This will have you shaking your head.

A major scandal in the Baltimore city corrections system netted an indictment of 25 people — including 13 prison guards — on charges of drug conspiracy, money laundering and racketeering, all run through a prison gang operation in which inmates virtually controlled the jail in which they were incarcerated.

Federal law enforcement officials say the defendants conspired with or took bribes from members of the Black Guerilla Family to smuggle drugs, cellphones, and other contraband in and out of the Baltimore City Detention Center and several facilities connected to it. Four female corrections officers named in the indictment even allegedly became pregnant (one of them twice) by the gang’s accused ringleader, inmate Tavon White.

The scheme ran from 2009 through at least February, when it was discovered through a series of inspections by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

But before it was busted, the gang operated with near complete impunity.”In this case, the inmates literally took over the asylum and the detention centers became safe havens for the BGF,” said FBI Special Agent Stephen E. Vogt in a statement. “Law enforcement should not have to concern itself with criminal subjects who have already been arrested and relegated to detention centers.”

At the center of the allegations is White, 36, who was accused of a 2009 attempted murder and was being held at BCDC awaiting trial. In a transcript of an intercepted cellphone call included in the indictment, he appears to implicate himself as the leader of the gang by asserting that nothing happens within the jail without his approval:

This is my jail. You understand that? I’m dead serious….I make every final call in this jail…and nothing go past me, everything come to me….Any of my brothers that deal with anybody, it’s gonna come to me. You see what I am saying? Everything come to me. Everything. Before a mother-f—— hit a n—— in the mouth, guess what they do, they gotta run it through me. I tell them whether it’s a go ahead, and they can do it or whether they hold back. Before a mother-f—— stab somebody, they gotta run it through me….Anything that get done must go through me. ”

The Black Guerilla Family is one of many prison gangs that operate throughout the country. Its origins date back to the radical movements of the 1960s, and it operates within various prison systems and also on the streets; a member was convicted in the 1989 shooting death of Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton. The BGF has been the dominant gang at the Baltimore facility since 2006.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/04/24/sex-with-guards-in-baltimore-prison-scandal/#ixzz2RVXV4rjQ

Yes, but let's not privatize the nation's prisons.

If those prison guards are found guilty, will they still receive their pensions?

In Florida, court-related employees convicted of felonies give up their pensions. (Except for judges, who've written themselves out of the law because it's such a mean and nasty practice against judges).

Found guilty himself, former Judge Alcee Hastings will collect both a Federal and state pensions, and receive lifetime free healthcare, because his district has sent him to Congress.

"Hastings attempted to make a political comeback by running for Secretary of State of Florida, campaigning on a platform of legalizing casinos."
—Wikipedia

I wonder why an impeached Democrat judge—impeached for bribery—would take up the cause of legalizing casinos?