wow, this is quite the story...




TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago.


ill skip to the meat and potatoes:



McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system -- one that he says seemed obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games.

"I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times."

"The connection between the softball and the parties and the corruption and the beatings was greatly intertwined."


So really, it's not just the matter of guards treating the prisoners as sub-humans, but actually treating each other this way too. It makes me think that the entire process of jail is so centered around hostility and aggression, that this type of thing is inevitable. We aren't rehabilitating people, we are scaring the crap out of them, in hopes they are so traumatized by the experience they will never want to go back again.



McDonough fired 90 top prison officials -- wardens, supervisors, colonels and majors -- claiming they were corrupt or, at the very least, not to be trusted. He demoted 280 others.

Criminal charges were filed against more than 40 others, and most were convicted. In addition to the orgies and other misconduct outside the cell blocks, there were other allegations of prisoners being harmed, McDonough said.


sounds like a decent person. Glad to read a story about someone fighting corruption every once in a while!