[citation needed] A series of investigative articles in The Topeka Capital-Journal in September 2009 revealed a "complex black market" of contraband, bribes, and a sex trade, practices that culminated in a prison employee impregnating an inmate.

[7] In January 2010 two independent audits, one by the National Institute of Corrections and another by a committee of the state legislature, recommended two dozen operational changes, and the facility's administrator was reassigned elsewhere.

[8] The result of a 2011–2012 investigation by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division found that the problems persisted.

The Division's September 6, 2012 letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback concluded that "TCF fails to protect women prisoners from harm due to sexual abuse and misconduct from correctional staff and other prisoners in violation of their constitutional rights.

TCF has a history of unabated officer-on-prisoner and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse and misconduct.