How Drugs Get Into Jails and Prisons

I was arrested in May of 2013 and sent to Monroe County Jail. I was a drug addict committing a crime for drug money. Many of my family members breathed a sigh of relief when I was arrested. They assumed I would be forced to detox and away from drugs while in jail. They were half right. I did detox in jail but I also discovered the entire black market drug scene behind jailhouse walls. According to the latest BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics), from 2004, 17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal prisoners committed their crimes for drug money. (source) This number has almost certainly gone up since 2004, due to the raging opioid epidemic.

Including Alcohol, it is estimated that up to %50 of all prisoners were under the influence or attempting to get drug/alcohol money when their crimes were committed. (Source) All these men and women who committed crimes while under the influence need treatment for their addiction. Prison is a great spot to provide them with treatment. Conceivable if treated these men and women would have a substantially reduced rate of recidivism. Yet I spent more days in prison high than sober.

How Do Drugs and Alcohol Get Into Jails and Prisons?

It became clear to me relatively early on in jail that there was a huge black market for drugs. There were 2 categories of drugs in prison; inside drugs or outside drugs. Inside drugs were anything that was prescribed to an inmate that they would cheek or swallow, then spit back up and sell to other inmates. Outside drugs are illegal substances smuggled into the jail, through various different methods including:

1. Visit’s with friends or family
2. Through the mail and package system
3. Crooked/Blackmailed guards
4. Crooked/Blackmailed civilian workers
5. Inmates who knew they were getting arrested/Arrested on Purpose
6. Throwing/Catapults/Drones

During my time in jail and prison, I was at 1 county jail and 10 different prisons in NY State. Prisons like Auburn and Ulster I was at for just a few days while being transferred across the state. Other places like Collins and Mohawk I was at for 15 and 9 months respectively. In every single prison, there were drugs available. The 2 former inmates I spoke with had the same experience, every facility they had been at had an underground drug market. These 2 men have been at a combined 25 different jails and prisons in 5 states during their lifetimes.

Outside Drugs

Outside drugs are the most sought after in jail and prison. Inmates want weed, heroin, suboxone, k2, Xanax, Oxycontin or any other mind-altering substance. Even some of the guys who never did drugs on the street used drugs in prison because it is such a depressing place. Weed, suboxone, and k2 were by far the most prevalent drugs in every jail or prison I was in. Heroin is also very popular and on the rise at facilities across the country due to the opioid epidemic. Drugs like cocaine and meth would occasionally come around in prison, but most inmates wanted a downer to relax not an upper to make them wired.             

How do all these outside drugs come into the facility? 

1. Visit’s

Inmates have a right to visit their family and friends when they are in jail or prison. 95% of inmates visiting their families are not doing anything bad or illegal. The other %5 have their family or friends bring them drugs or other contraband. Sometimes the drugs are hidden in someone’s mouth and transferred through a kiss. Other times in a girls bra or panties because they know the guards won’t check those areas. One way I’ve seen many times is in a baby’s diaper. Most guards are not going to and don’t want to check a baby’s diaper so inmates know this and have their girl or whoever put a balloon filled with drugs in there.

During all the visits I went on it was usually 2-3 guards and 20 or more inmates with their families or friends. If each inmate has 2 people at their table that’s 60 people the guards are trying to watch. Then add into the mix babies crying and boyfriends and girlfriends fighting and it makes for a chaotic situation that is ideal for certain inmates to do shady things.

Many jails and prisons across the country now routinely have k9 dogs smell visitors to see if they have drugs on them. As good as k9 dogs are they can’t detect everything.

2. Mail and Package System

Just like with visit’s 95% of inmates are using the mail system properly to communicate with the outside world. The other %5 are getting drugs sent in. The drug’s coming in the mail are usually some form of melted down drugs that are dripped onto paper. The inmate knows this and when he/she gets their letter they can notice certain area’s that are a little darker than the rest. These areas have been wet and now are dry but can be noticed. The reason many guards don’t catch on is many men and women will spray cologne or perfume on their letters to their boyfriends or girlfriends so some of the paper already looks wet.

In prison inmates are allowed to get packages. It varies from state to state and prison to prison. Many places allow vacuum-sealed packaged food to be sent in as well as some clothes, books, and magazines. When there are 2 guards and 50 packages they have to check, each package might have 20 food items, 5 shirts, and 10 books, it’s easy for people to figure out ways to hide drugs within those items. Just like the first 2 things on the list 95% of inmates just want to have a taste of home and get some good books, but there are always those few who will con the system any way possible, and ruin it for the rest.

3. Crooked/Blackmail Guards

Many jail and prison systems are getting rid of in-person family and friend visit’s because they want to eliminate drugs and other contraband coming in. This is not going to stop the problem. According to prisonpolicy.org in 2018 there were at least 20 arrests of guards bringing contraband into county jails around the country. (Source). This number is just for a few county jails. If you take into account the number of guards caught, but that didn’t get publicly arrested, and also figure that arrest amount is just for a select number of country jails. It doesn’t include state and federal prisons, you can see how widespread the problem really is.

