Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, this is life inside Chris. Do you want the
real deal? Homide?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This is what you miss when the sale lits.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Get your mind right and thinks straight. You know the
perspective of see os in the inmates. This is life now.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Just want to survive now when the lights out?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Keep quiet? Better, right down? If you're ready forward less
get it. You want to know the truth? Take a
pisit life inside prison? Lay?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome back everybody. Today we have a great guest, Gary York.
He's the author. He's a book author and those who
are commonists for Corrections one dot com and a former
correctional officer. So we're gonna be talking about you guessed
it talking about prisons today. He also read a book
the US. Book is called The Toughest Job Correctional Officer USA.
But he's written two other books, Corruption Behind Bars and
(00:50):
Inside the Inner Circle. He also served in the US
Army from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty seven. He
was honorably discharged of the rank of staff sergeant from
the Military Police Corps. You also received the Army Commendation
Medal and Soldier of the Quarter award while serving. So
we're gonna be talking a little bit about corrections in
a minute before we get started. You know what to do, share, subscribe,
(01:10):
hit that I like but you don't, we like it.
There's not wasays any more time working to the show.
Gary Yorke, Welcome, Gary.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Hello, and thank you for having me on. It's an honor.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Thank you very much for doing this. Thank you for
your service as well.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you. So.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I guess my first question is what made you or
what motivated you to write these books? I think got
a lot of stories, but what did you what this?
What made you decide? You know what I got to
get the public to know about.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
This, Yes, sir, I wrote these books to educate and
inform not only the public, but anybody that's interested in
coming into corrections with the goal in mind of helping
the honest, hard working correctional officer's image. When an officer
(01:56):
becomes a bad apple, becomes corrupt, they're tainting the image
of those officers who come to work every day and
they work hard to protect the community. They work hard
to protect everyone behind the walls and one rotten apple.
It's full of a whole bunch through the media. Because
(02:17):
the media, yes, they tell good stories about officers but
they also tell a lot of the bad stories. For
some reason, they seem to gravitate towards the bad stories
more so, my goal is to try to teach and
educate and inform what to look for and how to
weed out the cancer of a corrupt officer.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Can you remember the very first times, I'm sure when
you were a CEO, the very first time Pulpy shocked
you a little bit, I'm assuming with the correctional officers
that go in there with the mindset of doing right
and helping, and all of a sudden you saw somebody
doing something you're thinking, wait a minute, you should be
on the other side, and that shouldn't be on our side.
Did you ever hear the first time that happened?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yes, I got out of the military at twenty eight
years old because I went in at eighteen years old
and started as a correction officer at twenty eight years old,
a little bit of an advantage over a lot of
real young officers just coming in because I had some
some life experience, and I was a military policeman, and
you could sometimes spot, or at least I could, somebody
(03:25):
spending too much time with a certain inmate hanging around
a certain inmate too much and maybe even following the
instruction of an inmate rather than being the officer, and
I was shocked. I would stand back and look, coming
out of the military, I'm learning still because now I'm
in another field of corrections. But still I could recognize
(03:46):
a problem and an issue that might be getting ready
to blister. So I would talk to that officer and say, hey,
it's none of my business how you run your door,
but you're spending a lot of time with inmate so
and so it's not looking real good. And you know,
(04:08):
it's funny you mentioned that because that officer that I
talked to was later she was later arrested. I had
no idea she was already in the investigation. I'm a newbie. Really.
Now I'm out of the army, I'm a brand new
correction officer. I'm still trying to learn the ropes. And
she had met an undercover agent with her children in
(04:30):
the backseat to pick up drugs, and they arrested her.
She was going to bring those drugs to that inmate.
And you talk about shocked. I came to work and
it was announced to us a briefing that she was
arrested I was on point with what I saw, and
I tried to correct it face to face, and she
ended up in jail. It's a strange situation, and that's
(04:53):
what got me later on to apply to be a
prison inspecter.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Interesting, I never really crushed or did it crush your
perception what a correctional officer was. Did it ruin your
image of what a correctional officer was. Did you say,
you know, this is crap like this happens.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
No, it did not run the image of what a
correction should be because I knew a lot of those
folks way back then in nineteen ninety that I still
know today that are retired that were good, honest, hardworking officers.
So I knew from being in the army ten years
that you're going to have a few bad apples. I
knew that already in any job, folks. I don't want
(05:38):
to act like it's just corrections. You know, any job
in this country, you're going to have a few bad apples.
It's not just corrections. But we're talking about corrections today
in prison.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
No, that's absolutely true. I mean we just saw. We
can see it all the time in the news where
a pastor was arrested for soliciting a minor. You saw
a dentist ripping off medicare. Every profession has got a
bad apple. That's a good point. And when I'm got
to get into some of your stories and your books,
I know that's one of the things the audience wants
(06:09):
to hear. You I want to hear, we don't want
to hear. But I'm just kind of curious as I
explore the mind of Gary Yorke to the correctional officer,
what was one of the more the biggest weaknesses, because
I know in law enforcement, the biggest thing usually tends
to be financial issues, and this is where they start,
you know, start crumbling a little bit. Is that the
same thing for you what you saw?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes, in corrections, there is unfortunately big money to be
made for an officer if they choose to cross the line. Now,
when you cross that line, I always tell young officers
you want to cross the line, You're going to get caught. Eventually,
you're going to be arrested, probably going to be on
(06:51):
the news. You're either going to get felony probation or
jail or prison, depending on what the crime is. But uh,
what I saw was The state pay at the state
prison level in Florida just went up to forty eight
thousand starting, but in the past years it's been in
the thirties. And when I started it was really really low.
(07:14):
I think I made eighteen thy nine hundred to start.
So the pay is not so great. And if you
get anyone who has a little bit of greed, low
self esteem, or just the mind of I'm going to
make more money, they can make more money unfortunately, by
going to the dark side, as I call it, than
(07:36):
they can in their regular paycheck.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
That's insane. I've heard of transactions up to one thousand,
five thousand dollars. If you bring this in, if you
do this for me, you do that. But that starts
setting them up, doesn't it. Now all of a sudden,
they got you, and that can be a problem for
that officer, right.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yes, and the inmates will use manipulation. Now you can either.
I always say there's several types of officers. There's the
ones with low self esteem, there's the ones that are
in trouble at home financially, and then there's just some
that are just coming in to do dirty deeds, you know. Unfortunately, again,
I want to emphasize the majority or hardworking, honest officers.
(08:17):
But let's take, for example, somebody is in behind on
their house payment, has no money, and they talk about
it to another corrector officer and an inmate. Here's this.
Then they target that officer. They say, there's my target,
and they talk to them. Say, hey, officer, I'm sorry.
I overheard. Now, this officer has never done anything wrong.
(08:39):
Now before, officer, I overheard what you're saying, and it
sounds like Christmas is going to be terrible for your family.
