Prison Life: Contraband Classifications and Control

Jan 25, 2010

Since the first prison opened its gates, or rather, slammed them shut, inmates have become more and more creative in their methods of obtaining, concealing and transporting contraband. In prison, contraband refers to any item not specifically allowed to an inmate per policy. There are two main classifications of contraband: nuisance, or soft, contraband, and dangerous (hard) contraband. There is no end to the variety of things inmates will attempt to have smuggled into prison, nor in the lengths they will go to to hide the items once they have them.

Understanding Contraband Classifications

The first classification of contraband, nuisance contraband, is essentially any item that violates policy in and of itself, but without posing a significant institutional risk. Modified personal electronic equipment, stingers (to boil water), extra property (too many clothes, photos, etc.), gambling chips or markers, and pornography would all be considered nuisance contraband at many prison facilities.

Items that would normally be classified as dangerous, or hard, contraband include weapons, flammable liquids, drugs, money, scrap metal or hardware of any sort not specifically authorized to the inmate, any item that could aid in escape (ropes, plans, tools) and more recently, cell phones.

It may be obvious that drugs and weapons in a prison setting are dangerous, and therefore a serious matter. Cell phones and paper money, however, also pose serious potential risks to the institutions. Money, either coin or paper currency, is prohibited in many institutions (including Arizona's state prisons). As far as shelter, food, and "living expenses", inmates don't have much legitimate need for cash-in-hand in prison; in prison, its all about the money on your "books" (inmate banking accounts). Actual cash floating around the prison yard does little more than harbor potential for drug deals, extortion, gambling, violence and robbery.

Cell phones, which give inmates unfettered access to the outside world, with no supervision or interference from Department of Corrections or law enforcement. Cell phones are often smuggled in, sadly, by staff. In prison, even a cheap, throw-away phone can go for $300, while the newest styles will fetch upwards of $1,000.

Cell phones allow inmates to contact loved ones without DOC hassle, but they also can be used to facilitate illegal, gang-related dealings, and even call assaults or hits out on the street from within the prison. Escape plans can also be more easily coordinated with the use of cell phones.

In Arizona state prisons, certain items such as cell phones, cash money (paper or coin) and "street" clothing are considered escape paraphernalia, which is a more threat-specific form of dangerous contraband. Currency can be used to bribe correctional staff, and be used to aid in a getaway. Plain clothes, or better yet, a correctional officer's uniform, would be an obvious advantage in blending in enough to "slip out". It may sound bold, but it has been done, and with dire consequences. For these reasons, officers and prison staff are held to strict accountability regarding their own personal belongings and state-issued property (keys, weapons, radios).

How Contraband Gets In

Contraband can be introduced to a prison facility in a number of ways. Officers and prison staff may inadvertently grant inmates access to things they shouldn't have (money, food, medication, even weapons) by leaving their own belongings or state property unsecured, or intentionally provide dangerous items to inmates either for profit or due to intimidation.

Officers and other prison staff may attempt to smuggle items into the facility by hiding them in their boots, their clothing, their food or beverages, or within other personal items. For this reason, there is strict regulation of what may enter the prison and in what state. For example, only clear plastic and/or mesh handbags and back-packs are allowed in Arizona state prisons, and every food item must be able to be almost completely looked through. In light of many recent issues of staff attempting to bring prohibited items in at ASPC-Tucson, for example, sandwiches now must be opened, burritos unrolled, and there is even talk of barring staff from bringing their own meals to work (it is unlikely this will go through.)

Visitors are also common "mules" of illegal items, and are naturally under intense scrutiny. Visitors may smuggle items in in their clothing, hair or even body cavities, and then pass the item off discreetly to an inmate sometime during the visit.

Prison Policy To Combat Contraband

Visitors must expect strict regulation of their time on prison grounds. This will include clothing restrictions, conduct requirements, and of course, intense searches of their person and articles. When a vehicle enters the prison property, it is subject to search at any time. This includes the vehicles of both staff and visitors, and it doesn't have to be a "targeted search". In other words, there really doesn't need to be a good reason, and there are random searches conducted on an ongoing basis.

Even strip-down and full-strip searches are within policy, and will be applied to both staff and visitors just as they are to inmates. This type of search is usually only performed when there is good reason to believe a staff member or visitor has something illegal or suspect on their person; inmates are "stripped out" far more routinely, because they typically pose the bigger on-going threat.

Housing unit searches are also routinely performed in an attempt to curb the influx of contraband in prison. In housing units that are set up as single or two-man cells, the inmates will typically be pulled from their cell and instructed to wait outside under an officer's watch. Another officer will conduct the search, and inmates may be strip-searched during the course of this or before being allowed to return to their cell.

