida Department of Corrections a “black eye” (Klas and Brown 2015a, 2015b).
In 2019, a congressional report concluded that prison administrators in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) were routinely protected and their misbehavior or corruption was ignored. The report described the BOP culture as one where some were shielded from discipline or even commended for their service even though their misconduct was well known. Administrator misconduct was ignored as was, evidently, severe staffing shortages, persistent sexual harassment claims and inmate violence. An earlier report by the Inspector General detailed “challenges” in administering federal prisons for women, but this House investigation described how wardens and other senior leaders were transferred around, commended, awarded, and promoted while disciplinary actions against them were squashed. In some cases, they were allowed to retire with a clean record and full benefits before any disciplinary action could begin. Allegations ranged from an assault on an inmate and falsifying records to embezzlement and sexual harassment. In every case, according to the congressional review, the complaining parties were never notified of the cases’ resolutions. Several cases involved persistent sexual harassment or coverups of them (Johnson, 2019).
Even if administrators do not do anything illegal, they can still perform their role unethically when apathy or lethargy leads to negligent administration of the prison. Prison administrators will always be challenged by state legislators that seem to want to incarcerate but not pay for how much it costs. Even so, some reports of prisons indicate that there is a more pervasive negligence that goes beyond not having resources. In 2017, a Florida legislator wrote and published an open letter to the governor pleading for a new warden and resources to respond to what he described as a “loss of institutional control” in the state’s largest women’s prison. During surprise inspections with investigators from the Department of Corrections and the state’s Office of Chief Inspector General, he found numerous conditions at the Gadsden prison that posed significant health concerns, including 55 degree temperatures in the cells, no hot water, medical care being withheld, a tooth extraction without sedation, guards who impregnated inmates allowed to remain on the job, and other issues. The prison is run by a private corrections company, and after a surprise visit in February with the head of the Department of Management Services that oversees private prisons, the state’s on-site monitor was fired (Klas, 2017). These cases illustrate that the risk of corruption in prisons is high. Even honest administrators have difficulty managing a prison with chronic understaffing and resource shortages, but some exacerbate these problems by selfish and illegal schemes.
The primary goal of any corrections system is to protect the public, but when corruption is endemic, even that goal is in jeopardy. After the 2015 prison escape by two inmates from Clinton prison in New York, a 150-page scathing report by the state inspector general described a series of management lapses, including the well-known habit of Officer Ronald Blair to never make late-night rounds as he was supposed to. This allowed the two escapees several hours out of the prison before the alarm was sounded. Investigators discovered that guards routinely would falsify records to make it appear as if they were conducting late-night rounds when they did not. One of the inmates who escaped spent 85 nights outside his cell exploring the tunnels beneath the prison in search of an escape route—only possible because of 400 compulsory bed checks that should have been done but were not. Investigators noted that “just one” bed-check during the six months they planned the escape would have foiled the escape. Joyce E. Mitchell, a civilian supervisor of the prison tailor shop, believed herself to be in a romantic relationship with one of the prisoners, and brought in contraband and tools that facilitated their escape. She also hid two chisels, a steel punch, two concrete drill bits, and two hacksaw blades in frozen ground beef that she gave to a correctional officer who delivered them to the inmates. In response to the escape, the DOCCS installed new security cameras, disciplined employees involved, and appointed a new superintendent (Schwirtz and Winerip, 2016).
Explanations for MisconductThe explanations for correctional misconduct can be described in similar ways to those in the law enforcement chapters, where they were divided into individual explanations, organizational explanations, and societal explanations.
Conclusion: Research has indicated that the very nature of a prison may encourage an abuse of power. We examined various forms of misconduct by correctional professionals, including brutality, smuggling, and sexual abuse. Corruption by administrators is rare but, obviously, a serious problem when it occurs. The more common ethical issue with administrators is not investigating and dealing with unethical workers. It was also noted that much of the misconduct may occur because of the informal occupational subculture and a loss of a sense of mission by professionals, as well as poor management. Unions may act as a resistant force to good management. Responses to ethical misconduct and corruption include ethics training and improving management. Procedural justice research shows that if authorities practice fairness, neutrality, and the other elements of procedural justice, there is more faith in and compliance with rules. This concept applies to prisoners and correctional officers equally. Restorative justice principles may help to improve the sense of mission and commitment to ethical behavior by correctional workers. Legality should be the overriding theme of corrections as well as law enforcement. Regardless of what offenders have done, they are still protected by the law. Correctional professionals who agree with that premise are more likely to conduct themselves in an ethical manner.
