Corruption

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

Months before a federal indictment detailed allegations of corruption at the Baltimore City Detention Center, the smuggling and sexual improprieties at the core of that case had already been outlined in an inmate's lawsuit. Calvin Hemphill, in a handwritten civil complaint filed in federal court in July, alleged that fellow inmate Tavon White was a gang leader who held a startling degree of jailhouse power. Cellphones - illegal in the jail - were readily available to White, he held control over the jail's "working man" program, and he was able to come and go from his cell as he pleased, according to the court papers.

The federal racketeering and drug charges unveiled this week against 25 inmates and guards at the Baltimore City Detention Center raise serious questions about the state's management of the facility. Investigators detailed a pattern of corruption and criminal behavior that was so widespread that for much of the last few years, the inmates were literally running the asylum. It will take drastic action to root out the crooked corrections officers and incompetent higher-ups responsible for this debacle, but that's only a start.

What a bombshell - more corruption in the state of Maryland ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24). From what I read, we really do have the inmates running the asylum. It seems that public safety department secretary Gary D. Maynard is totally clueless as to who is really in charge there. But should anyone be surprised to see another case of corruption in this state? Citizens have already seen former Queen Mayor Shelia Dixon resigning with a full pension after she was found to have used gift cards on herself that were meant for the needy.

With the recent revelations regarding insider trading by members of Congress, citizens expect an explanation and disclosure of lawmakers' financial records ("Keeping Congress clean," Nov. 28). I cannot find words to describe how despicable I find lawmakers' actions. If lawmakers would eliminate the fraud, misappropriation of funds and corruption that goes along with all the money they are spending and wasting, that would be a step in the right direction. Richard LaCourse, Forest Hill

What a bombshell - more corruption in the state of Maryland ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24). From what I read, we really do have the inmates running the asylum. It seems that public safety department secretary Gary D. Maynard is totally clueless as to who is really in charge there. But should anyone be surprised to see another case of corruption in this state? Citizens have already seen former Queen Mayor Shelia Dixon resigning with a full pension after she was found to have used gift cards on herself that were meant for the needy.

In your editorial "Questions for Mr. Karzai" (Nov. 9) you make the case that if corruption isn't purged from the Afghan government, the United States should discontinue the war there against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Frankly, I don't understand how one has anything to do with the other. If what we're doing there is making certain the people of Afghanistan have a stable government, and building the instrumentalities and infrastructure of a free and open society, then the corruption of the Karzai government would obviously need to be mitigated.

SOMETIMES, when I read the stories from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union about how the corruptions of capitalism have set in after the fall of communism, my mind is seized with memories and with wonderment.The stories are all true, I know, and should be told. And there will be many more of them that will have to be reported.But the stories present me with memories of the couple of years I spent living under a kind of corruption that I had not known existed.It was corruption not as a sometime thing but as the sum of society.

Endemic corruption in Afghanistan amounts to a virtual tax on poverty-stricken Afghans, robbing them of the equivalent of a quarter of the war-racked nation's annual gross domestic product, a new U.N. report states. The report, released Tuesday by the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime, found that nearly 60 percent of Afghans regarded corruption as their biggest worry, outpacing concerns about the insurgency or joblessness. As President Hamid Karzai's government prepares for an international aid conference in London on Jan. 28, it likely will face tough questions about measures under way to battle corruption.

When Laura Neuman took over John Leopold's position as Anne Arundel County executive, her first order of business was to fire his existing staff, saying his proven corruption could have only existed through the connivance of those around him. That was very insightful on her part, but doesn't the same reasoning apply to the corruption uncovered at the Baltimore City Detention Center ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24)? How could all of this have gone on for so long unless many people deliberately turned their backs to what was happening?

Apparently Tavon White, the leader of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang at the Baltimore City Detention Center, has been running the prison for some time ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24). To connect the dots between violent crime, simply follow the money - it leads to the group's drug trafficking. Power, and the money that generates it, drive illegal businesses. Excitement, money and power are pumped up on sound systems and flat screen TVs across the country. That makes it sexy to sell and use drugs and even to be a gang member.

