18 Female Prison Guards are Fired for 'Illicit Affairs' With Inmates at 'Britain's Cushiest Jail'

Much has been made in this space lately - I guess all of it by me - about the situation at the LaVergne, Tennessee Police Department and how it relates to the challenges of law enforcement in a difficult time in our history.

Well, very much related to law enforcement and by no means less of an issue in our current climate is the matter of prison reform. And so it is worth taking a look at how a new approach to punishment and rehabilitation is taking place in Britain right now:

Source - Prisoners at 'Britain's cushiest jail' where 18 female guards have been fired for having affairs with inmates are allowed to use laptops and mobile phones in their 'rooms' and have access to a 'health and wellbeing centre'. 

Figures discovered in Freedom of Information requests found more than a dozen illicit relationships had taken place over the past six years at HMP Berwyn, Britain's biggest prison.

Shamed prison staff Jennifer Gavan, 27, Ayshea Gunn, 27, and Emily Watson, 26, have all been jailed within the last three years for having relationships with prisoners at the £250million super prison. ...

The facility aims to rehabilitate offenders by taking a different approach to a traditional prison. 

Inmates are housed in 'rooms' - not cells - and enjoy a range of facilities including a full-sized sports hall, a fitness room, multi-use games areas, outdoor pitches and an industry building housing 12 workshops. ...

Prisoners have phones in their rooms and are able to make calls at any time. ...

In 2019, it emerged officer Ayshea Gunn, 27, had entered into a relationship with 'dangerous' inmate Khuram Razaq, 29.

A search of Gunn's bedroom revealed snaps of the pair kissing and hugging also with mobile phone pictures taken in his cell. She was subsequently jailed for one year at Mold Crown Court in 2019.

Officer Emily Watson, 26, was jailed for one year in April 2019 at the same court for performing a sex act on an inmate in his cell.

Given that Watson spent so much time with John McGee at the prison, staff soon became suspicious and launched an investigation.

Mold Crown Court heard they had been alone together in his cell on three occasions when she performed a sex act on him twice and had intercourse once. 

In 2019, one ex-prisoner, known only as Christopher, who had been sentenced to 11 months for assault, told a television programme that loud music, drink and drugs were commonplace there, courtesy of inexperienced guards.

'The jail needs to be run more like a jail,' he said. 'At the moment it's being run like a youth club.'

Look, I won't pretend to be an authority on this subject. Even though I worked with incarcerated people during my time employed by the Massachusetts Trial Court, I probably learned more from watching women's prison movies on late night Cinemax back in the '90s. So I can't claim to understand the inner workings of our houses of corrections. But it sounds to me like this is an idea worth trying. 

We hear a lot about America's "school-to-prison pipeline," and how it can be an endless cycle of crime, incarceration, release, and re-offending, with no hope for these young men to get out. Perhaps what we need is the approach of HMP Berwyn. Put the "penile" in "penal system." Let these repeat offenders have illicit affairs (allegedly) with presumably willing partners like Jennifer Gavan,  Ayshea Gunn, and Emily Watson (allegedly), and let them know what awaits them on the outside. Give them an incentive to get their lives in order, and become productive members of society. "Sexed Straight," if you will. 

Even as I say this, I have to acknowledge the potential for this system to backfire. There are times when life is hard, that the idea of being incarcerated, with no responsibilities, no bills to pay, no need to work, "getting three hots and a cot" as the saying goes, is not without some appeal. Add to the fact you get all that recreational activity. The use of phones and internet, but strictly on your schedule, where you don't have to talk to your family if you don't want to. Plus you get to hook up with a dime like Ayshea Gunn? I guess I'm not seeing the downside.

Unless it gets old after awhile, because you can't leave whenever you want to be alone. I guess I'm thinking of that story arc in Rescue Me where Lenny Clarke's character went to jail for murdering the drunk driver who killed is nephew. And for a while there he thinks he has it made because this woman wants to come do conjugal visits with him and it's great. Until she marries him and starts controlling his life like an old married couple and he can't get out of it. That would be tough. 

But if you could somehow meet a guard who just wants casual hookups with no commitment and no expectations? I can't imagine a better prison existence. Even if it encourages recidivism, at the very least it would lessen the need for more guards because it would reduce escape attempts to zero. So all of society wins.

So thanks to Officers Gavan, Gunn, Watson, and the other 15 for at least trying this. They might have just reinvented the prison systems of two nations.