You know I can help you. I can help you
get over your financial problems. You just need to bring
me every week a state dinner and round royal whiskey,
(09:02):
and I will have a person on the outside give
you five hundred dollars cash a week. So that's two
thousand a month for this officer to catch up his
bills extra from his paycheck. This happened here in Florida
at the Sodo Correction Institution. I was assigned the investigation,
(09:22):
and this officer was arrested and for getting two thousand
dollars a month, not for bringing drugs or weapons. But
remember contraband is contraband under nine four four point four
to seven Florida statue. Food is contraband food all the
way up to drugs and weapons. So he's bringing in
(09:42):
whiskey and steak and he now has a felony. He
got felony probation for two years and lost his job
at a certification.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
How long did he do that for?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
He had been doing it for about three when I
got the investigation. Now here's the kicker. When inmates are
done with you, they will turn you in. In other words,
he went to the inmate and said, my wife is
a little bit worried about me bringing this food in,
and I'm gonna quit. Now, no you're not. You quit
(10:21):
and I'm gonna turn it in. And he said, well,
you can't prove anything. I'm gonna quit bringing you whiskey
and food. And he quit, and the inmate that was
paying him turned him in. Gave me a sworn tape statement,
gave me the copies of the cashiers checks, and didn't
(10:41):
pay him in cash. Inmate paid him in cashier's checks
so he could have a paper trigger. I had all
the cashiers checks, I had the family chauffeur who was
delivering the money every week. Give me a statement, very
wealthy inmate by the way, healthy.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I'm not going to mention who it was, but from
a big food chain here in Florida, very wealthy inmate
who hooked the officer hooked line and sinker.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I guess I'm not trying to give other CEO's ideas,
but I guess if you would have shut up, it
would have probably taken longer to catch them.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
If he would have continued bringing the items in, it
would have taken another inmate or an officer to catch
them in the act, and sooner or later. I always
tell them, you're gonna get caught. We luckily caught this
one early on.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
That inmate, so it was a solo individual. It wasn't
like a gang related one like this. I know sometimes
here in California they'll have like my ame, the Mexican
mafia really take a lot of control and sometimes they'll
do certain things. And I not the only ones, the
other ones around Texas as well in other states that
have their stuff. So I guess I'll be hitting in
(11:57):
that direction in a second. It's an amazing story with
two thousands of When was it like twenty years ago
when this happened?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, the story, No, this happened. I would say around
two thousand and four, two thousand five. Yeah, how almost
twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So they were making about forty grand a year, maybe
thirty five or grand a year legitimately.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
They were in their thirties, thirty eight grand a year legitimately.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, dontorry, folks, I have a point. So if they're
making that kind of money, that means they're pocketing probably
taking home twenty two to twenty three. So he basically
doubled his income.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Just a very small example. I mean, yeah, there's drug
stories that the money goes up.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
No, because it's amazing. Sometimes I hear certain stories they
get paid a few hundred bucks and they do something stupid.
But I mean that's a serious amount of cash like
I was getting. That's how tempting that can be. I
mean that changed his life for those three months now,
not for good.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well, I've done drunk cases. Where's twelve hundred a week?
Who hundred weeks? So we kept at it on a
certain case we had, we kept it at twelve hundred
when we set up the meeting at Hooters Hooters parking lot.
Hooters is a Chicken lenning place. I guess they have them.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Well, we set up the meeting there with an undercover
who was playing the the inmate's cousin, and the officer
was used to getting twelve hundred a week to pick
up drugs and smuggle him into the prison.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So we kept it at twelve hundred and got him on,
got him recorded, got him accepting the twelve hundred. So
you know, prices go way up when it comes to
the drugs and weapons.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
That's insane. If he was making forty thousand, now he's
making at least ninety one hundred. Jeez, is that's insane? Now?
Was that one? There was that a drug cartel or
gang kind of thing going on. That seems like a
lot of money for an individual. Well, I guess you
could have a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Maybe that was a group of individuals and that were
running the drug trade inside the prison. It was a
larger group with contacts on the street to supply the
cocaine and the heroine and the marijuana. All you have
to do now is find a staff member that doesn't
always have to be uniform. They'll find a nurse, a librarian,
(14:20):
a maintenance man, an officer, anybody that looks like a
weak target. They will target them to begin grooming them
to work for them.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's interesting because it gets complicated really fast. And lost
my train of thought here, But I was thinking, I
was looking. I was thinking a lot of things, a
lot of different gangs that are within the prison systems,
and how they do that, how they run an opera.
I remember watching a documentary on the prisons and we're
in Colombia, I think it was in some of those
Latin American countries, and they had I think they got
(14:55):
rid of it because they had some problems, but they
had like all these restaurants and barber shops and some
things out in the yard. And I'm looking at this.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
This is insane.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It's like a little town in there. That's crazy. But
some of these prisons that I remember my thought. I
talked to my students I teach undergrad and I can't
tell you, probably about seventy eighty percent when I asked
the question, hey, do you think they do drugs in prison?
And seventy percent No, there's no way they can't. And
a lot of them still believe the myth of a
(15:24):
lot of them dry up in prison. It's like, I
don't think so, But am I far off on that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Gary, No, you're not. And I really hate to say it,
but I'm gonna have to say it bluntly. If an
inmate wants to do drugs in any prison in the country,
they can get a hold of drugs. I had a
warden tell me one time. I said, Warden, I'm as
signed a case. We've got some drugs coming into your prison.
(15:52):
I've got an angle that I'm gonna look at. He said,
inspect for York, investigate away. We've got the contraband under control.
Being respectful to the warden, I said, thank you, Saron,
I'll start my investigation. In my mind, I wanted to
tell the warden every prison has drugs. Now. A lot
(16:13):
of wardens are a little bit hesitant to admit it
because they want they don't want to look bad. I
always tell management, don't be scared to look bad. It's
a lot better to stand up and say we had
some issues with drugs. We took care of it, we investigated,
and we stopped it. I think the public respects that
(16:34):
more than saying we don't have any We don't have
any drug as you see, we're clean, We're fine. No,
just tell tell the truth and long story short. A
week later, at the end of the week Hendrick Correctional
Institution of Florida, we arrested two nurses for dealing with
an inmate with marijuana, and we arrested two food service
(16:56):
employees for dealing with inmates in the kitchen for dealing
in cocaine. I had the help of Hendry County Sheriff's
office working with me on that case. And all I did,
I'm not one of these people saying I told you so.
I just told the warden. We rested them and they're
all in jail, and it actually hit the newspaper, small
(17:16):
town newspaper. But my message is, don't stick your head
in the sand and pretend like something's not happening. If
your prison management, we have got to work together to
weed out the corruption.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's interesting. It reminds me of a book called Simulacra Simulation.
Have you ever heard of it? It was a book
that was some people say Matrix was based on it
because a lot of times they I get it why
they do it, but they'll give us a facade of
what it's like. In certain places, like certain city council
and mayors don't want people to know their gain problems.
So they'll say a group of teenagers and I'm looking
(17:54):
at that, going, I don't know how many times I
ever just groups of teenagers getting together and causing chaos.
It's always usually gang related. It's kind of hilarious. I
saw on the headline the other day adolescents shoot at
each other and killed one. I'm like, adolescents shoot at
each other and kill one. There's true groups. So a boy,
that sounds like something I know, but I get it.
(18:17):
You know, they're trying to keep tourism down and all
that stuff, but it kind of falls along the same
line as prisons. But you give people a false sense
of reality, a false world. That's what the book is
based out, that our social media, our news creates a
world that doesn't exist. It's all made up in a sense.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And then goes back to what she says, so now
you're public. Thanks. Oh, they they can't get drugs, And
I've had people tell me how do they get drugs
in prison? That's ridiculous. They're in prison, you know, and
if they only knew how much the drug trade goes on,
and we have to find it in the prison system.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Like anybody would get steak and whiskey in prison. By
the way, folks, we're talking to Gary Yorke. The book
is called The Toughest Job Correctional Officer USA. That's just
one of two, one of three books. The other one
is called A Corruption Behind Bars and Inside the Inner Circle.
You can also follow him on corrections one dot com
to see his columns over there. So Gary, really fascinating
(19:15):
stuff and I like the way this conversation is going.
I throw ideas, you share stories, which is amazing idea,
and he's got a story for it. It's mind blowing
and scary actually at the same time. That's another thing
that people don't realize. You mentioned it kind of well
you didn't lud to. You mentioned it that they have
a connection outside. A lot of people think, well, they're
not talking to anybody that can't see anybody, But in reality,
(19:39):
there's a lot of business that can happen from within
the prison system on the outside. And did you see
any of that in regards to CEOs, In other words,
were they doing things off the clock to help individuals? Hey,
can you drop this off at my wife's house or
cousin Johnny, Even though that was probably something else going
on there.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yes, I worked with the IRS on several tax fraud
investigations in my time, and we would have inmates that
had people on the outside that would look up recently
deceased people, you know, where they could get their social
Security number and use it to write up fraudulent tax forms.
