Kansas City, MO – Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson says his office is responding to reports of sexual misconduct by workers at a Topeka prison. An article in the Topeka Capital-Journal described sexual contact between male workers and female inmates at the Topeka Correctional Facility, including male workers exchanging sex for contraband. Parkinson calls the conduct "despicable."
Parkingson: "We are currently asking our Secretary of Corrections to do an internal review to make sure that we have all the policies we need to prevent this from happening in the future, to determine if there are additional policies we can implement to keep this from occurring."
Parkinson says officials are also looking into enhancing penalties for sexual exploitation of a prisoner. Secretary of Corrections Roger Werholtz says the Department of Corrections has policies to document and report sexual misconduct. He says sexual misconduct is a problem nationwide, but isn't as widespread as some reports indicate.