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Drug prohibition generates an endless stream of individual law enforcers who succumb to the allure of easy profits. But we should remember that each example of individual turpitude indicts as well a system seemingly designed to breed corruption. Be that as it may, this week we present another quartet of law enforcers gone bad:

• In Tennessee, former Morgan County Sheriff's Deputy William "Ron" Hawn and his wife Gina were indicted January 18 on drug distribution charges. Hawn, a long time narcotics officer, had left the department in April, and three months later found himself the arrestee instead of the arrester after selling hydrocone, the opioid in Oxycontin, to his former drug war colleagues, undercover agents from the Ninth Judicial District Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. According to a sheriff's department press release, Hawn sold the stuff on June 9 and Gina Hawn made a sale to narcs on June 15. The Hawns face possible sentences of three to 15 years in prison and were still on the loose as of early this week.
• In New Mexico, the Associated Press reported Monday that an unnamed state police narcotics agent has resigned in the midst of an FBI investigation into allegations that he was involved in drug dealing. State officials were notified of the probe last week, after the FBI executed search warrants. The agent has not yet been charged.
• In California, a prison guard at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County was arrested January 15 on suspicion of conspiring drugs and cell phones to inmates, the Los Angeles Times reported. Daniel Jones Jr. and his girlfriend, Leslie Saldana, were both charged after a six-month investigation into prison contraband. They are accused of being involved in a conspiracy to smuggle marijuana, cocaine, and cell phones into the prison. The couple is out on bail awaiting a February 18 arraignment.
• And in Massachusetts, another prison guard has been sentenced to prison. Mark O'Brien, a guard at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica, got eight months in the Big House after admitting trying to smuggle heroin to inmates in exchange for Oxycontin tablets. O'Brien conspired with inmate Russell Chiary to swap smuggled smack for Oxycontin, but the person he thought was a heroin supplier was actually a civilian snitch working for the DEA. O'Brien was arrested in March 2003 after meeting with an undercover officer posing as the dealer and accepting heroin from him. While former prison guard O'Brien got eight months, inmate Chiary got eight years for his role in the scheme.

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