By Joe Bouchard
Like most things corrections-related, contraband control can be prefaced with the phrase, “There’s some good news and there’s some bad news.”
Let’s start with the bad news:
- Contraband is in all facilities — no matter the size, location, level of confinement, or age of the institution
- Prisoners have ample time at their disposal to contrive clever ways of moving items
- Offenders’ motivation to trade goods and services are often stronger than the sanctions against contraband in their facility
- The sheer number of contrabands items in any facility on any given day is astoundingly high
- Prisoner ingenuity ranges from something simple like using a staple to jam a lock, to using a thumb drive to traffic sensitive information
- Anything we don’t control or account for may be used against us
And now for the good news:
Alert staff hold many cards in this war – we are far from defeated. As a team, we have these tools at our disposal to effectively cripple the inevitable trade of prison contraband:
- With computers, we have an extremely effective tool for collecting, comparing, and analyzing intelligence
- Staff rotates among two or three shifts and returns refreshed, meaning the search for contraband can potentially be conducted for 24 hours every day
- We can search for contraband with virtual impunity, provided we do not cross the line of professionalism into harassment
- We have a unified communications network
- We have the ability to concentrate our efforts in special areas
- We can tap into a wealth of expertise on prison contraband -- networking with other prison staff is one of our greatest strengths
It may be easy to get discouraged about the ubiquity of contraband in our facilities, and about the startling ingenuity of inmates who continue to find a way to get their hands on it. I hope an awareness of the advantages we have in this fight helps you face down the daunting task of rooting out the contraband in your facility.
Stay safe, and good luck.