Although Zimbardo’s conclusion that power corrupts has been criticized, periodic scandals in prisons seem to reinforce the findings of the Zimbardo experiment. Small groups of officers in some prisons routinely abuse inmates, and others ignore their actions. For instance, a group of correctional officers (COs) known as the Cowboys worked the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of the Bureau of Prison’s supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. In the mid-1990s, the group retaliated against defiant, violent inmates by routinely beating them and then fabricating stories about why force was used. The group eventually attacked not just violent inmates, but troublesome inmates who were only verbally defiant as well. The Cowboys also threatened other officers, at one point promising that any officer who snitched would be taken out to the parking lot and beaten. The group’s alleged themes were: “Lie ‘til you die” and “What happens in SHU stays in SHU.” Years after the group broke up and were transferred to other prisons, they were investigated. The ensuing FBI and Department of Justice investigation described 55 acts of beatings, intimidations, and lies. At trial, despite several of the correctional officers’ admitting their activities and testifying for the prosecution, the jury acquitted four officers of all charges and convicted three others of only some of the charges (Prendergast, 2003).
This pattern of a small group of officers who use violence to retaliate against and/or control inmates has occurred periodically over decades in both prisons and jails, and in both state and federal facilities. These practices seem to be most likely to emerge when conditions are optimal; for example, a wave of inmate violence against officers spurs focused retaliation against the violent inmates, but then CO violence becomes more widespread and used against all inmates. Also, such groups generally have had tacit administrative support or tolerance. More importantly, the culture of the prison tends to protect and support this illegal violence and juries are not inclined to find guilt, setting the stage for the next scandal.
Misconduct and CorruptionThe major types of corruption by correctional officers and other officials in institutional corrections have been described by numerous researchers. Under misuse of authority, McCarthy (1991, 1995) lists the following:
- Accepting gratuities for special consideration during legitimate activities
- Accepting gratuities for protection of illicit activities
- Mistreatment/harassment or extortion of inmates
- Mismanagement (e.g., prison industries)
- Miscellaneous abuses
Bomse (2001) identifies different types of prisoner abuse:
- Malicious or purposeful abuse. This is the type of abuse inflicted by individual officers intentionally, including excessive use of force, rape and sexual harassment, theft and destruction of personal property, false disciplinary charges, intentional denial of medical care, failure to protect, racial abuse and harassment, and excessive and humiliating strip searches.
- Negligent abuse. This type of abuse is also inflicted by individual officers, but not intentionally, and includes negligent denial of medical care, failure to protect, lack of responsiveness, and negligent loss of property or mail.
- Systemic or budgetary abuse. This type of abuse is systemwide and refers to policies, including overcrowding, inadequate medical care (systematic budget cutting), failure to protect, elimination of visits or other programs, co-payments and surcharges, and use of isolation units.
Brutality, smuggling of drugs and cellphones, and sexual abuse of inmates are reported with depressing regularity. Some scandals live in infamy, such as the gladiator fights in the mid-1990s orchestrated by correctional officers in Corcoran prison in California. Correctional officers coerced inmates to fight in the prison yard, betting on the winner, and sometimes shot at fighters who wouldn’t stop, killing at least one inmate. Despite the litigation and criminal prosecutions that followed from the California scandal, correctional officer–coerced “gladiator fights” have been alleged in the Denver jail, in juvenile detention facilities in Texas, and other locations. Other scandals, such as smuggling rings where correctional officers bring in cellphones, drugs, and other contraband for inmates, are so similar when they appear in various states that it seems only the names of the individuals and prison gangs involved are different. Officers are often tempted by large sums of money, or coerced by inmates who tell the officers they know where they live or where their kids go to school.
Physical AbuseOfficers have the right to use physical force to subdue an inmate, and officers on guard towers can stop inmates from fighting or escaping by tear gas or, if needed, bullets. What officers cannot do is use more physical force than necessary to accomplish a legal purpose, or use physical force as retaliation. However, some officers are known for their abuse. In some prisons, the abuse is such open knowledge that the COs have a name like the “beat down squad,” or the room where beatings take place (usually because there are no cameras) have nicknames, like the “boom boom room” (Alexander, 2017a, 2017b). The In the News box describes how DOJ investigators found that Alabama’s prisons had a culture that allowed excessive force against inmates.
