Illinois trying to add more female prison guards

[January 30, 2012]  SPRINGFIELD (AP) -- The Department of Corrections wants to increase the number of female prison guards in Illinois because they're crucial to all prisons, especially when it comes to searches of inmates and visitors, a spokeswoman said.

The agency "is committed to finding ways to increase female and minority recruitment within the department," spokeswoman Stacey Solano told the Herald & Review in Decatur (http://bit.ly/yUWEjs). The department hasn't released details on its recruitment efforts, but Solano said more female guards are needed.

Corrections officials say the ratio of male to female guards throughout Illinois' prison system is 5.4 males to 1 female. The state operates all-female prisons in Lincoln, Decatur and Dwight.

The newspaper reported that during fiscal years 2010 and 2011, Illinois hired 216 female guards and 1,236 male guards. In the current fiscal year, 107 males have been hired, compared with 33 females.

The announcement of wanting to hire more female guards followed a prison watchdog group's report about alleged issues last year with male guards at the maximum-security Dwight Correctional Center, an all-female prison.

The John Howard Association said it collected reports from inmates about alleged inappropriate behavior from male guards, including physically aggressive and sexually suggestive behavior.

Investigators for the Chicago-based group visited the all-female facility in August last year and said privacy was also a major concern among inmates.

"A great number of inmates expressed distress over lack of privacy and the feeling that their bodies were thoroughly exposed and on display to observation and surveillance by male officers in the housing units," noted the report, which also said that a number of inmates said many guards were fair and kind.

The group said the total number of grievances filed by inmates alleging staff misconduct was nearly double during the first half of 2011, compared with all of the year before.

The facility in Dwight has been the subject of scrutiny before.

Two lawsuits in 2008 alleged a pattern of sexual misconduct and abuse at the all-female facility.

[Associated Press]

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