Another Alabama prison official has been arrested after evidence of corruption, misconduct, and illegal activity was uncovered.
A corrections officer at Easterling Correctional Facility in Barbour County, Alabama, was arrested this week on charges of promoting prison contraband and using his office for personal gain.
Quindarious Thagard, 27, told an Alabama Department of Corrections agent that he had agreed to bring in contraband—including 32 cell phones, five earbuds, paper soaked in an unidentified substance, 18 magnets, a gold chain, and a phone charger—in exchange for $10,000, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
He told investigators that he brought the items into the prison in a clear backpack and left it in the guard tower, according to the Advertiser. He was booked in the Barbour County jail on Sunday and later released on $7,500 bond, the paper reported.
Mr. Thagard has resigned from ADOC, where he had worked since 2019, the Advertiser reported.
He faces up to 10 years in prison or a $15,000 fine for promoting prison contraband, which is a felony.
Mr. Thagard is one of several Alabama correctional officers arrested in recent months on charges that include bribery, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, promoting prison contraband, and assault, the Advertiser reported.
Alabama’s prisons are facing a crisis of violence and abusive treatment driven by overcrowding, staff shortages, and leadership failures.
ADOC’s vacancy rate in security staffing was recently reported to be 63.6%.
In 2022, 270 people died in Alabama’s prisons—the most on record in a calendar year for Alabama, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. That includes at least 19 homicides.
More than one in five deaths in Alabama’s prisons were due to homicide, suicide, or drug overdose.