(20:21):
Now they would have the inmates would write up these
fraudulent tax forms and have an officer taken on the
outside for them, and then someone would actually send us
in and get a tax return in a deceased person's
name mailed. They would then split the money and the
officer would get a certain percentage. A female officer at
(20:45):
Pop Correctional Institution, Florida, sergeant working in the laundry room,
married to another sergeant who worked the outside squad, started
a relationship with her inmate clerk in the laundry room.
The laundry room had a sergeant and then behind her
was another desk with an inmate clerk who did the
paperwork and chan or twelve inmates would do the laundry
(21:08):
for the entire prison. She became not only romantically involved
with him, but she became involved with him on inmate
tax fraud schemes, and she also sent messages to his
family on the outside. Even went to visit his family
in Saint Petersburg, Florida, sit with them, eat with them,
(21:31):
and talk with them and tell them she's in love
with them with their incarcerated member and was going to
divorce her husband and marry it. So a lot of
cases I've worked did get involved on the outside with inmates,
families or connections to work together for criminal activity.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
The kind of read my mind as I was hitting
that direction anyway, because I think I was trying to
find statistics and I couldn't find anything on this which
was inmates having sexual relations with a CEOs. It was
really difficult, And again I think it's the facade, right,
They're trying to create the facade that it only happens
when it gets shown on the news kind of thing.
(22:14):
But I remember, Oh, what was that group called. I
think it was in Philadelphia, either Philadelphia or Minneapolis, the
Black Gorilla Family. One leader that ended up impregnating I
think it was four or five CEOs or something.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yes, Baltimore, Baltimore where that took place. The jail in Baltimore.
One male inmate impregnated four female correction officers. Everyone was
having a sexual relationship with them in the jail and
bringing in contraband to the jail. I saw a video
(22:47):
with this inmate himself talking because they wanted to do
a study, and he's bragging about I mean, he's just coffees,
could be bragging about how easy it is to get
these four, not one, but four female officers to have
sex with him and work for him bringing contraband. It
was just mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Now, that was a long time ago. That was about
thirty years ago. I think it was. Wasn't it maybe
twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
No, I'm actually gonna say sooner because I retired in
twenty eighteen and I used that video in a training
class for the Sheriff's office here in Pope County in
about twenty sixteen. I was using that video and it
was only about five years old, and it was not
as long back as you think.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Forget that question. I was going to ask you if
things would be harder for it to happen today, But
I guess not.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It happened today.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Paul Sheriff jud Grady jud Yes, very nice guy.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, that one of my sheriff. You interviewed him a
while back on your show.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yep, So I guess that leaves me to the other question.
How common was it for that activity to happen there?
Did you see that during your years?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Let me say this again so the people don't get misled.
Is it common? Yes? But you know, when you look
at the overall picture seventeen hundred officers in uniform at
the Sheriff's department, it'll happen now and then with one
(24:22):
or in the prison with even more employees here in
Florida than that, it'll happen now and then with with
with an officer. But because it's in the media, people
think who those officers? And I hate it. Somebody says
that because no, no, no, it's just those bad apples you're
(24:43):
reading about. Please don't construe the majority of the officers
to be that way. It's that bad apple that tainted
the image of those and now you think everybody's that way,
and that's not true. But as an investigator, monthly when
I get assigned cases, I would have two or three
allegations of a staff member having sexual with an inmate. Now,
(25:05):
remember forty eight prisons in the state of Florida, second
or third largest prison system in the country at that time,
and then I'm traveling to do two or three cases
of alleged sexual misconduct and I end up proving one
or two of them to be true. The last years monthly,
But it's not as big as it looks.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
You said seventeen hundred CEOs in Florida, Well that was
at the jail.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We have seventeen hundred uniform staff now in the prison system.
There was twenty thousand employees in the Florida prison system,
civilian anams twenty thousand. So let's see the Florida prison system.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Let's say you actually convicted. I'm going to really blow
it up here. Say it's forty a year.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
More than that, but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Okay, we're sexual allegations. Yes, and you actually keep a month,
so it's about thirty six a year. Let's say forty
of them are actually guilty. We're just blow it up.
It's easy for me to do. Man. Yeah, we got
twenty three thousand, We got twenty thousand CEOs. Ten percent
of that is two thousand, and one percent is two hundred.
So you're not even at a half a percent of
(26:20):
all the CEOs that are get involved. It's a really
small fraction, like you said, really small.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Right, I like to say ninety nine percent of our
correctnsers are honest, hard working people. I always use I
always use that percentage because it's that one percent that
we're catching that looks makes us look bad.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
No, yeah, I was trying to make I was trying
to see if it actually turned out that way, and
it turned out to be even higher. It's like ninety
nine point five or good at least in regards to
sexual allegations. I mean, I'm not sure about all the
other allegations. That changes a little bit. Well, I don't know.
You want to say how many how many allegations you
(26:59):
get a month just overall.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Well, my office was Region five, which covered the middle
part of Florida. We had eight inspectors and we would
each get about thirty cases a month assigned to each
of us. Now that's that's a lot of cases assigned.
But not all of them were substantiated. Many were unsubstantiated.
(27:23):
So you know, you'd have crimes of staff, inmate relationship,
smuggling drugs. Now, sometimes they go hand in hand. We
would have aggravated assault on correction lobsters. We would have
assaults inmate on inmate. I did a few murder cases
two inmates on inmate murders. I did one wrong for
(27:46):
death case in conjunction with the FBI, and that was
an inmate that was tortured and killed by some officers.
You'll get You'll get the physical abuse cases assigned as well,
where officers get a little carried away and get and
they run their career and their lives by abusing an inmate.
(28:10):
You can't let your temper take control. You can't. You
cannot be implementing punishment. We're only here for care, custody,
and control. The judge and the jury made the decision.
Now you're not gonna have any you do not implement
any punishment.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I guess that leads me to a couple of different scenarios. Again,
folks are talking to Gary Yorke. Some of the books
that he's written so far than youst One is called
the Toughest Job Correctional Officer of the USA. You also
can catch corruption behind bars and inside the inner circle
of great books. If you're just sitting around wondering what
should I read next, I recommend that corrections one dot
Com column this as well. So Gary, you think I
(28:51):
kind of stir the horns nest there for a second.
But did you have any scenarios where we've heard this happen.
I know it happens. I have friends in the industry
as well. But that said, you know what, I got
to take this guy out. He's done something he shouldn't
be doing. We're going to neutralize the effect, as the
military would say. And yeah, you just want you to
(29:14):
look the other way or don't do your rounds like
you normally do, be twenty minutes late. Whatever. You're already
shaking your head, so getting the funny feeling you already
heard those stories too.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Huh, Yes, sir. You know the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement here in Florida mandates that as a correction officer,
if you see a crime being committed, you must report it.
Also in our policies and put the procedures in Florida
state statue, if you see a crime being committed, you
(29:43):
must report it. In that wrongful death case, I told
you about twenty two staff members lost their job, ten
were indicted, ten were indicted. Why did the others lose
their job? Just what you asked me. They saw things
happening over that fi day period failed to report it.
(30:03):
So failure to report a crime will either get you
your job lost or could get you arrested. As an
officer in uniform, it's your duty to report a crime.
And I know you've heard of this a lot. You
know a lot of officers are scared to report. Why
are they scared to report? Well, the code of silence.
(30:27):
I can't turn in a fellow officer. What would I
look like with my other in front of my other officers.
Or this group of ten, two captains, two sergeants and
six officers that were indicted had earned the name the
Family the stories of my book, and they became kind
of like the bullies of the prison. So the honest,
some of the honest officers actually told me that the
(30:48):
ones that lost their job, I had to interview them
as well. They said, Man, I'm scared of these guys.
They threatened us. They said, do you say anything you
know and we'll get you. I was threatened during the instigation.
