# Omnibus Stupid MFers in the news thread (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 5, 2024, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657 "2024-01-05T16:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 147
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2024, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2921 "2024-11-28T19:13:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ‘Rule Number 1: If you don’t want to get caught, _don’t tell anybody!_’ Yet it seems more and more of them are doing so these days, unfortunately not for capital punishment crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2922 "2024-11-28T21:44:28Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > If you don’t want to get caught, _don’t tell anybody!_’ Not getting caught runs a distant second to publicizing yourself on social media. Real life can’t compete; it seems that telling other people is pretty much the point of doing the deed in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2923 "2024-11-29T13:55:38Z")
Not as memorable as “Headless Body In Topless Bar”, but “Lawless Pleads Guilty” would be a nice headline for this story about a prison guard gone bad. > [@](#): > > A former officer at a prison in Kentucky has pleaded guilty to providing alcohol and other contraband to inmates. Sean T. Lawless was a correctional officer at the federal prison in Boyd County, called FCI Ashland, between September 2020 and February 2022, according to his plea agreement. Lawless admitted that he smuggled in at least five bottles of Fireball whiskey, three cans of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco, two vape pens and cigarettes to an inmate. [https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article296279629.html#storylink=cpy](https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article296279629.html#storylink=cpy) Based on the number of mini-bottles that get thrown out of car windows onto the perimeter of our property I had already pegged Fireball as the Drink Of Dirtbags, and this story provides further confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2924 "2024-11-29T15:42:46Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I had already pegged Fireball as the Drink Of Dirtbags ‘Hey, this candle smells like Fireball!’ ‘Um… We non-alcoholics call that scent “cinnamon”.’ ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2925 "2024-11-29T15:43:20Z")
That seems like a very paltry haul. Almost makes one wonder whether that facility is really that clean & tight that he was the standout scoundrel in the staff, or whether he was chased out and scapegoated to hide the larger predations of somebody else higher up? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2926 "2024-11-29T16:05:28Z")
Regarding that federal corrections officer who provided tobacco and alcohol to a prisoner, why would he do such a thing? I assume this is a pretty good job with decent benefits so why throw that away? Are people really that bad at judging risk/reward ratios? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2927 "2024-11-29T16:16:23Z")
> [@Dogginit](#): > > > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > > > ‘Rule Number 1: If you don’t want to get caught, _don’t tell anybody!_’ > > Yet it seems more and more of them are doing so these days, unfortunately not for capital punishment crimes. Maybe we could make it a capital crime to post about one’s misdeeds on social media… Disclaimer: I oppose capital punishment in ABSOLUTELY ALL cases. FOR ALL TIME (including the past). > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Based on the number of mini-bottles that get thrown out of car windows onto the perimeter of our property I had already pegged Fireball as the Drink Of Dirtbags, and this story provides further confirmation. There’s also the fact that mini-bottles of Fireball don’t really contain distilled spirits at all; you can buy them in supermarkets here in Oregon. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Regarding that federal corrections officer who provided tobacco and alcohol to a prisoner, why would he do such a thing? I assume this is a pretty good job with decent benefits so why throw that away? **Are people really that bad at judging risk/reward ratios?** Have you been asleep since November 4? Time to get up, Mr. van Winkle. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2928 "2024-11-29T16:25:31Z")
I wasn’t talking about the election but a corrections officer choosing to smuggle contraband into the prison. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2929 "2024-11-29T16:28:06Z")
Fair enough, but my remark was about people’s grasp of risk/reward ratios. Sorry I was a bit late with the **bolding** tags on that. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2930 "2024-11-29T16:30:19Z")
It’s also possible for the election not to be the dragged into every discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2931 "2024-11-29T16:40:26Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > …I had already pegged Fireball as the Drink Of Dirtbags… Brings new meaning to “my heart would be a fireball”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2932 "2024-11-29T16:40:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That seems like a very paltry haul. > > Almost makes one wonder whether that facility is really that clean & tight that he was the standout scoundrel in the staff, or whether he was chased out and scapegoated to hide the larger predations of somebody else higher up? Or, those were the ones they could _prove_; the other hunreds he smuggled in they only had circumstantial evidence. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2933 "2024-11-29T16:58:25Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Are people really that bad at judging risk/reward ratios? The first bad idea was coming down from the trees. It’s gotten worse since. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2934 "2024-11-29T17:01:45Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It’s also possible for the election not to be the dragged into every discussion. True. But an omnibus thread about stupid MFers seems to be a strange place to expect this election’s outcome to _not_ come up… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2935 "2024-11-29T17:31:30Z")
