13 Officers Indicted: Female Correction Officers Allowed Baltimore Drug Gang To 'Take Over The Asylum,' FBI said

Thirteen officers were indicted by Federal authorities after reports that they effectively allowed the prison they work at to be overtaken by gang members. The 13 female prison guards, seven inmates and five "others" that are likely gang members are the subjects of the indictment affecting the Baltimore City Detention Center in Baltimore, Md.

The FBI reported that inmate Tavon White, a gang leader of the Black Guerrilla Family, a prison gang, allegedly impregnated prison officers Jennifer Owens, Katera Stevenson, Chania Brooks and Tiffany Linder. He now has five children with the four women. Two of the women now have tattoos of White's name.

In exchange for the nefarious extracurricular activities, the guards are accused of turning the other way when Black Guerrilla Family gang members allegedly smuggled cell phones and other illicit articles into the Baltimore jail. FBI agent Stephen Vogt called it a case of "inmates literally [taking] over the asylum."

The chairman of the state agency that handles Maryland's prison system, Gary Maynard, took full responsibility: "It's totally on me. I don't make any excuses," he told the Washington Post. Governor Martin O'Malley, a liberal Democrat reportedly eyeing the White House, said Annapolis has a "zero tolerance [policy] for corruption among correctional officers". The Post added that this may be seen by some prospective voters as a blemish on O'Malley's otherwise clean but very progressive record should he run for president.

The 13 officers indicted work at a dangerous prison in a very dangerous industrial city. Baltimore had 223 reported homicides in 2010 but has seen a slow and steady decrease of violent crime, breaking below 10,000 that year. However, the population is collapsing, as the city lost over 100,000 residents between 1993 and the current decade.

During the term of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, D-Baltimore, the city has also endured the 2012 "St. Patrick's Day Beating" in which a number of people severely beat a tourist in the downtown area near the courthouse, the day after the Irish holiday. Aaron Jacob Parsons, 20, turned himself in, and Shayona Davis, Deangelo Carter and Shatia Baldwin, all 21 or under, were arrested in the beating of the Virginia man.