The assistant warden called me and said, Gary, when you
drive over here to continue your investigation, you better go
(31:09):
get a hotel room in the next town. There's word
out that if they see you, they're going to get you.
So I was being threatened by this group of ten
these bullies week. We can't have this in corrections. They
will scare away honest officers, and they will put fear
into honest officers and they won't report what they're supposed
(31:29):
to report.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Damn crazy, I guess in our last few minutes together.
My other question is is it true? Or say I
think I know it's true, But I guess how prevalent
is is it that you'll hear claims of Look, I
have to give him this every week because he says
he's threatened my family who took a picture of my
car outside the home, so basically they were courst Does
(31:54):
that happen a lot?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yes, Uh, extortion, and that goes back to your gangs
you spoke of earlier. A lot of the gangs will
do that. We know where you live, officer, and officers.
A lot of people that don't know, say, well, how
do they find out where the off live? Well, that's
another whole story in itself. Then they just want to
(32:19):
know where an officer lives. They'll find out. Back to
the people on the streets. Back to visitation. They have
visitation and they're talking at visitation and they say, look,
when you get out there, I need to know where
that officer so and so lives. Find that out for me.
This person goes home after visiting their love them and
(32:43):
gets with the people, whether it be other gang members
or people, and they find out where the offer lives.
So now the officer says, I know you're married, I
know you have a daughter, I know you have a son.
You drive a red pickup. They know everything, and they
what you're supposed to do. When they threaten you with this.
Immediately write them up and write an incident report. I
(33:08):
have an article out on Corrections one dot com report
threats immediately. If an officer would report that threat immediately
on paper, there's disciplinary measures can be taken that would
stop boom. But you know, you're right, you're right. Some
officers get scared. They really get scared and think, well,
(33:30):
I better do what they say or they will hurt
me or my family. And I try to tell these officers,
don't you go for it. You write it up, write
it up. Once they see you're gonna write them up
immediately and take action, they're gonna stop coming to you. Yeah,
they'll go look for another target. But if every officer
would follow that instruction, I bet you would cut that
(33:51):
down quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Did they get protection to that family in the meantime?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Or you can? You can, you can go to UH,
you can go to your supervisors, tell them I'm worried.
And then what's next. Get a hold of your local shaff,
your local police department, your state attorney and gets the protection.
But what you want to do is get that threat documented.
Why that's what the state attorney will use. We can
(34:18):
probably work a case out of that. Assign the case
to an inspector. Let's get that in front of the
state attorney that our officer was threatened and his family
was threatened. Let's get this inmate charged with another crime.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
He's gone for now twenty more years instead of the
eight years he had.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Right, But if we do nothing, it gets scared that inmate's.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Going to walk all over you fascinating style. That's good.
It's good to know, especially if people out there thinking
about going into corrections. That's good to know. I guess
I want to get your thoughts my last question in
regards to this and corruption, and then I want to
get your opinion about a movie. But before we get
to the movie. How many have you seen Is it
(34:59):
common for them to help them get out? We saw
that in New York I think a couple of years ago.
The woman allowed two inmates to get out. Is that common?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I don't hear well often that We've had very similar situations. Well,
I just told you the one about the laundering room
where she was a sergeant that worked in the launder
room that fell in love with the inmate, was bringing
him these things and having sexual relationships with him. We've
had librarians do the same, bring things in cell phones
(35:33):
for the inmate because they've now fallen in love. Like
Joyce Mitchell. You're talking about Joyce Mitchell Clinton Correction Institution.
We've had librarians that are just like her. You know. Now,
I do want to say this happens on the male side.
To vote the unities out. There's not all women having
relationships with inmates. I've done. I want to get that
(35:54):
out there. I've had several cases that the women's prisons
here in Florida, where male officers are having relationships with
female inmates, just reverse the scenario. I have a lot
of women officers tell me, hey, when you do your stuff,
make sure to mention now the men do that, so, yes,
that happens.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Oh man, that's crazy. I remember that one in Clinton
some crazy stories. You know, it's harder because you can't again.
This is I guess there's a message for folks and
hopefull they're getting the idea now that you can't really
trust media's portrayal of it because they start off with
we don't know why she did. You know she would
never do it, and it's all innocent, and try to
make it as preposterous as possible. Then later on you realize, oh,
(36:35):
wait a minute, there is issues going on, and so
I get it. They're trying to sensationalize it as much
as possible. I guess I look at some of the
movies on TV. I don't know how old you are.
I'm fifty one, but I remember movies like cool Hand Luke.
I think that was the one where he says, we
(36:56):
have a failure. We have a failure here a communicat
or something like that. Correct And then you had American
History X, which was much more intense shows like that.
What do you think is that help hurt nothing? And
different to the community of corrections.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
When I'm sixty four years old, and cool Hand Luke
was written. The book was written by an inmate in Florida.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I wasn't Realmont.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
He was at a work release center in Claremont, Florida.
He wrote the book. The book sold maybe five or
six copies, didn't go very far. I think a lot
of people don't realize that cool Hand Luke story was
really written by a real inmate here in Florida. Now,
(37:41):
all of a sudden the movies get ahold of the book,
and wow, they make his story famous. And I would
say cool Hand Luke was closer to the way things
really wear back then. But some of your newer movies
now today sensationalized to much, add too much thinking, Okay,
(38:02):
if I tell it the way it really happened is
going to be too boring for TV or in the movies.
So I think a lot of your prison movies today
are some truth mixed with fiction, and they're not you know,
you're not You're seeing some things that wouldn't really happen.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What you take on some of these really popular shows
now are they showing inmates, you know, not death grow
but they show them in the maximum security prison shows
and things like that. Some people argue that, you know what,
you're giving them a lot of attention they shouldn't be
having because they were really bad individuals, because they're maximum security.
(38:42):
Others say, no, it's a good reality check. Are they
both wrong? Both right? A little bit of each? What
do you think?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I would say a little bit of each. You know,
I've had people tell me why do you write about corruption?
Are kind of attacking me, Like, why are you just
telling the band? Will wait a minute now, folks, I
wrote a book about all the good as well. But
I always tell them if I don't tell you about
the bad, we're just hiding it. If I don't tell
you about there is corruption there and tell you the
(39:10):
truth and we need to get something done about it,
we're just gonna let it fester and get worse and worse.
So we have to. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to get
the bad stories to let people know we need to
take care of this problem. So I would say a
little bit of both. With those maximum security prison stories,
let people know. Maybe it'll deter somebody from going to prison,
(39:37):
Maybe it'll deter somebody from going to the dark side
and being corrupt. I mean, we can't just sit around,
stick her head in the sand.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
That's true. I think what that programs Scared.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Street, Scared Straight now that one I always I don't
mind Scared Straight. I think that was a good program.
Now a lot of people today don't like the Scared
Straight program. It's too hard, too Leuf. Well, come on, now,
we have to let people know, especially the young ones,
this is what's going to happen if you go to prison.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah, it's kind of weird because I know some of
the young ones, especially the gangs. It's kind of a
badge of honor to get away for a little while.
That makes it much more complicated all of a sudden. Yes,
you have to talk to Yeah, talk to former gang
members have been in prison and change their ways. And
that's one of the hardest things for them, when they
try to proselytize individuals and tell them to get away
(40:32):
from that world and leave it. Yeah, it's difficult stuff again, folks,
Gary Yorke the books one more time. The Toughest job
Correctional Officers of the USA, and of course the other
two are Corruption, Behind Bars and Inside the Inner Circle.
Highly recommend you read them if you want to learn
more about the prison system. Again, as Gary says, it's
not all bad. Overwhelming majority is good, but some of
(40:55):
these stories are pretty surprising. Gary, thank you so much
again for taking the time to with us.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
But I want to thank you very much for having me.
I really appreciate it and I hope we can work
together to make things better for everyone behind the walls.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Absolutely, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for listening.
You know what to do, share, subscribe, hit that I
Like button, and go grab those books.
