After it was reported that a female prison worker helped two convicts escape in upstate New York, a new study is showing that in-prison relationships are a lot more common than we originally thought.
ABC News reports that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report early last year that 48 percent of substantiated incidents of sexual victimization included prison guards and inmates while 52 percent of the study involved just inmates.
Of the 48 percent, the majority of the cases involved women staff workers.
Earlier this month, Richard Matt and David Sweat, two convicted killers, escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. and it was reported that Joyce Mitchell, a instructor at the prison tailor shop, helped the two escape because she was in a romantic relationship with one of the men.
According to the survey, 84 percent of relationships that women staff members had with inmates “appeared to be willing.”
Glenard S. Middleton Sr., vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement that “the overwhelming majority of corrections officers are ‘upstanding examples of public service workers.’”
"It is important to not allow the irresponsible actions of a few stain a proud record of dedicated service for the majority of their colleagues,” he added.