In the NewsAlabama at FaultIn 2020, the Department of justice released a report that described how Alabama COs routinely used excessive force on prisoners. One prisoner who died after being beaten had intracranial bleeding, nose and eye socket fractures and six teeth knocked out. COs said the injuries resulted when he fell from a bunk bed. Another inmate was struck 19 times with a baton, even though he was handcuffed. The 28-page report on the Alabama prison system described numerous beatings and uses of force that were clearly excessive. Alabama’s prisons have long been known as overcrowded and understaffed and the target of civil rights and prison reform advocates. This investigation from the Department of Justice confirms what many had been saying for years. Federal investigators believed that episodes of excessive force had been under-reported or not reported at all and that there was a culture where unlawful uses of force were common. Alabama’s governor responded to the report by saying she was committed to improving prison safety through necessary infrastructure investment, increased correctional staffing, comprehensive mental-health care services, and effective rehabilitation programs. The Department of Justice may sue the state to effect change in the prison system or enter a mutually agreed upon consent agreement detailing change. However, the Attorney General of Alabama said that the State will not, under any circumstances, enter into a consent decree with the federal government to avoid a lawsuit.
Source: Vigdor, 2020.In a New York prison, George Williams was believed to have cursed a guard, although it might have been someone else. For this offense he was removed from his cell by three guards and taken to a day room where he was kicked and beaten with fists and batons. He was heard by inmates two floors below pleading for his life. He was beaten so badly that he was taken to an outside hospital where doctors inserted a plate and six screws in one of his legs. The three officers were charged with assault and each received a one-year conditional discharge after pleading guilty to a single charge of official misconduct. They were allowed to keep their pensions (Robbins, 2015a; Robbins and D’Avolio, 2015).
In 2013, Kevin Moore received five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and shattered facial bones in an incident with five New York correctional officers who said that he had attacked them. Moore’s dreadlocks were ripped out and one of the officers kept them as a “trophy.” He spent 17 days in the hospital. In 2016, federal prosecutors charged the officers involved with civil rights violations and fraud. Prosecutors alleged that one of the officers hit another to create an injury to justify the beating. Two officers pleaded guilty and three officers pleaded not guilty (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2016). In another case, a New York CO put Ramon Fabian in the hospital because he was talking during count. The CO had him face the wall, spread his legs, and then kicked him in his testicles. He was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery but lost part of his right testicle. The guard denied kicking him and was still on duty a year later despite facing criminal assault charges (Robbins, 2015b).
In a Florida prison in 2019, Cheryl Weimer was ordered to clean a toilet and she objected, trying to explain that she had a hip condition that caused her pain and made her unable to get down on her knees. When the officers became confrontational, she declared a mental health emergency, which required medical personnel to be called. Instead, the officers allegedly slammed Weimar to the ground and beat her. Then they dragged her “like a rag doll” across the prison as her head bounced on the hard ground, evidently breaking her neck. They allegedly continued to beat her in an area outside the view of surveillance cameras. Today she is still in prison, bedridden and dependent on catheters, mechanical breathing assistance, a tracheostomy and feeding tubes. Her family filed a federal lawsuit and the state of Florida agreed to a $4.64 million settlement. One of the men involved had been promoted to lieutenant, despite being the subject of complaints by female inmates who said he sexually harassed them by kissing and groping them. He was also accused of dousing female inmates with chemicals. In November 2020 he was arrested on unrelated charges of sexual battery and child molestation after a 16-year-old said he had been abusing her since she was 6. The Florida Department of Corrections finally fired him. Another CO involved has also been arrested on a charge of domestic violence. He has not been fired (Gross, 2013).
