The linked editorial argues that Rikers guards need better training and supervision. It shouldn't be necessary to "train" a guard that it's wrong to assist inmates who want to beat or torture or steal from another inmate. The problem requires more than training or supervision; the entire culture of our worst prisons needs to be changed.

Allowing inmates to control the prison is a common theme in corrections. Guards often depend on inmates to keep "order" in the prison, and they look the other way when inmates use violence to maintain their power structure. The empowered inmates provide helpful information to the guards, who in turn look pretend not to notice when those inmates feel a need to assert their authority against other inmates.

It's less common for guards to play the more active role alleged at Rikers Island. Directing specific acts of violence makes the guards just as complicit as the violent inmates. But even when corrections officers have only a passive "understanding" with inmates that violence is an acceptable means of enforcing a power structure, they've crossed the line. Rikers may be an extreme example of the fuzzy distinction between inmates and their guards, but it illustrates the pressing need for prison reform nationwide.