Thank you for that, Frank. Always nice for hard research to be appreciated.
I am so sorry that you feel that all of the crimes cited add up to blithering bullshit.
It is not just six. It is not just 18 ( although one might want to argue that since I’ve only cited 12+ CO’s in my cites ).
Why do I assume that the CO’s posting in here know personally of crimes having been committed by co-workers? Well, let us look at it this way, ok?
If you actually were to read through all of the cites I provided, you ( the generic You, not Frank ) would see that not all of the evidence and initial reporting of said crimes came from outside of the prisons. Some CO’s were turned over by their co-workers. Therefore it is not an outrageous statement at all, nor is it blithering bullshit, to say that if there is proof cited of prison employees turning in criminal CO’s, that those CO’s posting in here know of crimes committed at work by their fellows, either now or in the past.
I will, at the risk of taming down a Pit Thread to GD status, rephrase what I said if it will make it better. Ok?
To the CO’s posting in here so far: Assuming you feel safe being completely honest and forthright in this thread, please answer the following question with utter candor. Have you, or have you not, ever had knowledge of crimes committed by fellow Corrections Officers ( or, in the case of QtM since he is an MD and not a CO, NOT fellow CO’s but just COs period ) ? What have you done to rectify the situation, and how was it ultimately resolved?
This can be answered without risking exposing your real identities, nor the identities of the other CO’s.
My thesis is that it is not 999 out of 1,000, but it sure as hell ain’t 6 out of 1,000 either.
Did you flunk logic school? How does the fact that some CO’s have turned in co-workers prove that all CO’s have knowledge of criminal activity by their co-workers?
You really are hard on the reading comprehension bit aren’t you, I had hoped perhaps that you might actually read and understand some of what was posted, it does seem clear to me that all you have done is jump in partway throught the thread, make your inflammatory post, and in your blind anger, you have not read and understood what I posted, certainly not in it’s context, which was that one poster was alleging that virtually all prison staff are corrupt.
Then you state that I told you to get drunk with a few prison workers and let them pour out their prejudices to you.
You have not read what I stated all the clearly, you have made the classic mistake of skimming and filled in the bits you missed with assumptions and your own prejuduces.
So I’ll pin it up again for you.
You know about the old saying about many a true word is spoken in beer.
Unless all your work colleagues happens to be prison workers, that comment was directions to the reader, to discover the prejuduces of non-prison workers, in other words YOUR FUCKING COLLEAGUES NOT MINE YOU CLOT
Cartooniverse
I wonder what your profession happens to be, I’ll lay odds there are at least as many perverts, sickos criminals and plain arseholes( the latter of which you seem to be doing you best impression, unless you can correct me of course)
I have only ever known one person who was acting dubiously, I personally notified that individual to our security department and he was very thouroughly investigated, and it turned out that other staff had done the same, far from drawing ranks in, it turned out there were several of us, who had concerns and had raised these independantly of each other.
That person was suspended, got a severe reprimand and moved to another prison to work, under very close supervision - which I am not too happy about, because I feel he should have been dismissed just for the little I knew, and no doubt there is more to know still, but then, criminals have an awareness of the legal system that makes them slippery, which in the view of most of us at my prison have of him.
Mark my words, if ever he comes up for criminal investigations by the police in the future (which I suspect he will), I will not hesitate to highlight my previous concerns.
Such corrupt persons reflect on all prison workers and gain no sympathy from the rest of us, far from covering up, if I had even the slightest smell of a corrupt or abusive officer, I would not hesitate to ensure that person was investigated by the police, and I would be quite prepared to stand in court and testify to the fact.
For your information, there are in the UK around 48,000 prison workers, that number is almost certainly too low as there has been quite an increase in that 2 year old number.
There are serious concerns about privately run prisons as these staff have lower employment criteria to meet before coming into work in prison compared to their majority state emplyed colleageus, and several times the state prison staff have had to resolve serious control issues in privately run prisons.
Read up some about prison staff before you shoot off with the mouth.
You should also realise that the only prison staff who you are likely to read about in the media are those either murdered by prisoners, or those corrupt and criminal ones, you will never read about the rest of us, who work unseen in what is a thankless task, thankless because folk such as yourslef are not actually interestd in rehabilitation,prison as far as folk such as yourself are concernd are just human warehouses to put miscreant inside where you can forget about them, or in judicial issues, folk such as yourself simply react to sensationalism, blind prejudice and bias, all of which would make you wholly unsuitable for a post working with prisoners.
My husband used to work as an Investigator in the corrections system. He was very good at it, and managed to get rid of a lot of bad employees.
In his experience, most corrections officers want to get bad employees out of the system. The “grey wall” exists for protecting your buddies if they’re a few minutes late to work, or they forgot to lock a door when they should have. It *doesn’t *extend to behavior which can make conditions in the prison dangerous. These guys are not idiots-- they know they work with extremely dangerous people, and if provoked those people can get violent, and not just only on the officer who’s tormenting them.