Inmate DeathsIn some cases, physical abuse leads to death. Several suspicious deaths of inmates were reviewed in an expose of the Florida prison system in the Miami Herald. In 2009, Bernadette Gregory supposedly hung herself in her cell sometime during the 11 minutes between observations, despite being handcuffed and in a wheelchair. A few days before her death, she reported abuse and a threat by a correctional officer (Brown, 2014a). In 2012, Darren Rainey, a mentally ill inmate, was found dead in a shower in a unit for inmates with mental health problems. Inmates stated that he had been screaming for two hours, and that the shower was set at a higher temperature than other showers and was used by COs to punish inmates. Reports indicate that his skin sloughed off his body and his body temperature was so high it could not be measured by a thermometer. Only after the newspaper exposed the incident did his death get investigated by local police, and the conclusion was that his death was accidental. His family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit and won a $4.5 million settlement (Brown, 2014a, 2014d, 2017; Gross, 2020). Randall Jordan-Aparo died after being gassed with chemical agents so severely that pictures show an outline of his body with the yellow chemical agent covering the wall behind the spot where his body lay. Reports written by the officers after the death falsely claimed that he had been involved in a prison disturbance. Four investigators with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Inspector General’s office subsequently filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the chief inspector general, Linda Miguel, claiming there was a cover-up to thwart their efforts to expose and punish the officers in 2013 (Brown, 2014f; Brown and Bousquet, 2014). Latandra Ellington was found dead in October 2014, supposedly of natural causes, after she sent a letter to her family saying that a sergeant at Lowell Correctional Institution was threatening to kill her. Her family hired an attorney and paid for a private autopsy, which showed she suffered blunt-force trauma to her stomach consistent with being punched or kicked (Brown, 2014b).
After the Miami Herald series in 2014, 32 correctional officers were fired (Associated Press, 2014). Mike Crews, the head of the Department of Corrections at the time, also fired or forced into retirement several wardens and deputy wardens and attempted a series of reforms (Associated Press, 2014; Brown, 2014c). Crews also created an ombudsman to monitor the care of inmates with mental illnesses and warned the healthcare provider Corizon that it must rectify serious deficiencies in its medical care (Brown and Bousquet, 2014).
In New York, Leonard Strickland, a schizophrenic, was beaten to death by a dozen guards in 2010. Security video footage shows Strickland, in handcuffs, barely conscious and being dragged along the floor by officers to the prison medical office. He lies face down on the floor, not moving, while guards can be heard shouting, “Stop resisting.” He is motionless for 11 minutes before someone begins CPR (Robbins, 2015a; Robbins and D’Avolio, 2015). Samuel Harrell died in 2015 after a dozen officers, known as the “Beat-up Squad,” beat him and allegedly threw him down a flight of stairs. The officers were observed to have punched, kicked, stomped, and jumped on his face, head, neck, back, and legs. He was evidently already unconscious when he went down the stairs. A criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the Dutchess County District Attorney’s office resulted in no charges being filed and the officers involved have not been disciplined in any way (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2015b, 2016; Weisner and Schwirtz, 2017; Nicholas, 2020). In many cases when COs are prosecuted for inmate assaults or deaths, juries refuse to convict them.
SmugglingAnother common type of corruption in prisons is smuggling of drugs or cellphones. Smuggling can be quite lucrative for COs, adding tens of thousands of dollars annually to their income. Inmates will use both carrots and sticks to entice COs to bring in contraband. They will offer bribes, but they also may threaten the officer or the officer’s family. Once the officer does it once, then they are subject to blackmail and would find it impossible not to continue if they wanted to keep their job. Sometimes whole shifts in some prisons have become corrupted. The most infamous smuggling case was in a state-run jail in Baltimore. Although the original scandal occurred in 2012, the In the News box indicates that Maryland is still having problems.
In the News Corruption in MarylandOne of the most infamous smuggling schemes occurred in the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC), a state-run jail. The investigation ended in indictments and sentences for 25 people, including 13 guards in 2013. The COs were all women, and many were engaged in sexual relationships with the inmates who were members of the Black Guerrilla Family. Cellphones, drugs, and other contraband were smuggled into the jail and the guards also tipped off inmates when jail staff were planning searches and acted as lookouts when inmates were having sex with guards or beating up other inmates. The ringleader bragged about making $15,000 a month by the smuggling operation. He had sexual relationships with an unknown number of female COs and fathered babies with at least four of them. Fourteen high-ranking administrators were transferred or retired after the indictments were announced. Those involved faced charges of drug conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and/or racketeering. Many pled guilty. The facility was closed completely in 2015 but evidently re-opened.
