Private Prisons Fuel Crime: The Shocking Case of Cibola County's Drug Scandal

Rayshawn Boyce, a former University of New Mexico football player, didn’t just break the law once. While locked up awaiting trial for robbing a postal worker in 2022, he orchestrated a methamphetamine ring from inside Cibola County Correctional Center. The details hit hard: a pound of meth stashed in a shower, smuggled in by a correctional officer he’d charmed into a romantic entanglement. After a five-day trial, a federal jury convicted him on April 8, 2025, proving what many feared, that our jails aren’t rehabilitating anyone. They’re breeding grounds for crime.

This isn’t a lone bad apple rotting in isolation. Boyce’s partner in this scheme, Gabriella Torres, a guard at the facility, pled guilty to conspiracy. She slipped marijuana into the jail twice before escalating to meth, all while funneling profits through a CashApp account he’d set up. The surveillance footage paints a grim picture, Torres sneaking the drugs under her hoodie, Boyce scrambling to hide them when searches loomed. It’s a story of exploitation, desperation, and a system so porous it practically invites disaster.

What stings most? This happened under our watch, in a facility run by CoreCivic, a private prison giant raking in taxpayer dollars. If you’re wondering how drugs flow so freely behind bars, look no further than the cracks in a justice system that’s more about punishment than progress. Boyce faces a decade minimum behind bars, maybe life. Torres could too. But the real crime is a setup that let this fester unchecked.

Drug trafficking in prisons isn’t new; it’s a plague that’s haunted lockups for decades. Back in the 1980s, the War on Drugs promised to choke out supply with stiff sentences. Instead, it packed cells with people like Boyce, low-level players handed mandatory minimums that rival sentences for violent kingpins. A pound of meth gets you ten years, no questions asked, even if you’re not the mastermind. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 set this trap, and we’re still stepping in it.

Evidence piles up showing these policies don’t work. Nearly half of federal inmates are drug offenders, many snagged by laws that strip judges of discretion. The First Step Act of 2018 tried to loosen the grip, trimming sentences for some nonviolent cases, but it’s a Band-Aid on a broken leg. Boyce’s story proves the cycle: lock someone up, strip them of hope, and watch them double down on crime. Meanwhile, facilities like Cibola stay understaffed, underfunded, and ripe for corruption.

Then there’s Torres, a guard who crossed a line too many ignore. A Department of Justice survey found 1.8% of jail inmates report sexual victimization by staff, a number that spikes among vulnerable groups. Power dynamics twist relationships into tools for smuggling, whether it’s drugs or worse. Torres didn’t just break rules; she exposed a training gap wide enough to drive a truck through. When guards and inmates blur boundaries, security crumbles, and drugs pour in.

Private outfits like CoreCivic don’t help. They’ve got metal detectors and cameras, sure, cutting contraband by 25% in some spots. But federal probes keep uncovering violence, abuse, and yes, drugs in their jails. Why? Profit trumps people. They’re paid to house bodies, not fix lives, and Cibola’s meth stash is the latest receipt. Contrast that with calls from advocates for rehabilitation, who argue for drug treatment over dead-end sentences. The data backs them: treat addiction, and recidivism drops. Lock folks up indefinitely? You get Boyce.

Boyce didn’t just deal drugs; he ran a business, complete with digital payments. CashApp, a platform millions use for legit transactions, became his laundering hub. Torres set up the account, and buyers funneled cash straight to it. This isn’t a glitch; it’s a feature of a world where tech outpaces oversight. In 2024 alone, illicit crypto addresses raked in $40.9 billion, and apps like CashApp are the new frontier for street-level hustles.

Law enforcement scrambles to catch up, but the anonymity these platforms offer shields crooks like Boyce. Whistleblowers have flagged CashApp’s weak vetting for years, linking it to everything from drug deals to terrorism financing. Yet regulation lags, leaving regular people footing the bill for a system that can’t tell a legit transfer from a meth payout. It’s a stark reminder: unchecked tech amplifies crime, especially in places like Cibola where desperation meets opportunity.

Some will say Boyce and Torres got what they deserved, that harsh sentences deter crime. They’re wrong. Decades of data scream otherwise: mandatory minimums don’t scare dealers; they trap them in a loop of incarceration and reoffending. Boyce didn’t reform after his postal robbery bust; he leveled up, exploiting a jail too broken to stop him. Supporters of tough-on-crime policies cling to outdated logic, ignoring how these rules disproportionately cage Black and Brown men like him, fueling a prison population that’s ballooned since the 1980s.

The fix isn’t more bars or bigger profits for CoreCivic. It’s tearing down a system that thrives on failure and building one that heals. Pump funds into training guards to spot coercion, not just contraband. Expand treatment programs that cut addiction’s roots, not just its branches. Hold private prisons accountable, not with slaps on the wrist, but with real oversight. Boyce and Torres broke the law, no doubt. But a society that lets jails become drug dens, that’s the bigger scandal. We can do better, and we owe it to everyone, locked up or not, to try.