Challenges Facing Correctional Staff

Searching for contraband in lower custody housing units, where minimum and medium security inmates are typically housed, can be far more difficult. This custody level is typically housed in "open dorm" style units, which can be more arduous to secure and lock down for searches. Pulling the entire house population out and securing them on the recreation field is one way to empty the entire dorm and search without interference, but it is very difficult to avoid transfers, hand-offs and actually conduct individual inmate searches during such mass movements.

Often, searches will be done on a rotating basis, and the element of surprise is lost. The inmates will often know the details of the upcoming raid before the officers about to conduct it will, simply because they keep better track of time and the "mood of the yard". On a yard with an open housing unit, the inmates who have a heads-up can move any liabilities away from them, and stash them somewhere else until their building or dorm has been hit. Afterwords, and preferably before their stash spot is searched, they can retrieve the contraband and bring it back to their area. Sometimes a batch of hooch or bundle of drugs will take an entire lap around a prison yard of five or six buildings before returning to its original stash spot.

There are designated inmates (within each race/group independently) on most prison yards who will take the fall for "their people" if necessary. Usually low-ranking, probationary gang members beholden to their "brothers", these inmates will have to take the heat if an item is caught in his area to avoid further poking around by officials. Items will also be moved to his area to keep other inmates clear of them, and fingers will simply be crossed. If he goes down, he goes down. It's that cold.

Methods of Hiding and Finding Contraband

Inmates will overcome whatever procedures are put in place to thwart them. Period. Corrections officials must always stay a step ahead, because the inmates are paying attention, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for as long as they are incarcerated. Most staff members carry out an eight-to-ten hour shift, and then they go home, and live their lives. While they are home sleeping, there are inmates back at the prison thinking. While an officer is on his day off, dealing with ordinary tasks in the real world, that inmate is still thinking, and planning, and plotting.

Correctional staff must be as creative as the inmate when approaching contraband. If it unscrews, comes loose, bends back or breaks off, an inmate will find it. Conducting regular, routine inspections of fences, walls, floors, doors, mechanical components, toilets, sinks and other fixtures is just as important as searching property. No inmate ever escaped through his porno magazine.

Even if an inmate's cell and clothing appear to be "clean", if there is evidence to suggest there is still contraband present, it probably is. In prison, there are more invasive places to hide things than under a mattress or sewn into a pillow. Many inmates hide weapons, drugs, kites (contraband notes), and cellular phones up their rectums on a routine basis to avoid discovery of the items at all costs. In prison, the term for this is "kiestering".

Though this method may sound extreme, it is a daily practice in likely every prison in America. Correctional staff are not ignorant to this fact, and are not above shining a flashlight up there to investigate the situation. Officers are looking for tell-tale signs of "kiestering", such as visual evidence of lubrication having recently been used, any string hanging out (which might have been tied to a bundle for easy retrieval), or other obvious signs of "something ain't right".

If an item is believed to be within an inmate, but the inmate refuses to comply with its removal, he or she will simply be waited out. The term for this in prison is "s--t watch". (Sort of the opposite approach to "watch swallows", the term for inmates who must be given supervised medication.)

Effectiveness of Contraband Control in Prisons

Though many American prisons are new, state-of-the-art facilities, capable of housing the most hardened, super-max level offenders in barren, sterile, everything-nailed-down type cells for 23 hours a day, most are not. For some older prisons in America, its been decades since their last proper renovation. This means older materials, more wear and tear, less modern security features, and more places for inmates to hide contraband.

At ASPC-Tucson, a prison with somewhat deteriorating facilities, there is often a ratio of 15-20 officers to 600+ inmates at any given time of day on some units. In open dorm housing units, which may hold up to 70 men per building, there is often just one officer to control the "floor", and one to run "control" operations (doors, radio traffic, movement).

This disparaging contrast in numbers means a total control on contraband is next to impossible. However, the use of dogs trained to alert on cell phones, drugs and weapons, as well as the attention to detail and determination of correctional officers, results in heavy interference. Regardless of prison policy and thorough searches, it is likely little more than 40% of contraband is actually seized.

With cell phones worth several hundred dollars apiece, drugs worth more than that, and weapons often considered a matter of life and death, it is unlikely the struggle to control contraband in prison will get any easier. Power becomes tangible in a razor blade, or stack of cash, or expensive jewelry. In prison, contraband is commerce, and commerce is the survival of the fittest above all else. Inmates will often live and die by the goods they can attain while behind bars; for some, providing certain things to another inmate may be the only way to stay safe.

As correctional facilities become more sophisticated, and officers get more tools to assist them, inmates will find ways to combat these measures and beat the system, sometimes for greed, sometimes for simple survival. In prison, life is a never-ending game of cat and mouse, and the roles reverse constantly between captors, and captives.

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