Smuggling incidents continued in other Maryland correctional facilities. In October 2016, 80 COs and inmates were charged with smuggling heroin, cocaine, cellphones and pornography into the Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset County on the Eastern Shore. Seventy-seven people were convicted, including 16 COs. In 2017, a sergeant was arrested for allegedly running the Crips street gang inside the walls. He pleaded guilty to state charges of participating in a criminal gang. In January 2018, 18 people, including 2 COs, were charged with smuggling heroin, cocaine, and cellphones into Jessup Penitentiary. Also, in that year, three COs were charged with running a smuggling ring which included heroin, cell-phones and pornography-loaded flash drives in exchange for sex and wire payments.
COs in Maryland have also been arrested for other types of misconduct. In 2019, 25 members of the Baltimore Central Regional Tactical Unit, a group of COs responsible for maintaining order in state facilities, were indicted on 236 separate criminal counts, including first-degree assault, participation in a criminal gang and misconduct in office because of their alleged use of excessive force, intimidation, evidence tampering and other criminal measures within state-run jails. This brings the number of corrections officers, inmates and civilian accomplices who have been criminally charged in prison corruption cases in the state to 200 between 2015 and 2019. Authorities argue that the arrests of COs show that they are diligent in rooting out corruption in the prison and jail system.
Sources: CBSDC.com (Links to an external site.), 2015; Fenton, 2010; Gray, 2014; Toobin, 2014; Rector and Davis, 2019.In 2016, an FBI undercover investigation called Operation Ghost Guard, resulted in the arrests of 130 current and former Georgia prison guards, civilian staff, and inmates. The correctional officers thought they were being paid thousands of dollars to protect drug smuggling operations for a high-level trafficker, using their status as correctional officers to protect them from a vehicle search if they were stopped by police. The investigation also uncovered contraband smuggling and criminal activity in the prisons. Officials began the investigation after discovering a telephone scam—people received phone calls saying they had missed jury duty and they could either pay a fine or be arrested—traced to Georgia prison inmates using cellphones. When agents investigated how the phones got into the prison, they identified guards in nine different prisons. When these corrupt guards were given an opportunity to protect a purported drug trafficker, they agreed to wear their uniforms to transport the drugs. Ironically, some of the correctional officers arrested were on the Department of Corrections’ COBRA tactical team which investigates drug trafficking inside the prison (Brumback, 2016).
Interestingly, one of the reasons cited by COs for injuries sustained by inmates is the officer’s own corruption. COs indicated that trafficking creates hostility between inmates and COs that could potentially result in attacks. While many attacks on COs are random, e.g., by mentally ill inmates or inmates who attack any officer to get into segregation or because of a gang initiation, if the attack is intentional, it is sometimes a business dispute. Officers can obtain hundreds of dollars for a cheap cellphone and some do, causing problems for their fellow COs, and, sometimes, themselves (Goulette, Denney, and Crow, 2020).
Sexual AbuseAs noted in the last chapter, one of the results of cross sex supervision is sexual relationships between COs and inmates. Sexual relationships are always illegal and unethical, even if they are consensual. For instance, in 2015, in Florida, an assistant warden was allegedly sexually involved with several female inmates and gave them special protection; they were immune from discipline from COs. When a correctional officer searched a female inmate’s cell who was a favorite of the assistant warden, the assistant warden threatened to beat up the CO, who filed a police report against the assistant warden. After an investigation, the assistant warden was fired (Brown, 2015a). In 2016, after the Miami Herald published a series of articles describing sexual exploitation in several women’s prisons, six correctional officers were arrested (Brown, 2016). In 2020, the Department of Justice released a report detailing many instances of sexual abuse and assault by custody staff in Lowell Prison. In one case, a sergeant raped a woman in a storage area; in another case, an officer forced a woman to have sex in a bathroom in exchange for a drug that treats opioid withdrawal. The report noted that of 161 incidents of sexual or physical abuse investigated by state prison officials between 2015 and 2019, only eight resulted in the officer’s arrest (Pickett, 2020).
News stories across the country report instances where female inmates have been coerced to have sex with prison or jail correctional officers who threaten to plant drugs on them or write them up for disciplinary infractions if they do not submit (Coherty, Levine and Thomas, 2014; Owen et al., 2008; Plog, 2014; Stein, 2015). A Justice Department investigation of the Julia Tutwiler prison in Alabama found rampant sexual abuse with officers allegedly forcing women to engage in sex acts just to obtain basic sanitary supplies. Male officers openly watched women shower or use the toilet, staff helped organize an inmate “strip show,” they received a constant barrage of sexually offensive language, and those who reported improper conduct were punished, according to investigation findings. Allegedly, at least one-third of the 99 officers at Tutwiler had sex with prisoners and the highest-level administrators knew about the rampant sexual abuse. The state agreed to a federal monitor and a wide range of changes that would prevent sexual misconduct in the future (Coherty, Levine, and Thomas, 2014; Stein, 2015; United States Department of Justice, 2014).