When Laura Neuman took over John Leopold's position as Anne Arundel County executive, her first order of business was to fire his existing staff, saying his proven corruption could have only existed through the connivance of those around him. That was very insightful on her part, but doesn't the same reasoning apply to the corruption uncovered at the Baltimore City Detention Center ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24)? How could all of this have gone on for so long unless many people deliberately turned their backs to what was happening?

I have to applaud Sen. Lisa Gladden for her creative assertion that if future female correctional officers are hired on the basis of having a college degree they would be immune to the sexual advances of male inmates ("Guards protected from discipline, FBI says," April 25). Apparently, Senator Gladden feels that a woman who is better educated than a male inmate who is high school drop-out would be immune to his charms. "If you had college graduates, four-year graduates, do you think they're going to be messing around with a guy who dropped out of high school?"

Let me start with this: If not for the absurd war on drugs — by far, the nation's longest war — we would not have had so many killings on the streets of Baltimore over the years. The United States leads the world in incarceration. Without the war on drugs, thousands of men and women would be home with their families instead of in cellblocks; they might even be employed. There would be less social dysfunction and community upheaval. There would be less crime overall. If not for the war on drugs, now in its fifth decade, we would not have gangsters, like the reputed Black Guerrilla Family leaders Eric Brown and Tavon White.

Corrections officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center were preparing for a middle-of-the-night search of jail cells, aimed at rooting out drugs, cellphones, weapons and any other contraband inmates had stashed away. But the officers weren't the only ones getting ready. Hours before the planned checks in January, an FBI affidavit says, word reached Tavon White, an inmate who prosecutors say reigned as the jailhouse leader of a violent gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. White's alleged tipster, according to court records: a corrections officer at the jail.

In a career that's spanned more than four decades in four states, Gary D. Maynard has dealt with inmate sex scandals, prison riots, suicides and shrinking public safety budgets. Last week, the Maryland corrections secretary faced a bank of TV cameras and the latest crisis in his long career. This one would make national news and prompt an outcry from across the state: Gang members allegedly built a wide-ranging criminal enterprise in the Baltimore City Detention Center, dealing drugs and impregnating correctional officers.

Leslie Johnson walked into the Prince George's County Council chambers Tuesday morning, and began her usual routine — joining her colleagues in prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Although most of the council didn't know it, she had just handed in a resignation letter. Minutes later, she left through a back door. It was Johnson's first appearance in public since she pleaded guilty last week to destroying evidence in a federal investigation of county government corruption. At the time, Johnson said she would stay on the council until her sentencing in October, prompting vociferous objections from fellow politicians and the public.

ROME -- The U.N. World Food Program said today a growing number of Rwandan children were going hungry in Zaire's refugee camps because food distribution was controlled by corrupt Rwandan leaders.The agency said the situation is especially bad in the Mugunga camp in Goma on Zaire's border with Rwanda, home to 200,000 refugees.The WFP blamed the rise in malnutrition on those who distribute the rations."The more vulnerable groups do not receive enough food because of corruption and food leakages at the distribution level," the WFP said.

The federal racketeering and drug charges unveiled this week against 25 inmates and guards at the Baltimore City Detention Center raise serious questions about the state's management of the facility. Investigators detailed a pattern of corruption and criminal behavior that was so widespread that for much of the last few years, the inmates were literally running the asylum. It will take drastic action to root out the crooked corrections officers and incompetent higher-ups responsible for this debacle, but that's only a start.

Distracted by the deadly violence in Mali and Algeria, no one seems to be paying adequate attention to the tragicomedy under way in Pakistan. This matters because recent events demonstrate without equivocation that Pakistan is an utterly failed state -- but one that possesses nuclear weapons. The country is tumbling down the abyss. Where else could a fundamentalist Muslim cleric who lives in Canada draw tens of thousands of fans to a rally calling for dissolution of the government -- speaking from inside a shipping container with a bulletproof window?