Two news stories in the U.S. at the moment of corrections officers being caught for smuggling drugs has again highlighted the potential for corruption and abuse of power in the prison system, in which drug use is extensive.
In one case, federal agents tried this Wednesday to arrest six corrections officers in a Tallahassee, Florida federal prison on charges of trading drugs for sex from female inmates and got involved in a shootout instead. The battle began after one of the guards, Ralph Hill, resisted arrest with a gun he had smuggled inside. Hill died, along with an agent from the Office of Inspector General.
The indictment against the prison guards detailed a scheme whereby prisoners gave the guards sex in exchange for receiving contraband such as cash, marijuana, messages, alcohol and food. When inmates threatened to expose what was going on they were allegedly threatened themselves, with guards indicating they would plant contraband in their cells and get them transferred to prisons far away from their families. The guards also broke into the inmates’ personal files, sharing some of the information in them with the inmates, to demonstrate that their threats were serious.
In the other case, Jay Griggs, a jailer from New Jersey, admitted in court that he smuggled items such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana and rolling tobacco into prison for the benefit of a gang member. Griggs had worked at the Essex county jail for ten years and had a salary of $66,000 per year.