It is often the case that a sexual predator engages in numerous incidents of sexual coercion. A lawsuit in New York identified five COs who allegedly raped numerous female inmates. The lawsuit also alleged that their actions were covered up and protected by others, that sex abuse was rampant, and any inmate who complained was retaliated against. The lawsuit detailed allegations of forcible sexual intercourse, other forms of sexual misconduct, verbal threats, harassment, and voyeurism in several prisons for women. The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages but demands court oversight to put in place policies to address sexual misconduct, including changes in the investigation and discipline process (Weiser, 2016b; Marcius, 2020).
New York has had prior cases where serial predators had operated with seeming impunity. One officer was investigated by the internal affairs unit four times between 2008 and 2012 on suspicion of sexual assault yet remained in his job. He seemed to feel so immune from any discipline for his actions that surveillance video recorded him having sex with an inmate and actually tipping his hat to the camera during the episode. The 65-year-old officer impregnated the 24-year-old inmate, but union contract protections prohibited the Superintendent from removing him. He was finally convicted of rape and the state settled a civil suit by the inmate for $895,000. In New York, between 2010 and 2015, attempts to fire 30 prison guards accused of abusing inmates resulted in only 8 losing their jobs because arbitrators generally ruled against the state. Another 80 cases did not even reach arbitration and were settled with lesser punishments, such as suspension (Winerip and Schwirtz, 2016).
Perhaps it is not surprising that internal affairs had difficulty investigating and dealing with sexual predators in the New York prison system because in January 2016, James Ferro, the former second-in-command of the corrections department’s internal affairs unit pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor coercion charge after being indicted for sexually harassing a male subordinate during a four-year period and threatening the employee if he reported the incidents. Ferro was also accused by a female employee of grabbing her and allegedly threatening that it would be a “bad career move” if she filed a harassment complaint against him. He was allowed to retire with an annual pension of $66,384 (Lyons, 2016).
In New Jersey, after a years-long investigation spurred by a newspaper expose of the prison, the Department of Justice released a report in 2020 detailing widespread, pervasive sexual abuse at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Female inmates were regularly sexually assaulted by guards and sometimes forced to engage in sex acts with other prisoners while staff members watched. A group of guards coerced a mentally ill inmate on suicide watch to dance naked for them. Staff members and guards regularly referred to inmates in vulgar, homophobic, and demeaning terms and regularly commented on the physical appearance and perceived sexual inclinations of the inmates. At least 16 women said they were beaten or sexually abused by a single officer who never faced criminal charges but did settle a lawsuit with six former prisoners for $75,000. The sexual abuse was pervasive and well-known according to federal investigators. Systemic deficiencies in monitoring, reporting, and investigation discouraged inmates from reporting victimization and allowed abuse to continue. Even after the investigation began, officers continued to sexually abuse female inmates; several were investigated and fired during the ongoing investigation. New Jersey responded by forming a task force and implementing changes such as having gender restrictions for some posts, more cameras, an early warning system to identify problematic behavior, more training on gender issues and reactivating a board of advocates (Benner, 2020).
Although in most prisons and jails, only a few correctional officers sexually victimize female inmates, more allow it to happen by setting the tone of the prison. Staying silent while other officers sexualize prisoners by ribald comments, allowing officers to demean and belittle inmates, and participating in conversations where women are referred to by their body parts allow the true predators to victimize. A prison culture that disparages and demeans inmates gives the green light to brutal individuals who wear a uniform. This situation is like the earlier discussion about rogue police officers who come to believe drug offenders and others are fair game for victimization because they do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us.