In investigations, the co-workers of the accused were his most valuable resource. Sure, they were often reluctant to “snitch”, but common sense won out in the majority of cases, especially when the safety of other officers was at risk.
The most freqent way Hubby found out about innapropriate behavior was through other staff, and sometimes the inmates. On a few occasions, he recieved annonymous notes. He always investigated any allegations fully, with the full support, and encouragement of the warden and other staff. The offending employee was forced to resign, and if applicable, criminal charges would be filed. (They’d call in the State Troopers for an arrest.)
There were very, very few allegations of mistreatment of the inmates. The majority of cases involved transporting contraband into the prison, having consensual relationships and the like. (Even consensual sex is treated as a rape because of the power relationships involved.)
I don’t know how the Florida system works, but in my state, all an inmate has to do is slip a note into a box if they’re being mistreated and the Investigator immediately takes action. No complaint is ignored or dismissed, and there is no effort whatsoever to protect bad employees. On the contrary: they go to extraordinary lenghths to get rid of them, including wiring inmates, taping phone calls, and even staking out the employee’s home after hours to gather evidence.
In a prison, you have to be able to trust the person beside you with your very life. You have to trust that they’ll be there for you when the shit hits the fan, and that they’re not stupdily creating new situations.
Dunno if you were being sarcastic or not, but I’ll answer this as if it was serious.
It’s not a big problem, numbers-wise, but it does happen. Mostly, it happens between female staff members and inmates, but occasionally, it’s a homosexual affair.
For women who have always been powerless in their relationships, having a relationship with an inmate can be very attractive, The woman always knows where he is, and she controls when and where they’ll meet and what contact they will have. Inmates can be incredibly romantic. I’ve read a few letters from them to staff members, and by god, they’re poetry. A woman who’s never felt worshipped can be really swept away by all of this.
I know of one female staff member who lost her job, her marriage, her kids and her home over an affair with an inmate. Last I heard, she was still waiting for him to be parolled.
A lot of the time, it doesn’t reach the sexual stage, but the employee is still fired. Favortism and secrecy are dangerous in a prison environment.
Many people are surprised when I tell them that inmate-on-inmate rape is also somewhat of a rarity. (“Rape” being defined as forcible, violent rape.) Coercive rape is a bigger problem, and that’s where an inmate submits to sexual relations because they’re threatened with violence or blackmailed. (As in, “I’ll protect you from those guys who want to beat you up,” or “I’ll snitch on your drug-dealing activites if you don’t.”)
Staff members are carefully trained to watch for signs of sexual abuse, both from inmates and staff members. An inmate who reports abuse has no fear of repercussions. He will be locked up in protective custody (with word being put out that he’s in there for breaking a rule) and then sent to another prison. The perpetrator is investigated in the same way he would be if the incident happened outside of the prison, with the same dilligence. He will be prosecuted and convicted, and probably sent to a higher-security intitution where he won’t be able to prey upon others.
Ah. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me that there may be female guards in a prison for men, despite the fact that there were female guards when my male friend was in prison a few years ago. I must have temporarily disconnected that synapse or something.
Cartoon, I wrote a response to your posts. But upon review, I realized that even in this forum it might have gotten me banned from the board. So I have submitted it via email to a moderator to be reviewed. If it’s cleared I will post it.
You an tell by my grammatical errors that I was pretty well pissed at Cartooniverse, I’ve had to change rather a lot of my last post to make it decent.
Fact is, folk such as him are never going to understand, or even want to understand, the realities of prison.
I’m not going to waste time and effort coming up with some flame for him, though his personal insult to the integrity of prison workers probably does justify such a reply.
His/her attitude to prison staff is an illustration of what we face away from our workplaces, it’s as if this poster seems to think that the real criminals in prison are the ones who run them.
It appears to me that the lack of any respect for prison workers, accusations of corruption and gross misconduct shows me that the USA loves its criminals more than those who have the unenviable task of keeping them from harming society.
Seems the US has always had this love of outlaws, from evil arseholes like Jesse James, to the gangsta rap scene, where those operating the justice system are portrayed as corrupt, evil, or incompetent, Cartooniverse is a symptom of that, what price freedom eh ?
Fascinating. You just said that I seem to think that the real criminals in prison are the ones who run them. Then you go on to say I am a symptom of gangsta rap, Jesse James and love of arseholes ( sic ) who are evil.
What you are apparently incapable of admitting is that I provided cite of over one dozen criminals wearing the same unifom you don each day. I did so quite carefully, reading each cite.
One of two things is true. Either you believe I made up each and every one of those linked cites ( a daunting task for a person who wants to commit Board fraud, since every one of those publications is recognized on this side of the puddle as legitmate ), or you must believe that every cite I provided honestly reflects a crime committed by a Corrections Officer, ranging from extortion to rape to drug smuggling.
