Foxes Guarding the Chicken Coop – Updated

In May, Prisonpath posted an article about the cozy arrangements between Baltimore guards and the Black Guerrilla Family — the state’s largest prison gang.

Tavon White, one of the gang’s leaders, pleaded guilty to various charges on August 6, 2013, in federal court in Baltimore. He admitted using corrections officers to smuggle in cellphones, tobacco, prescription pills, and other drugs. White acknowledged bribing numerous corrections officers with money and expensive gifts such as luxury cars. He admitted in court papers to having sex with four female guards who became pregnant. The plea in court also revealed that the number of corrupt correctional officers exceeded the original thirteen female guards listed in the indictment filed last spring.

The following is from our original article posted in May:

Every month brings new stories about correctional officers and inmates in Maryland. Last month, we posted the story about female correctional officers and gang members in Baltimore.  An investigation had revealed certain female correctional officers had smuggled cell phones, drugs,  and provided sex to members of the BGF gang in return for expensive gifts such as cars and jewellery. The Washington Post has now published that one of the guards, Antonia Allison, had resigned in 2006 for allegedly allowing gang members to assault an inmate. Nine months after this incident, she was allowed to come back to work as a correctional officer again. Seven years later, she was indicted with twelve other guards for helping a prison gang’s drug trafficking and other illegal activities.

Maryland has over 25,000 inmates and 7500 correctional officers. The state has only 19 investigators overseeing the guards and 24 prisons. Any inmate in the Baltimore prisons can give an account of the power of the gangs and their sometimes symbiotic relationship with correctional officers.  As a former inmate in Maryland, it was difficult at times to distinguish between the foxes and the chickens. For more information, see the Washington Post article on the struggles of Maryland’s prison system to police guards and inmates.