It seems to be a problem in a lot of prisons. According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual pay for a U.S. federal corrections officer is 63K, considerably more than the average salary of a state corrections officer (which varies widely between states). There obviously could be special circumstances where a prison guard badly needs $$ and is tempted to smuggle drugs and other items into and out of a facility at prisoners’ behest. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2936 "2024-11-29T17:37:43Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Are people really that bad at judging risk/reward ratios? Obviously the people he is ‘guarding’ are or they wouldn’t be in prison. No idea what he was thinking. Prisoners do have ways of threatening to harm people’s families to extort contraband, so that’s a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2937 "2024-11-29T17:39:06Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > makes one wonder whether that facility is really that clean & tight that he was the standout scoundrel in the staff, or whether he was chased out and scapegoated to hide the larger predations of somebody else higher up Having worked as a nurse in our state penitentiary, this is a strong possibility also. The guards can be scarier than the prisoners IME. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2938 "2024-11-29T18:25:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There obviously could be special circumstances where a prison guard badly needs $$ and is tempted to smuggle drugs and other items into and out of a facility at prisoners’ behest. Inmates can be experts on compromising staff; being helpful and solicitous towards the corrections officers and getting them to grant some minor favors, which start off as being within the rules, then they move on to asking for favors that are technically against the rules but pretty harmless. But once an officer breaks a rule for an inmate, the inmate has a hook into them, and can threaten to reveal the violation and get the officer in trouble if they don’t cooperate further. A smarter officer will, at that point, confess to what they did, and maybe get some minor discipline. But if they’re too afraid to do that, they can end up delivering cell phones, drugs (including nicotine), and other contraband to the inmate and just get mired deeper and deeper until discovery may mean loss of job and even arrest. I saw a number of officers have their careers crash and burn this way. That’s generally the most common way an officer can get compromised into delivering contraband to an inmate. At least in the system I worked in. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2939 "2024-11-29T19:50:12Z")
^ This. Example: You work in a lockup of some kind. There’s a really sweet inmate who, say, always helps you re-stack the chairs at the end of the Wednesday community group meeting. She has a sad life story and you feel bad for her. A few months in, she asks to use your pen for a minute to fill out a form, due immediately and without which she won’t be able to see her child this afternoon. The institution monitors pens very closely and you aren’t supposed to let an inmate touch one, but you trust her and rationalize that you’re watching and it will just be a second. What you don’t know is that you’re not just harmlessly breaking a dumb little rule, which is already an issue, but that this sweet inmate is being coerced and and controlled by no-so-sweet inmates who are very organized. You’ve broken a rule. You are now targeted. Maybe the hook is set now (even if the nice inmate is actually nice but being threatened). Or maybe you’ll get ased for another little favor, like mailing a stamped postcard, also forbidden. Either way, you’re now compromised. Something less-savory is requested, and you balk. That’s when you hear that if you don’t bring in some weed, or make a phone call, or whatever, your superior will be told of your transgressions and you’ll lose your job or career. As Qadgop says, you’d best go report yourself, but people are afraid to, especially if they’ve given information about where they live or their families and are told that they’e going to be hurt if the employee doesn’t cooperate. Before I’d allow my students to interact directly with patients in the psych hospital’s locked ward, we’d go over all of this, and they had to write a paper specifying which approaches they particularly would be most vulnerable to based on their own personalities, beliefs, and histories. They then wrote out a scenario in which they were suborned, tagged with the red flags leading up to it, the relevant professional standards at play, what they should do next, and how they feel as they go through the exercise. They then developed a list of ways to recognize and compensate for their vulnerable points, including how they would initiate the conversation with their supervisor. This is good for teacher training, too. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2024, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/2940 "2024-11-29T19:53:28Z")
You know, that’s pretty much the plot line for season one of The Americans. Poor Nina. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=146) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=148)