Prison sex abuse must be rooted out, Justice official says

Sexual abuse in the nation’s federal prisons must be rooted out, the Justice Department’s second-highest-ranking leader told prison wardens gathered for their first nationwide training since revelations that a toxic, permissive culture at a California prison allowed abuse to run rampant.

The Associated Press gained exclusive access to the training Tuesday for wardens of the country’s 122 federal prisons, the first since AP investigations uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the federal Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency.

Teams of experts and officials will soon be fanning out to women’s prisons around the country to follow up on on reforms the agency adopted last fall, and they’ll speak to both staff and incarcerated people, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a speech at the training facility outside Denver.

At the training, wardens sat at round conference tables dotted with quotes about wellness and leadership from…