Joyce Mitchell, alleged accomplice to two murderers on the loose from Clinton-Dannemora correctional facility in New York, is hardly the only prison employee to ever have allegedly aided—and had sex with—detainees. From Jeffrey Toobin’s “This Is My Jail” in the April 14, 2014 issue of The New Yorker:
Many relationships between guards and inmates appear to have been consensual, and initiated by the inmates. “When they started having these really young girls as guards, that’s when it really went downhill,” the former inmate Kevin said. “They get infatuated with the gang members.” In a way, the more serious the charges against an inmate, the more deference he would be accorded by the guards. “Most of the C.O.s, they was young,” Vernon, another former inmate, told me. “If you came in with high-profile charges, they would treat you with more respect. The big-time drug kingpins would be more likely to get what they want. The guards would worry about the repercussions if they didn’t. There were relationships in there. I saw a C.O. used to bring McDonald’s to this dude. That’s cause she was his baby mama.”…
…According to the government, Tavon White had sexual relationships with four guards and fathered five children by them. (One of the guards had “Tavon” tattooed on her wrist; another had the name on her neck.) An inmate and gang member named Jamar Anderson was involved with five guards. Female guards smuggled the contraband into the facility, concealing it “in their underwear, hair, internally and elsewhere,” according to a government filing. The guards were subject to cursory or nonexistent searches when they entered the premises, and they also brought in the cell phones for the inmates to use, even though correctional officers were forbidden to carry phones while working.
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