Yeah, this is life inside Chris. Do you want the
real deal? Homide?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This is what you miss when the sale lits.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Get your mind right and thinks straight. You know the
perspective of see os in the inmates. This is life now.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Just want to survive now when the lights out?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Keep quiet? Better, right down? If you're ready forward less
get it. You want to know the truth? Take a
pisit life inside prison? Lay?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome back everybody. Today we have a great guest, Gary York.
He's the author. He's a book author and those who
are commonists for Corrections one dot com and a former
correctional officer. So we're gonna be talking about you guessed
it talking about prisons today. He also read a book
the US. Book is called The Toughest Job Correctional Officer USA.
But he's written two other books, Corruption Behind Bars and
(00:50):
Inside the Inner Circle. He also served in the US
Army from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty seven. He
was honorably discharged of the rank of staff sergeant from
the Military Police Corps. You also received the Army Commendation
Medal and Soldier of the Quarter award while serving. So
we're gonna be talking a little bit about corrections in
a minute before we get started. You know what to do, share, subscribe,
(01:10):
hit that I like but you don't, we like it.
There's not wasays any more time working to the show.
Gary Yorke, Welcome, Gary.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Hello, and thank you for having me on. It's an honor.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Thank you very much for doing this. Thank you for
your service as well.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you. So.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I guess my first question is what made you or
what motivated you to write these books? I think got
a lot of stories, but what did you what this?
What made you decide? You know what I got to
get the public to know about.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
This, Yes, sir, I wrote these books to educate and
inform not only the public, but anybody that's interested in
coming into corrections with the goal in mind of helping
the honest, hard working correctional officer's image. When an officer
(01:56):
becomes a bad apple, becomes corrupt, they're tainting the image
of those officers who come to work every day and
they work hard to protect the community. They work hard
to protect everyone behind the walls and one rotten apple.
It's full of a whole bunch through the media. Because
(02:17):
the media, yes, they tell good stories about officers but
they also tell a lot of the bad stories. For
some reason, they seem to gravitate towards the bad stories
more so, my goal is to try to teach and
educate and inform what to look for and how to
weed out the cancer of a corrupt officer.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Can you remember the very first times, I'm sure when
you were a CEO, the very first time Pulpy shocked
you a little bit, I'm assuming with the correctional officers
that go in there with the mindset of doing right
and helping, and all of a sudden you saw somebody
doing something you're thinking, wait a minute, you should be
on the other side, and that shouldn't be on our side.
Did you ever hear the first time that happened?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yes, I got out of the military at twenty eight
years old because I went in at eighteen years old
and started as a correction officer at twenty eight years old,
a little bit of an advantage over a lot of
real young officers just coming in because I had some
some life experience, and I was a military policeman, and
you could sometimes spot, or at least I could, somebody
(03:25):
spending too much time with a certain inmate hanging around
a certain inmate too much and maybe even following the
instruction of an inmate rather than being the officer, and
I was shocked. I would stand back and look, coming
out of the military, I'm learning still because now I'm
in another field of corrections. But still I could recognize
(03:46):
a problem and an issue that might be getting ready
to blister. So I would talk to that officer and say, hey,
it's none of my business how you run your door,
but you're spending a lot of time with inmate so
and so it's not looking real good. And you know,
(04:08):
it's funny you mentioned that because that officer that I
talked to was later she was later arrested. I had
no idea she was already in the investigation. I'm a newbie. Really.
Now I'm out of the army, I'm a brand new
correction officer. I'm still trying to learn the ropes. And
she had met an undercover agent with her children in
(04:30):
the backseat to pick up drugs, and they arrested her.
She was going to bring those drugs to that inmate.
And you talk about shocked. I came to work and
it was announced to us a briefing that she was
arrested I was on point with what I saw, and
I tried to correct it face to face, and she
ended up in jail. It's a strange situation, and that's
(04:53):
what got me later on to apply to be a
prison inspecter.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Interesting, I never really crushed or did it crush your
perception what a correctional officer was. Did it ruin your
image of what a correctional officer was. Did you say,
you know, this is crap like this happens.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
No, it did not run the image of what a
correction should be because I knew a lot of those
folks way back then in nineteen ninety that I still
know today that are retired that were good, honest, hardworking officers.
So I knew from being in the army ten years
that you're going to have a few bad apples. I
knew that already in any job, folks. I don't want
(05:38):
to act like it's just corrections. You know, any job
in this country, you're going to have a few bad apples.
It's not just corrections. But we're talking about corrections today
in prison.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
No, that's absolutely true. I mean we just saw. We
can see it all the time in the news where
a pastor was arrested for soliciting a minor. You saw
a dentist ripping off medicare. Every profession has got a
bad apple. That's a good point. And when I'm got
to get into some of your stories and your books,
I know that's one of the things the audience wants
(06:09):
to hear. You I want to hear, we don't want
to hear. But I'm just kind of curious as I
explore the mind of Gary Yorke to the correctional officer,
what was one of the more the biggest weaknesses, because
I know in law enforcement, the biggest thing usually tends
to be financial issues, and this is where they start,
you know, start crumbling a little bit. Is that the
same thing for you what you saw?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes, in corrections, there is unfortunately big money to be
made for an officer if they choose to cross the line. Now,
when you cross that line, I always tell young officers
you want to cross the line, You're going to get caught. Eventually,
you're going to be arrested, probably going to be on
(06:51):
the news. You're either going to get felony probation or
jail or prison, depending on what the crime is. But uh,
what I saw was The state pay at the state
prison level in Florida just went up to forty eight
thousand starting, but in the past years it's been in
the thirties. And when I started it was really really low.
(07:14):
I think I made eighteen thy nine hundred to start.
So the pay is not so great. And if you
get anyone who has a little bit of greed, low
self esteem, or just the mind of I'm going to
make more money, they can make more money unfortunately, by
going to the dark side, as I call it, than
(07:36):
they can in their regular paycheck.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
That's insane. I've heard of transactions up to one thousand,
five thousand dollars. If you bring this in, if you
do this for me, you do that. But that starts
setting them up, doesn't it. Now all of a sudden,
they got you, and that can be a problem for
that officer, right.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yes, and the inmates will use manipulation. Now you can either.
I always say there's several types of officers. There's the
ones with low self esteem, there's the ones that are
in trouble at home financially, and then there's just some
that are just coming in to do dirty deeds, you know. Unfortunately, again,
I want to emphasize the majority or hardworking, honest officers.
(08:17):
But let's take, for example, somebody is in behind on
their house payment, has no money, and they talk about
it to another corrector officer and an inmate. Here's this.
Then they target that officer. They say, there's my target,
and they talk to them. Say, hey, officer, I'm sorry.
I overheard. Now, this officer has never done anything wrong.
(08:39):
Now before, officer, I overheard what you're saying, and it
sounds like Christmas is going to be terrible for your family.
