By Ian Duncan
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE, Md. — The Baltimore City Detention Center had the nation’s second-highest rate of sexual contact between jail staff and inmates, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study released less than a month after federal prosecutors accused corrections officers at the jail of sleeping with gang members.
The report, released Thursday, also found higher-than-average rates of inmate abuse at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Women in prison are generally subjected to more abuse than men, and nearly 13 percent of inmates at that facility reported being abused either by a fellow inmate or staff member.
The report is based on a survey of more than 92,000 inmates at almost 600 jails and prisons. The department studied not only consensual sex but other types of misconduct and abuse.
Allen Beck, the lead author of the Justice Department study, said inmates were willing participants in about half of cases of sexual misconduct involving staff nationwide. In Maryland, sex between corrections officers and detainees is illegal.
“They’ve got time on their hands, they’re charming, they’re using their charm,” Beck said, referring to the inmates. He added that normally inmates might not be considered the victim, “but in the legal sense they are.”
“Given the power relationships that exist, things that appear as romantic ... perhaps involve some form of coercion.”
Full story: Baltimore has high rate of staff-inmate sex