So. Since you have decided what my moral code and framework is without knowing a thing about me, why don’t you finish off the job and tell me which is true? Did I accurately cite over one dozen criminal acts, or are you in fact accusing me of completely fabricating all of the data I have used to support my claim that the numbers are far higher than six men raping women in one prison in Florida. Jesse James and gangsta rap indeed.
Try not to fall off of your high horse while you’re at it, eh? The Whitechapel murders involved the evisceration of living women from vagina to sternum with such upward violence and velocity as to disgust the witnesses who photographed the mutilated victims. They occurred more recently than the crimes of Jesse James. Throwing stones, glass houses, and so on, eh ?
You seem to think that pointing out cold hard fact equals a lack of respect. Apparently you are the on incapable of reading my posts carefully. I will be delighted to re-state what I have said for you, in case you are having trouble comprehending.
I said that I know CO’s in my community. I speak to them about what they do. I have respect for the work they do and how they do it. Knowing a few of them does not make them all a bunch of angels. However, nowhere in my posts can you quote me as saying I have no respect for any CO’s worldwide, or just in the UK, or just in the USA.
No doubt you correct, however you must admit that the OP and reason for this thread addresses murder committed during the attempted apprehension of male guards raping female prisoners for a variety of reasons.
And, since you yourself have accurately stated that CO’s and Prisons regard sex of this kind as rape, I will continue to use that word. Thank you for the confirmation, as I was fairly sure it was being used accurately but not 100 % sure. Now that the wife of a CO has confirmed this, I can use it without fear of being flamed for misusing a surely inflammatory word. Thanks !
I think it would be a mischaracterization to think that these sort of things are common or widespread. As I said, I don’t know the Florida system, but if it’s anything like my state, I’m very surprised this went on for as long as it did. It’s very hard to keep secrets in a prison.
Inmates are wards of the state, which practically means they’re “children” when it comes to things like consent. By definition, an inmate cannot consent to sex with an employee. That said, I know of no employees who have been prosecuted for statutory rape.
Minor point: Hubby was never a CO. He was an Investigator and now he’s a deputy warden.
Cartoon, you’re obviously an irrational bigot (as if there’s any other kind) so I guess there’s no point in trying to reason with you further. But to refute a couple of the more specific mistakes you wrote, Qadgop, who you accused of turning a blind eye to crimes committed by guards, actually said “they need to be identified and to suffer the consequences of their behavior” and “what we need is a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior, and appropriate consequences”. The 999 out of 1000 comment I referred to and which you claim didn’t exist, was in Paul’s post - “I swear not one person in a thousand is morally fit to be a prison guard. Further, for what we pay them, those people are not signing up.” And casdave, who has already explained his own post, was clearly referring to the way other people talk about prison guards and the prejudiced opinions they hold about us. I suppose he could have just as easily skipped his speculations on what’s being said in pubs and just quoted posts in this thread. As for your claim that 12 criminals in an occupation that has over half a million members proves your pet prejudice, that’s so foolish I’m just going to let it sit out there and wither away on its own.
And now let’s make it personal. I know from my own experience that crime does not exist in corrections in anything like the way you say it does. So your beliefs have no basis in reality. And you claim to have spent time in prisons and with correction officers, so presumedly you should also know this based on you own experience. But somehow you don’t.
I have this rule of thumb that I’ve often found useful and true - people tend to project their own sins onto others. Liars never trust anyone else; thiefs think people are stealing from them; adulterers think their spouses are cheating on them. People just naturally become obsessed with the crimes they themselves are committing and convince themselves they see the signs of everyone being guilty of these same crimes.
Which brings us back to you. For some unknown reason, you’re convinced that most employees in prisons are committing crimes against inmates. You’re almost hysterical in defense of the belief that everybody’s doing it. And you’ve stated that you sometimes work inside prisons. So all I can say is that if you were coming inside my prison, I’d be keeping a very close eye on you.
No apologies necessary. It was a reasonable assumption.
I just asked Hubby for some statistics. In the two years he was Investigator, he fired nearly thirty employees. Only one of them was fired for mistreatment of an inmate. Eight were fired for what is called “inappropriate relationships” with inmates. (Hubby believes two, possibly three of these relationships reached the sexual stage, but never proved sex actually took place.) Seven of the fired employees were female, one was male. The rest were all fired for rules infractions, conveying contraband, etc.
in MI it’s against the law for a co to have (even consensual) sex w/an inmate. its difficult to tell consensuality under the circumstances (some inmates specifically attempted to have sex w/ cos to make the accusation)… IME, anyhow. worked in a half way house, testified against a co in these circumstances, turned over evidence in another case as well.
What difference does that make? My husband is a CO. But I’m not going to go on and on, about what a moral upstanding guy he is. I’ll just say that at the time he took the job, it was either that or selling used cars. He tried selling the cars for 2 months, but couldn’t handle the underhanded ways he was told to cheat people out of their money.
