Abuse of Missouri prison staff was already a scandal. Lawsuits keep costing millions
When Ana Barrios was a corrections officer at a Kansas City prison, she was spit on, told to kill herself and called degrading names.
Not by the prisoners — but by the other guards.
Barrios was 22 when she started work as a probation and parole assistant at the Kansas City Community Release Center in September 2014. When the facility became a prison the next year, she became a guard.
After enduring months of abuse, Barrios sued the Missouri Department of Corrections. In October, a jury awarded her $200,000.
Barrios is one of dozens of corrections employees who have gone to court alleging that the department allows a culture of abhorrent behavior to fester with no accountability. As a result, Missouri taxpayers continue to shell out millions of dollars every year to resolve the lawsuits.
A Star analysis found that in 2018 and 2019, the state was ordered to pay more than $9.8 million to settle 18 lawsuits filed by wronged employees.
About half of them alleged sexual harassment and discrimination by male employees and supervisors. They describe inappropriate behavior toward female employees and retaliation against those who speak up. Many of the women filing the suits were corrections officers in Missouri detention centers. One suit was filed by a male corrections officer who said he was disciplined when he complained on behalf of Barrios.
This January, the state paid out more than $2 million on a single lawsuit filed by a white corrections worker who sued for racial discrimination and retaliation.
The payouts in the last two years represented an increase since a 2016 investigation by The Pitch found $7.5 million was paid from 2012 to 2016.
That investigation prompted the formation of the Missouri House subcommittee, which held nine hearings on workplace conditions. Since then, the department has touted progress, including a new director and the establishment of an Office of Professional Standards.
Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Frankford, chaired a Missouri House subcommittee on the department’s workforce environment in 2017. He said many of the recent payouts stem from lawsuits filed several years ago.
“These problems are working their way through the system, so to speak, and we need to get all that behind us,” Hansen said. “I think there’s been improvements in how things are done.”
But attorneys, the prison guard union and former employees disagree.
Attorney David Lunceford said he has been working to correct the department of corrections for more than a decade. Despite dozens of lawsuits, the agency hasn’t improved.
“It’s gotten worse,” said Lunceford.
He represents eight people with current claims against the department. All of those cases were filed after the House subcommittee made recommendations to the department of corrections.
The department operates 22 facilities and employs 11,000 people — the most of any state agency. Officials declined multiple requests for a phone interview.
In a written statement sent to The Star, department spokesperson Karen Pojmann said “all complaints are taken seriously, and investigations are handled more thoroughly and efficiently than ever before. When Employee Conduct Unit complaints are made, the complainant is contacted within three business days, and investigations are closed within two months. Civil Right investigations are resolved within one month.”
52 complaints
When other officers found out Barrios prefers to date African-American men, she started hearing racist and sexist comments.
She complained to a sergeant, but little was done.
“Everything got drastically worse,” Barrios said. “After those officers saw that nothing was going to happen to them, they would make comments and we all worked on the same shift and I was singled out.”
She was called a bitch, a whore and the c-word. One day when Barrios needed immediate help with an offender, she said other guards purposely ignored her, only showing up several minutes later.
Other lawsuits have also cited instances where officers were deliberately put in dangerous situations with prisoners.
To cope with mounting anxiety and fear, Barrios found herself leaving earlier and earlier for work.
“I would stop at the QuikTrip that is on Highway 24 in Independence and I would go vomit,” she said.
Once at the facility’s parking lot, she would take anxiety medication.
“I never knew what was going to be behind those doors once I walked in,” she said.
Barrios started physically harming herself and contemplated suicide.
In all, Barrios made 52 complaints over the year and a half she worked at the facility. But nothing changed.
She filed the lawsuit in July 2017 in Jackson County Circuit Court. When the case went to trial in September 2019, she testified for 10 hours and experienced severe flashbacks, she said.
Barrios “felt relieved after I told my story and spoke my truth,” she said. “In that moment I felt that the state had to listen to me.”
Barrios won on claims on sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation. Still, nearly four years after she left the department, she continues to struggle with the “mental damage,” she said.
“It’s almost like when I look in the mirror, I see an empty shell now.”
Barrios said the department has extensive policies on appropriate conduct and how to make complaints, but “they do not have anyone making sure those policies are followed.”
“I think they think what they’re doing is correct and I think that they will keep just paying these lawsuits.”
Attorney Mark Meyer represented Barrios.
The guards who harassed Barrios could have been stopped, he said, but instead officials continued to deny any wrongdoing and it ended up costing taxpayers.
“I was never convinced they learned much,” Meyer said.
Changes at corrections department
During the Missouri House investigation, corrections employees from different facilities and various ranks testified about the system’s failures.
Several lawmakers said they were shocked by the testimony and the million-dollar settlements.
The committee made recommendations to Anne Precythe, the department’s new director, who was appointed in January 2017.
That year, the department adopted several of the suggestions, including a zero-tolerance policy on discrimination and harassment, and the creation of a confidential hotline for reporting misconduct. It also established an Office of Professional Standards that includes a civil rights unit and an employee conduct unit.
Rep. Hansen said the department is moving in the right direction. He cited changes in training, hiring procedures and the promotion process that he said have raised morale for corrections staff. The majority of the correctional centers also have new wardens or assistant wardens, he said.
“I think that’s had a big impact also,” he said. “It’s going to take more work, but I’ve just got to say we’re way down the road from where we were.”
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Despite the changes, Gary Gross, executive director of the Missouri Corrections Officers Association, said a hostile culture persists. Gross has been head of the union since 2003.
He said the department needs better oversight, and accountability lies with Precythe. She should “absolutely” be replaced as director of the prison system, he said.
“Right now, they’re the worst I have ever seen,” he said.
“Unless you have some oversight that is willing to do a legitimate investigation on you, then you’re not going to get a legitimate investigation and therefore it’s going to wind up in the courts.”
Missouri loses three times
In one case, state officials chose to fight the same employee’s lawsuit three times, all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, and lost — costing taxpayers millions.
Richard Dixson, of Independence, worked as a re-entry coordinator at the same Kansas City facility where Barrios reported harassment. He had been named Department of Corrections Employee of the Month in January 2011. The director of the agency at the time wrote him a letter congratulating him on helping to recapture a convicted sex offender who violated parole, and on collecting donated clothing from area dry cleaners for parolees making a new start.
Dixson said he was removed from his position and unqualified employees were given his old job. When he complained, he was denied an investigation and not allowed to use flex-time to attend his children’s sports activities as other employees were allowed to.
In 2016 Dixson, who is white, filed a lawsuit alleging that he was a victim of racial discrimination and retaliation. The case went to trial and a jury found in his favor on the retaliation claim in December 2017.
He won again after the state filed an appeal.
When the state took the case to the Missouri Supreme Court, Dixson won for a third time.
“It shouldn’t take two years,” Dixson said. “What’s right is right.”
In January, the state’s legal expense fund, which distributes money for judgments and settlements, paid out more than $2 million for Dixson’s lawsuit.
He received about $650,000 of that. The rest went to Lunceford, his attorney, court costs and a victims compensation fund.
In many cases, taxpayers are also on the hook for other court costs, including expert witness fees, mediation services and court reporter expenses.
Dixson said the corrections department needs reform.
“What I want changed is what every other corrections person wants — administration held to the highest standard as all of the staff is,” Dixson said.
“Because if we do something wrong, we get in trouble. They don’t get in trouble, they get promoted, transferred, they get to retire.”
Dixson has filed another lawsuit alleging discrimination based on disability. That case is scheduled to go to trial in July.
Star reporter Katie Bernard contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
