SCANDALS BEHIND BARS

Tragedy in Tallahassee should prompt a federal investigation

Guards accused of trading money and drugs for sex with female
prisoners. A prison-lobby shootout in which a guard and a federal
agent are killed.

Scenes from a bad film?

Unfortunately, no.

Federal law-enforcement agents walked into the Federal Correctional
Institution in Tallahassee on Wednesday to arrest six guards. An
investigation had indicated that at least 10 incarcerated women had
either traded sex for contraband or were forced to submit to sex or
else face punishment.

Before the agents could arrest one of the guards, he pulled a gun. In
the ensuing shootout, the guard and an agent were killed and another
agent was wounded.

Could a gunfight -- or behind-the-scenes sexual oppression -- unfold
at a prison or jail near you? Probably so.

An Associated Press report in Friday's Herald-Tribune cited sex-abuse
scandals occurring this year at a juvenile facility in Indianapolis,
county jails in Utah and Washington state and a state prison in Colorado.

In a nationwide survey of 2,700 correctional facilities in 2004, the
federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found that charges of staff
sexual misconduct were filed in all but one state prison; similar
charges were made at two of every five local jails.

As the tragedy in Tallahassee indicates, federal institutions are not
immune.

Too many prisons and jails in this country are hellholes in need of
substantial reform. The scandals in Tallahassee and elsewhere should
prompt a federal investigation of correctional facilities, practices
and policies.

And the public should demand reform. A system that places people
behind bars is not just if it allows those people to be subjected to
criminal abuse by guards, if prisoners fail to receive adequate
medical care, or if gangs or other inmates control the place.

The violence in Tallahassee spotlights a serious problem that this
country has ignored for too long -- its jails and prisons.