By Annys Shin
Washington Post
BALTIMORE — The scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center, where 13 female guards were indicted in April for essentially handing over control of the jail to gang members, may be partly the legacy of a short-lived state experiment of hiring corrections officers as young as 18.
Seven of the 13 officers accused of smuggling drugs and cellphones for the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) were barely out of high school when they became corrections officers, court records and information provided by corrections officials show.
Youth and inexperience may have marked some officers as easier prey for the highly organized prison gang, corrections experts said, thus adding age to a broken disciplinary system, ineffective training and poor supervision as factors making the detention center fertile ground for corruption.
The seven indicted officers who went to work behind bars guarding hundreds of inmates before they were legally able to drink were hired over a six-year period that began in 2002, when the state lowered the hiring age from 21 to 18. The change was suggested by local jailers in more rural parts of the state such as St. Mary’s and Cecil counties who were having trouble finding qualified candidates, said William Sondervan, a former top corrections official who was involved in the decision and worried that 18 was too young.
Full story: Hiring guards as young as 18 may have fueled Baltimore jail scandal