Real purpose feminine jail guards are getting overly pleasant with banged up crooks
After prison officer Toni Cole, 29, was jailed for getting frisky with a male convict, the question remains – why are so are there so many inappropriate relationships between guards and lags?
Cases of female prison officers engaging in intimate relations with criminals behind bars have been on the rise.
Most recently Toni Cole, a guard who admitted to forming a “sexualised or flirtatious” nature with a 28-year-old prisoner over five months, even sharing a photograph of underwear.
It comes after Linda De Sousa Abreu, 30, was jailed for 15 months earlier this year after admitting to a steamy affair with an inmate. The case hit national news after a clip emerged capturing a female guard in the throes of passion with a male prisoner in his cell.
The video featured the uniformed officer engaging in sexual acts with the convict as his pal recorded the sordid scene on a mobile phone from the Category B wing.
The inmate behind the camera bragged: “Guys, we’ve made history, this is what I’m telling you.”
And then there was Sarah Williams, who within a year of becoming a prison officer had fallen foul of a “sophisticated” group of convicts. In 2023, a court heard how the 39-year-old from Widnes developed “inappropriate” relationships with three lags jailed for firearms and drugs offences.
Her lawyer said that Williams, who has a bipolar affective disorder, “fell into the traps and arms of sophisticated criminals”.
The publicly declared number of prison officers getting the sack for inappropriate relationships with inmates has risen from five a decade ago in 2014-15 to 14 in 2021-22.
Elsewhere dismissals for misconduct have doubled from 99 to 193 since 2021, while over 120 guards have been investigated for corruption since 2016, the Telegraph reports.
According to the publication, the growth in cases has coincided with a large shift in the workforce to one that is more female, less experienced and younger to ones seen a decade ago.
There are now reportedly 3,000 more women working in prisons than five years ago, up from 13,800 to nearly 16,600 in recent figures.
“When you have young, inexperienced staff going onto the landings, they have less life experience than sophisticated prisoners on the wings and can end up being manipulated,” said Pia Sinha, a former prison governor.
She added: “Young staff are left without adequate support and supervision, which means they are vulnerable.
“One of the concerns is the desperation to have boots on the ground means the quality of the selection process is poor.
“Prison governors often report that someone will come through the door. It is the first time they have seen them and they know instinctively that they are not going to cut the mustard, yet they have to take them.”