You know I can help you. I can help you
get over your financial problems. You just need to bring
me every week a state dinner and round royal whiskey,
(09:02):
and I will have a person on the outside give
you five hundred dollars cash a week. So that's two
thousand a month for this officer to catch up his
bills extra from his paycheck. This happened here in Florida
at the Sodo Correction Institution. I was assigned the investigation,
(09:22):
and this officer was arrested and for getting two thousand
dollars a month, not for bringing drugs or weapons. But
remember contraband is contraband under nine four four point four
to seven Florida statue. Food is contraband food all the
way up to drugs and weapons. So he's bringing in
(09:42):
whiskey and steak and he now has a felony. He
got felony probation for two years and lost his job
at a certification.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
How long did he do that for?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
He had been doing it for about three when I
got the investigation. Now here's the kicker. When inmates are
done with you, they will turn you in. In other words,
he went to the inmate and said, my wife is
a little bit worried about me bringing this food in,
and I'm gonna quit. Now, no you're not. You quit
(10:21):
and I'm gonna turn it in. And he said, well,
you can't prove anything. I'm gonna quit bringing you whiskey
and food. And he quit, and the inmate that was
paying him turned him in. Gave me a sworn tape statement,
gave me the copies of the cashiers checks, and didn't
(10:41):
pay him in cash. Inmate paid him in cashier's checks
so he could have a paper trigger. I had all
the cashiers checks, I had the family chauffeur who was
delivering the money every week. Give me a statement, very
wealthy inmate by the way, healthy.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I'm not going to mention who it was, but from
a big food chain here in Florida, very wealthy inmate
who hooked the officer hooked line and sinker.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I guess I'm not trying to give other CEO's ideas,
but I guess if you would have shut up, it
would have probably taken longer to catch them.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
If he would have continued bringing the items in, it
would have taken another inmate or an officer to catch
them in the act, and sooner or later. I always
tell them, you're gonna get caught. We luckily caught this
one early on.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
That inmate, so it was a solo individual. It wasn't
like a gang related one like this. I know sometimes
here in California they'll have like my ame, the Mexican
mafia really take a lot of control and sometimes they'll
do certain things. And I not the only ones, the
other ones around Texas as well in other states that
have their stuff. So I guess I'll be hitting in
(11:57):
that direction in a second. It's an amazing story with
two thousands of When was it like twenty years ago
when this happened?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, the story, No, this happened. I would say around
two thousand and four, two thousand five. Yeah, how almost
twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So they were making about forty grand a year, maybe
thirty five or grand a year legitimately.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
They were in their thirties, thirty eight grand a year legitimately.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, dontorry, folks, I have a point. So if they're
making that kind of money, that means they're pocketing probably
taking home twenty two to twenty three. So he basically
doubled his income.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Just a very small example. I mean, yeah, there's drug
stories that the money goes up.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
No, because it's amazing. Sometimes I hear certain stories they
get paid a few hundred bucks and they do something stupid.
But I mean that's a serious amount of cash like
I was getting. That's how tempting that can be. I
mean that changed his life for those three months now,
not for good.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well, I've done drunk cases. Where's twelve hundred a week?
Who hundred weeks? So we kept at it on a
certain case we had, we kept it at twelve hundred
when we set up the meeting at Hooters Hooters parking lot.
Hooters is a Chicken lenning place. I guess they have them.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Well, we set up the meeting there with an undercover
who was playing the the inmate's cousin, and the officer
was used to getting twelve hundred a week to pick
up drugs and smuggle him into the prison.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So we kept it at twelve hundred and got him on,
got him recorded, got him accepting the twelve hundred. So
you know, prices go way up when it comes to
the drugs and weapons.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
That's insane. If he was making forty thousand, now he's
making at least ninety one hundred. Jeez, is that's insane? Now?
Was that one? There was that a drug cartel or
gang kind of thing going on. That seems like a
lot of money for an individual. Well, I guess you
could have a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Maybe that was a group of individuals and that were
running the drug trade inside the prison. It was a
larger group with contacts on the street to supply the
cocaine and the heroine and the marijuana. All you have
to do now is find a staff member that doesn't
always have to be uniform. They'll find a nurse, a librarian,
(14:20):
a maintenance man, an officer, anybody that looks like a
weak target. They will target them to begin grooming them
to work for them.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's interesting because it gets complicated really fast. And lost
my train of thought here, But I was thinking, I
was looking. I was thinking a lot of things, a
lot of different gangs that are within the prison systems,
and how they do that, how they run an opera.
I remember watching a documentary on the prisons and we're
in Colombia, I think it was in some of those
Latin American countries, and they had I think they got
(14:55):
rid of it because they had some problems, but they
had like all these restaurants and barber shops and some
things out in the yard. And I'm looking at this.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
This is insane.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It's like a little town in there. That's crazy. But
some of these prisons that I remember my thought. I
talked to my students I teach undergrad and I can't
tell you, probably about seventy eighty percent when I asked
the question, hey, do you think they do drugs in prison?
And seventy percent No, there's no way they can't. And
a lot of them still believe the myth of a
(15:24):
lot of them dry up in prison. It's like, I
don't think so, But am I far off on that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Gary, No, you're not. And I really hate to say it,
but I'm gonna have to say it bluntly. If an
inmate wants to do drugs in any prison in the country,
they can get a hold of drugs. I had a
warden tell me one time. I said, Warden, I'm as
signed a case. We've got some drugs coming into your prison.
(15:52):
I've got an angle that I'm gonna look at. He said,
inspect for York, investigate away. We've got the contraband under control.
Being respectful to the warden, I said, thank you, Saron,
I'll start my investigation. In my mind, I wanted to
tell the warden every prison has drugs. Now. A lot
(16:13):
of wardens are a little bit hesitant to admit it
because they want they don't want to look bad. I
always tell management, don't be scared to look bad. It's
a lot better to stand up and say we had
some issues with drugs. We took care of it, we investigated,
and we stopped it. I think the public respects that
(16:34):
more than saying we don't have any We don't have
any drug as you see, we're clean, We're fine. No,
just tell tell the truth and long story short. A
week later, at the end of the week Hendrick Correctional
Institution of Florida, we arrested two nurses for dealing with
an inmate with marijuana, and we arrested two food service
(16:56):
employees for dealing with inmates in the kitchen for dealing
in cocaine. I had the help of Hendry County Sheriff's
office working with me on that case. And all I did,
I'm not one of these people saying I told you so.
I just told the warden. We rested them and they're
all in jail, and it actually hit the newspaper, small
(17:16):
town newspaper. But my message is, don't stick your head
in the sand and pretend like something's not happening. If
your prison management, we have got to work together to
weed out the corruption.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's interesting. It reminds me of a book called Simulacra Simulation.
Have you ever heard of it? It was a book
that was some people say Matrix was based on it
because a lot of times they I get it why
they do it, but they'll give us a facade of
what it's like. In certain places, like certain city council
and mayors don't want people to know their gain problems.
So they'll say a group of teenagers and I'm looking
(17:54):
at that, going, I don't know how many times I
ever just groups of teenagers getting together and causing chaos.
It's always usually gang related. It's kind of hilarious. I
saw on the headline the other day adolescents shoot at
each other and killed one. I'm like, adolescents shoot at
each other and kill one. There's true groups. So a boy,
that sounds like something I know, but I get it.
(18:17):
You know, they're trying to keep tourism down and all
that stuff, but it kind of falls along the same
line as prisons. But you give people a false sense
of reality, a false world. That's what the book is
based out, that our social media, our news creates a
world that doesn't exist. It's all made up in a sense.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And then goes back to what she says, so now
you're public. Thanks. Oh, they they can't get drugs, And
I've had people tell me how do they get drugs
in prison? That's ridiculous. They're in prison, you know, and
if they only knew how much the drug trade goes on,
and we have to find it in the prison system.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Like anybody would get steak and whiskey in prison. By
the way, folks, we're talking to Gary Yorke. The book
is called The Toughest Job Correctional Officer USA. That's just
one of two, one of three books. The other one
is called A Corruption Behind Bars and Inside the Inner Circle.
You can also follow him on corrections one dot com
to see his columns over there. So Gary, really fascinating
(19:15):
stuff and I like the way this conversation is going.
I throw ideas, you share stories, which is amazing idea,
and he's got a story for it. It's mind blowing
and scary actually at the same time. That's another thing
that people don't realize. You mentioned it kind of well
you didn't lud to. You mentioned it that they have
a connection outside. A lot of people think, well, they're
not talking to anybody that can't see anybody, But in reality,
(19:39):
there's a lot of business that can happen from within
the prison system on the outside. And did you see
any of that in regards to CEOs, In other words,
were they doing things off the clock to help individuals? Hey,
can you drop this off at my wife's house or
cousin Johnny, Even though that was probably something else going
on there.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yes, I worked with the IRS on several tax fraud
investigations in my time, and we would have inmates that
had people on the outside that would look up recently
deceased people, you know, where they could get their social
Security number and use it to write up fraudulent tax forms.
