White supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Fla.

By JASON DEAREN
Associated Press

Some Florida prison guards openly tout associations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and Black colleagues. It’s a persistent practice that often goes unpunished. That’s according to allegations in public documents and interviews with a dozen inmates and current and former employees in the nation’s third largest prison system. Former prison inspectors and current and former officers say corrections officials regularly receive reports about guards’ membership in the Ku Klux Klan and criminal gangs. Still, few such cases are thoroughly investigated. Many are downplayed by officers charged with policing their own, or discarded by the state’s inspector general as too complicated to pursue.