Corruption by Administrators. One of the perplexing elements of corruption scandals is that, in most cases, administrators had to know of the wrongdoing. Generally, one might assume that administrators did not want to expose the corruption because it would make reflect poorly on the administrator, but at least in some cases, the administrator is corrupt as well. For instance, in 2019, a former Louisiana prison warden, Nate Cain, in a plea deal, pled guilty to two counts of federal wire fraud related to gun purchases he made with state money. He was charged with 17 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. His wife who also worked for the prison system pled guilty as well, including to charges related to stealing $30,000 from inmate accounts. The couple were accused of purchasing over $150,000 of personal items like TVs, appliances, construction supplies, and groceries using state money in the prison budget. When prison employees objected, Cain threatened them. Cain is also under a state indictment for obstruction of justice stemming from a 2016 investigation by state corrections officials that found he undermined a probe into a rape allegation (Toohey, 2019).
James Crosby, appointed secretary of the Florida corrections system by Governor Jeb Bush, was forced to resign in 2006 after stories of alcohol-fueled parties and cozy relationships with prison vendors circulated. Crosby ended up in a federal prison himself for bribery. The investigation led to criminal charges against more than two dozen other employees (York, 2012). In early 2015, current and former prison inspectors testified that they were repeatedly ordered to ignore evidence of crimes committed by corrupt officials because doing so would give the Florida Department of Corrections a “black eye” (Klas and Brown 2015a, 2015b).
In 2019, a congressional report concluded that prison administrators in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) were routinely protected and their misbehavior or corruption was ignored. The report described the BOP culture as one where some were shielded from discipline or even commended for their service even though their misconduct was well known. Administrator misconduct was ignored as was, evidently, severe staffing shortages, persistent sexual harassment claims and inmate violence. An earlier report by the Inspector General detailed “challenges” in administering federal prisons for women, but this House investigation described how wardens and other senior leaders were transferred around, commended, awarded, and promoted while disciplinary actions against them were squashed. In some cases, they were allowed to retire with a clean record and full benefits before any disciplinary action could begin. Allegations ranged from an assault on an inmate and falsifying records to embezzlement and sexual harassment. In every case, according to the congressional review, the complaining parties were never notified of the cases’ resolutions. Several cases involved persistent sexual harassment or coverups of them (Johnson, 2019).
Even if administrators do not do anything illegal, they can still perform their role unethically when apathy or lethargy leads to negligent administration of the prison. Prison administrators will always be challenged by state legislators that seem to want to incarcerate but not pay for how much it costs. Even so, some reports of prisons indicate that there is a more pervasive negligence that goes beyond not having resources. In 2017, a Florida legislator wrote and published an open letter to the governor pleading for a new warden and resources to respond to what he described as a “loss of institutional control” in the state’s largest women’s prison. During surprise inspections with investigators from the Department of Corrections and the state’s Office of Chief Inspector General, he found numerous conditions at the Gadsden prison that posed significant health concerns, including 55 degree temperatures in the cells, no hot water, medical care being withheld, a tooth extraction without sedation, guards who impregnated inmates allowed to remain on the job, and other issues. The prison is run by a private corrections company, and after a surprise visit in February with the head of the Department of Management Services that oversees private prisons, the state’s on-site monitor was fired (Klas, 2017). These cases illustrate that the risk of corruption in prisons is high. Even honest administrators have difficulty managing a prison with chronic understaffing and resource shortages, but some exacerbate these problems by selfish and illegal schemes.
The primary goal of any corrections system is to protect the public, but when corruption is endemic, even that goal is in jeopardy. After the 2015 prison escape by two inmates from Clinton prison in New York, a 150-page scathing report by the state inspector general described a series of management lapses, including the well-known habit of Officer Ronald Blair to never make late-night rounds as he was supposed to. This allowed the two escapees several hours out of the prison before the alarm was sounded. Investigators discovered that guards routinely would falsify records to make it appear as if they were conducting late-night rounds when they did not. One of the inmates who escaped spent 85 nights outside his cell exploring the tunnels beneath the prison in search of an escape route—only possible because of 400 compulsory bed checks that should have been done but were not. Investigators noted that “just one” bed-check during the six months they planned the escape would have foiled the escape. Joyce E. Mitchell, a civilian supervisor of the prison tailor shop, believed herself to be in a romantic relationship with one of the prisoners, and brought in contraband and tools that facilitated their escape. She also hid two chisels, a steel punch, two concrete drill bits, and two hacksaw blades in frozen ground beef that she gave to a correctional officer who delivered them to the inmates. In response to the escape, the DOCCS installed new security cameras, disciplined employees involved, and appointed a new superintendent (Schwirtz and Winerip, 2016).