(20:21):
Now they would have the inmates would write up these
fraudulent tax forms and have an officer taken on the
outside for them, and then someone would actually send us
in and get a tax return in a deceased person's
name mailed. They would then split the money and the
officer would get a certain percentage. A female officer at
(20:45):
Pop Correctional Institution, Florida, sergeant working in the laundry room,
married to another sergeant who worked the outside squad, started
a relationship with her inmate clerk in the laundry room.
The laundry room had a sergeant and then behind her
was another desk with an inmate clerk who did the
paperwork and chan or twelve inmates would do the laundry
(21:08):
for the entire prison. She became not only romantically involved
with him, but she became involved with him on inmate
tax fraud schemes, and she also sent messages to his
family on the outside. Even went to visit his family
in Saint Petersburg, Florida, sit with them, eat with them,
(21:31):
and talk with them and tell them she's in love
with them with their incarcerated member and was going to
divorce her husband and marry it. So a lot of
cases I've worked did get involved on the outside with inmates,
families or connections to work together for criminal activity.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
The kind of read my mind as I was hitting
that direction anyway, because I think I was trying to
find statistics and I couldn't find anything on this which
was inmates having sexual relations with a CEOs. It was
really difficult, And again I think it's the facade, right,
They're trying to create the facade that it only happens
when it gets shown on the news kind of thing.
(22:14):
But I remember, Oh, what was that group called. I
think it was in Philadelphia, either Philadelphia or Minneapolis, the
Black Gorilla Family. One leader that ended up impregnating I
think it was four or five CEOs or something.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yes, Baltimore, Baltimore where that took place. The jail in Baltimore.
One male inmate impregnated four female correction officers. Everyone was
having a sexual relationship with them in the jail and
bringing in contraband to the jail. I saw a video
(22:47):
with this inmate himself talking because they wanted to do
a study, and he's bragging about I mean, he's just coffees,
could be bragging about how easy it is to get
these four, not one, but four female officers to have
sex with him and work for him bringing contraband. It
was just mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Now, that was a long time ago. That was about
thirty years ago. I think it was. Wasn't it maybe
twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
No, I'm actually gonna say sooner because I retired in
twenty eighteen and I used that video in a training
class for the Sheriff's office here in Pope County in
about twenty sixteen. I was using that video and it
was only about five years old, and it was not
as long back as you think.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Forget that question. I was going to ask you if
things would be harder for it to happen today, But
I guess not.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It happened today.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Paul Sheriff jud Grady jud Yes, very nice guy.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, that one of my sheriff. You interviewed him a
while back on your show.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yep, So I guess that leaves me to the other question.
How common was it for that activity to happen there?
Did you see that during your years?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Let me say this again so the people don't get misled.
Is it common? Yes? But you know, when you look
at the overall picture seventeen hundred officers in uniform at
the Sheriff's department, it'll happen now and then with one
(24:22):
or in the prison with even more employees here in
Florida than that, it'll happen now and then with with
with an officer. But because it's in the media, people
think who those officers? And I hate it. Somebody says
that because no, no, no, it's just those bad apples you're
(24:43):
reading about. Please don't construe the majority of the officers
to be that way. It's that bad apple that tainted
the image of those and now you think everybody's that way,
and that's not true. But as an investigator, monthly when
I get assigned cases, I would have two or three
allegations of a staff member having sexual with an inmate. Now,
(25:05):
remember forty eight prisons in the state of Florida, second
or third largest prison system in the country at that time,
and then I'm traveling to do two or three cases
of alleged sexual misconduct and I end up proving one
or two of them to be true. The last years monthly,
But it's not as big as it looks.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
You said seventeen hundred CEOs in Florida, Well that was
at the jail.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We have seventeen hundred uniform staff now in the prison system.
There was twenty thousand employees in the Florida prison system,
civilian anams twenty thousand. So let's see the Florida prison system.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Let's say you actually convicted. I'm going to really blow
it up here. Say it's forty a year.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
More than that, but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Okay, we're sexual allegations. Yes, and you actually keep a month,
so it's about thirty six a year. Let's say forty
of them are actually guilty. We're just blow it up.
It's easy for me to do. Man. Yeah, we got
twenty three thousand, We got twenty thousand CEOs. Ten percent
of that is two thousand, and one percent is two hundred.
So you're not even at a half a percent of
(26:20):
all the CEOs that are get involved. It's a really
small fraction, like you said, really small.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Right, I like to say ninety nine percent of our
correctnsers are honest, hard working people. I always use I
always use that percentage because it's that one percent that
we're catching that looks makes us look bad.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
No, yeah, I was trying to make I was trying
to see if it actually turned out that way, and
it turned out to be even higher. It's like ninety
nine point five or good at least in regards to
sexual allegations. I mean, I'm not sure about all the
other allegations. That changes a little bit. Well, I don't know.
You want to say how many how many allegations you
(26:59):
get a month just overall.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Well, my office was Region five, which covered the middle
part of Florida. We had eight inspectors and we would
each get about thirty cases a month assigned to each
of us. Now that's that's a lot of cases assigned.
But not all of them were substantiated. Many were unsubstantiated.
(27:23):
So you know, you'd have crimes of staff, inmate relationship,
smuggling drugs. Now, sometimes they go hand in hand. We
would have aggravated assault on correction lobsters. We would have
assaults inmate on inmate. I did a few murder cases
two inmates on inmate murders. I did one wrong for
(27:46):
death case in conjunction with the FBI, and that was
an inmate that was tortured and killed by some officers.
You'll get You'll get the physical abuse cases assigned as well,
where officers get a little carried away and get and
they run their career and their lives by abusing an inmate.
(28:10):
You can't let your temper take control. You can't. You
cannot be implementing punishment. We're only here for care, custody,
and control. The judge and the jury made the decision.
Now you're not gonna have any you do not implement
any punishment.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I guess that leads me to a couple of different scenarios. Again,
folks are talking to Gary Yorke. Some of the books
that he's written so far than youst One is called
the Toughest Job Correctional Officer of the USA. You also
can catch corruption behind bars and inside the inner circle
of great books. If you're just sitting around wondering what
should I read next, I recommend that corrections one dot
Com column this as well. So Gary, you think I
(28:51):
kind of stir the horns nest there for a second.
But did you have any scenarios where we've heard this happen.
I know it happens. I have friends in the industry
as well. But that said, you know what, I got
to take this guy out. He's done something he shouldn't
be doing. We're going to neutralize the effect, as the
military would say. And yeah, you just want you to
(29:14):
look the other way or don't do your rounds like
you normally do, be twenty minutes late. Whatever. You're already
shaking your head, so getting the funny feeling you already
heard those stories too.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Huh, Yes, sir. You know the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement here in Florida mandates that as a correction officer,
if you see a crime being committed, you must report it.
Also in our policies and put the procedures in Florida
state statue, if you see a crime being committed, you
(29:43):
must report it. In that wrongful death case, I told
you about twenty two staff members lost their job, ten
were indicted, ten were indicted. Why did the others lose
their job? Just what you asked me. They saw things
happening over that fi day period failed to report it.
(30:03):
So failure to report a crime will either get you
your job lost or could get you arrested. As an
officer in uniform, it's your duty to report a crime.
And I know you've heard of this a lot. You
know a lot of officers are scared to report. Why
are they scared to report? Well, the code of silence.
(30:27):
I can't turn in a fellow officer. What would I
look like with my other in front of my other officers.
Or this group of ten, two captains, two sergeants and
six officers that were indicted had earned the name the
Family the stories of my book, and they became kind
of like the bullies of the prison. So the honest,
some of the honest officers actually told me that the
(30:48):
ones that lost their job, I had to interview them
as well. They said, Man, I'm scared of these guys.
They threatened us. They said, do you say anything you
know and we'll get you. I was threatened during the instigation.
