(AP)
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Prison officials in North Carolina are calling for a criminal investigation after inmates alleged correctional officers forced them to rub habañero sauce on their genitals, resulting in painful blisters. A state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman says officials have asked the State Bureau of Investigation to review conduct at Sampson Correctional Institution, and one staff member at the prison has already been reassigned after the start of an internal investigation.
Earlier this year, six men at the medium-security facility sent a letter to the US District Court in Greensboro complaining that staff had forced them to perform numerous humiliating acts for the entertainment of guards, including stripping nude and pretending to have sex. The inmates also reported being forced to gulp a super-hot "Exotic Hot Sauce" purchased off the Internet and slather it on their testicles, as well as being forced to grab and kiss wild snakes while working on a road crew and to throw captured bunnies into oncoming traffic. Those who performed for the guards were rewarded with preferential work assignments, food, cigarettes, and beer, the inmates alleged.