Explanations for MisconductThe explanations for correctional misconduct can be described in similar ways to those in the law enforcement chapters, where they were divided into individual explanations, organizational explanations, and societal explanations.
Conclusion: Research has indicated that the very nature of a prison may encourage an abuse of power. We examined various forms of misconduct by correctional professionals, including brutality, smuggling, and sexual abuse. Corruption by administrators is rare but, obviously, a serious problem when it occurs. The more common ethical issue with administrators is not investigating and dealing with unethical workers. It was also noted that much of the misconduct may occur because of the informal occupational subculture and a loss of a sense of mission by professionals, as well as poor management. Unions may act as a resistant force to good management. Responses to ethical misconduct and corruption include ethics training and improving management. Procedural justice research shows that if authorities practice fairness, neutrality, and the other elements of procedural justice, there is more faith in and compliance with rules. This concept applies to prisoners and correctional officers equally. Restorative justice principles may help to improve the sense of mission and commitment to ethical behavior by correctional workers. Legality should be the overriding theme of corrections as well as law enforcement. Regardless of what offenders have done, they are still protected by the law. Correctional professionals who agree with that premise are more likely to conduct themselves in an ethical manner.
- Explain the Zimbardo experiment and what it might imply for correctional professionals.
The Zimbardo experiment of the 1970s put college men into an artificial prison as correctional officers or inmates. About one-third of the correctional officers became brutal and authoritarian. Inmates became manipulative and exhibited signs of emotional distress and mental breakdown. It is widely used as evidence that placing people in absolute power over others breeds corruption. - Describe types of misconduct by correctional officers, including the typology of misconduct by Souryal and McCarthy.
McCarthy’s categories of misconduct include theft, trafficking, embezzlement, and misuse of authority. Under misuse of authority, he includes gratuities (as bribes for legitimate or illegitimate activities), mistreatment/harassment or extortion, mismanagement, and miscellaneous abuses. Souryal’s categories of corruption are malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance. - Describe types of misconduct by community corrections professionals.
There are not as many news stories of corruption, but there have been instances of inappropriate influences and errors in parole release decisions, nepotism in awarding jobs in probation departments, and accepting bribes from offenders to get out of community service obligations or drug testing. - Provide explanations for misconduct.
Similar individual, organization, and societal explanations for misconduct exist as were described in Chapter 7. Some reasons for misconduct involve hiring those who should not be in corrections. As in law enforcement, officers who are stressed and burned out may be the most vulnerable to ethical relativism and bad decisions. PTSD is another explanation for the negative behaviors of COs. Organizational explanations include a failure of leadership and lack of discipline, training, and supervision. Management practices that do not provide the direction, mission, oversight, and training needed contribute to misconduct. Society is also at fault in that if we allow inmates to be mistreated because they are inmates, then that lawlessness tends to spread. - Present some suggestions to decrease misconduct by correctional professionals.
Suggestions are largely directed to management practices, including proactive measures such as mechanisms to investigate and detect wrongdoing, reduced opportunities for corruption, screening of employees using state-of-the-art psychological tools, improved working conditions, and providing good role models in the form of supervisors and administrators. Ethics training is also suggested. Finally, restorative justice is offered as a different approach to respond to criminal offenders that is more positive and less conducive to the creation of a subculture that supports mistreatment.
The Zimbardo Experiment
Can a normal, or otherwise person who is strong in personal beliefs and will usually do the right thing, violate ethical and moral boundaries when placed in a position to follow authority? Watch the youtube video below, be prepared to either write a paper, or voice your point of view of what your thoughts of the video and this experiment.
Think about the following questions:
When you are in power of authority and a person fails to do what you ask of them, is a person (or you) likely to up the power you were given? If you were given a unlawful order, would you be able to recognize it, or just follow orders? Does power corrupt? When is it time to recognize unethical behavior, and when to report it?
(Subject to instructions) Provide any historical situation in law enforcement or the military, where you can identify any of these situation identified in this experiment?
Think about the following questions:
When you are in power of authority and a person fails to do what you ask of them, is a person (or you) likely to up the power you were given? If you were given a unlawful order, would you be able to recognize it, or just follow orders? Does power corrupt? When is it time to recognize unethical behavior, and when to report it?
(Subject to instructions) Provide any historical situation in law enforcement or the military, where you can identify any of these situation identified in this experiment?