The assistant warden called me and said, Gary, when you
drive over here to continue your investigation, you better go
(31:09):
get a hotel room in the next town. There's word
out that if they see you, they're going to get you.
So I was being threatened by this group of ten
these bullies week. We can't have this in corrections. They
will scare away honest officers, and they will put fear
into honest officers and they won't report what they're supposed
(31:29):
to report.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Damn crazy, I guess in our last few minutes together.
My other question is is it true? Or say I
think I know it's true, But I guess how prevalent
is is it that you'll hear claims of Look, I
have to give him this every week because he says
he's threatened my family who took a picture of my
car outside the home, so basically they were courst Does
(31:54):
that happen a lot?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yes, Uh, extortion, and that goes back to your gangs
you spoke of earlier. A lot of the gangs will
do that. We know where you live, officer, and officers.
A lot of people that don't know, say, well, how
do they find out where the off live? Well, that's
another whole story in itself. Then they just want to
(32:19):
know where an officer lives. They'll find out. Back to
the people on the streets. Back to visitation. They have
visitation and they're talking at visitation and they say, look,
when you get out there, I need to know where
that officer so and so lives. Find that out for me.
This person goes home after visiting their love them and
(32:43):
gets with the people, whether it be other gang members
or people, and they find out where the offer lives.
So now the officer says, I know you're married, I
know you have a daughter, I know you have a son.
You drive a red pickup. They know everything, and they
what you're supposed to do. When they threaten you with this.
Immediately write them up and write an incident report. I
(33:08):
have an article out on Corrections one dot com report
threats immediately. If an officer would report that threat immediately
on paper, there's disciplinary measures can be taken that would
stop boom. But you know, you're right, you're right. Some
officers get scared. They really get scared and think, well,
(33:30):
I better do what they say or they will hurt
me or my family. And I try to tell these officers,
don't you go for it. You write it up, write
it up. Once they see you're gonna write them up
immediately and take action, they're gonna stop coming to you. Yeah,
they'll go look for another target. But if every officer
would follow that instruction, I bet you would cut that
(33:51):
down quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Did they get protection to that family in the meantime?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Or you can? You can, you can go to UH,
you can go to your supervisors, tell them I'm worried.
And then what's next. Get a hold of your local shaff,
your local police department, your state attorney and gets the protection.
But what you want to do is get that threat documented.
Why that's what the state attorney will use. We can
(34:18):
probably work a case out of that. Assign the case
to an inspector. Let's get that in front of the
state attorney that our officer was threatened and his family
was threatened. Let's get this inmate charged with another crime.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
He's gone for now twenty more years instead of the
eight years he had.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Right, But if we do nothing, it gets scared that inmate's.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Going to walk all over you fascinating style. That's good.
It's good to know, especially if people out there thinking
about going into corrections. That's good to know. I guess
I want to get your thoughts my last question in
regards to this and corruption, and then I want to
get your opinion about a movie. But before we get
to the movie. How many have you seen Is it
(34:59):
common for them to help them get out? We saw
that in New York I think a couple of years ago.
The woman allowed two inmates to get out. Is that common?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I don't hear well often that We've had very similar situations. Well,
I just told you the one about the laundering room
where she was a sergeant that worked in the launder
room that fell in love with the inmate, was bringing
him these things and having sexual relationships with him. We've
had librarians do the same, bring things in cell phones
(35:33):
for the inmate because they've now fallen in love. Like
Joyce Mitchell. You're talking about Joyce Mitchell Clinton Correction Institution.
We've had librarians that are just like her. You know. Now,
I do want to say this happens on the male side.
To vote the unities out. There's not all women having
relationships with inmates. I've done. I want to get that
(35:54):
out there. I've had several cases that the women's prisons
here in Florida, where male officers are having relationships with
female inmates, just reverse the scenario. I have a lot
of women officers tell me, hey, when you do your stuff,
make sure to mention now the men do that, so, yes,
that happens.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Oh man, that's crazy. I remember that one in Clinton
some crazy stories. You know, it's harder because you can't again.
This is I guess there's a message for folks and
hopefull they're getting the idea now that you can't really
trust media's portrayal of it because they start off with
we don't know why she did. You know she would
never do it, and it's all innocent, and try to
make it as preposterous as possible. Then later on you realize, oh,
(36:35):
wait a minute, there is issues going on, and so
I get it. They're trying to sensationalize it as much
as possible. I guess I look at some of the
movies on TV. I don't know how old you are.
I'm fifty one, but I remember movies like cool Hand Luke.
I think that was the one where he says, we
(36:56):
have a failure. We have a failure here a communicat
or something like that. Correct And then you had American
History X, which was much more intense shows like that.
What do you think is that help hurt nothing? And
different to the community of corrections.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
When I'm sixty four years old, and cool Hand Luke
was written. The book was written by an inmate in Florida.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I wasn't Realmont.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
He was at a work release center in Claremont, Florida.
He wrote the book. The book sold maybe five or
six copies, didn't go very far. I think a lot
of people don't realize that cool Hand Luke story was
really written by a real inmate here in Florida. Now,
(37:41):
all of a sudden the movies get ahold of the book,
and wow, they make his story famous. And I would
say cool Hand Luke was closer to the way things
really wear back then. But some of your newer movies
now today sensationalized to much, add too much thinking, Okay,
(38:02):
if I tell it the way it really happened is
going to be too boring for TV or in the movies.
So I think a lot of your prison movies today
are some truth mixed with fiction, and they're not you know,
you're not You're seeing some things that wouldn't really happen.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What you take on some of these really popular shows
now are they showing inmates, you know, not death grow
but they show them in the maximum security prison shows
and things like that. Some people argue that, you know what,
you're giving them a lot of attention they shouldn't be
having because they were really bad individuals, because they're maximum security.
(38:42):
Others say, no, it's a good reality check. Are they
both wrong? Both right? A little bit of each? What
do you think?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I would say a little bit of each. You know,
I've had people tell me why do you write about corruption?
Are kind of attacking me, Like, why are you just
telling the band? Will wait a minute now, folks, I
wrote a book about all the good as well. But
I always tell them if I don't tell you about
the bad, we're just hiding it. If I don't tell
you about there is corruption there and tell you the
(39:10):
truth and we need to get something done about it,
we're just gonna let it fester and get worse and worse.
So we have to. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to get
the bad stories to let people know we need to
take care of this problem. So I would say a
little bit of both. With those maximum security prison stories,
let people know. Maybe it'll deter somebody from going to prison,
(39:37):
Maybe it'll deter somebody from going to the dark side
and being corrupt. I mean, we can't just sit around,
stick her head in the sand.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
That's true. I think what that programs Scared.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Street, Scared Straight now that one I always I don't
mind Scared Straight. I think that was a good program.
Now a lot of people today don't like the Scared
Straight program. It's too hard, too Leuf. Well, come on, now,
we have to let people know, especially the young ones,
this is what's going to happen if you go to prison.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah, it's kind of weird because I know some of
the young ones, especially the gangs. It's kind of a
badge of honor to get away for a little while.
That makes it much more complicated all of a sudden. Yes,
you have to talk to Yeah, talk to former gang
members have been in prison and change their ways. And
that's one of the hardest things for them, when they
try to proselytize individuals and tell them to get away
(40:32):
from that world and leave it. Yeah, it's difficult stuff again, folks,
Gary Yorke the books one more time. The Toughest job
Correctional Officers of the USA, and of course the other
two are Corruption, Behind Bars and Inside the Inner Circle.
Highly recommend you read them if you want to learn
more about the prison system. Again, as Gary says, it's
not all bad. Overwhelming majority is good, but some of
(40:55):
these stories are pretty surprising. Gary, thank you so much
again for taking the time to with us.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
But I want to thank you very much for having me.
I really appreciate it and I hope we can work
together to make things better for everyone behind the walls.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Absolutely, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for listening.
You know what to do, share, subscribe, hit that I
Like button, and go grab those books.
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