Many Prisons across the country got rid of face to face inmate-family visits hoping to stop drugs from coming into the facility. This may have temporarily slowed the problem but by all accounts, every one of those facilities still has a flourishing drug market.

Many guards are very depressed and have substance use issues themselves. They work long hours for little pay and work inside a very depressing place. Certain guards will seize on the opportunity to make some extra money by bringing drugs into the prison. Whatever the street value of a drug is it’s worth roughly 5-10 times that in prison. A dime bag of weed on the street ($10 bag, roughly a gram of weed) is worth a minimum of 40-50$ in prison. This can be very lucrative for a guard only making $35,000-$45,000 a year salary.

Keeping The Peace

I spoke with a retired guard recently who confirmed something I had heard from multiple guards when I was in prison. Many guards will look the other way when they know an inmate is smuggling weed into the facility. The reason for this is when inmates are high on weed they are usually a lot calmer and less violent. Every guard I knew in prison would rather have inmates smoking weed in the bathroom than fighting and stabbing each other. It’s a very hush-hush thing but everyone knows the system allows a certain amount of drugs to come into the facilities because it generally keeps inmates calmer.

There were also numerous guards who would find drugs on an inmate, in their locker, or in their cell and they would keep the drugs and not report the inmate. The guards would then sell or give the drugs to other inmates.  There was a certain guard whose name I will not mention who was infamous for taking drugs from one gang and selling them to another gang that he “liked better”. This guard was routinely punished by his superiors for misconduct but remained a guard. How and why this man is still a guard is a baffling question.

Blackmailed/Extorted

Other guards get blackmailed or extorted into bringing drugs in. I knew 2 female guards who were having relationships with inmates. One of the women was extorted and made to bring drugs into the facility by the guy she was hooking up with. The other was blackmailed by another inmate (not the one she was having sex with) who found out and threatened to expose her. Also, a few guards who had something to hide were blackmailed by inmates who found out their secret. Don’t ask me how these inmates found dirt on the guards, I have no idea, but they did.

95 % of prison and jail guards are there to do their job and go home. They are honest hard-working men and women. The 5% that are crocked give the other 95% a bad name.

4. Crooked/Blackmailed Civilian Workers

Every jail and prison around the country has civilian workers. Men and women who are electricians, construction workers, plumbers, cooks, nurses, counselors, etc. Some of these people have friends or family in prison and they bring in drugs for there friend. Others just want to make some quick cash.

I was in NY state prison at the time of the Clinton Correctional Facility escape in Dannemora NY. In June of 2015, 2 convicted murderers escaped from a maximum-security prison. They were able to cut holes in the walls and pipes with contraband smuggled in by a civilian shop worker named Joyce Mitchell. Both of the inmates built up a relationship with Mitchell and exploited her. Mitchell smuggled in miny saw blades and razors inside meat. The inmates told her it was so they could carve wood and other art projects. Gene Palmer a guard at Clinton also smuggled in tools and other contraband for the inmates. (Source)

You may be asking how dumb she had to be to bring in blades but it’s not that simple. Inmates doing long stretches in prison may have the same job for years even decades. During this time they report to the same civilian worker every day for years on end. They build up a relationship with this worker. I worked the same job for 8 months at a prison I was at. The civilian worker I reported to used to bring us in McDonald’s breakfast. Seem’s small but they would have got in a lot of trouble if anyone found out.

5. Inmates Who Knew They Were Getting Arrested / Got Arrested On Purpose

Many men and women know they are going to jail. They have been to court and their lawyer has told them they are most likely going to jail. Some of them swallow drugs before they go to court, and the next day when they are in the country jail they poop it out. A guy I knew well in jail who was using drugs the whole time he was on parole told me ” I boof (pack something in their rectum) 2 ballons every time I go see my parole officer, never know when he is gonna violate me”.

Other men and women get arrested intentionally to bring drugs into the jail. Some guys who knew they would only get a month or 2 for stealing stuff from the store would swallow or pack their butt with drugs and go out and get arrested. Once they were inside the value of those drugs goes up 5-10 times the street value.

6. Throwing/Catapult/Drone

Many prisons and jails have ground sensors in case anyone tries to dig under the fence or wall. But it still allows things to come flying over the wall. One inmate had his friends on the street fill tennis balls with drugs and launch them over the fence into the yard. There are guards in the towers and cameras around but when there are 400 inmates in the yard and 7-8 guards they can’t monitor everything.

In the new day and age people have been caught and I’m sure many more have been successful using a drone to fly something over the prison wall and drop it into someone. If a drone dropped a phone or drugs in the grass in the middle of the night, an inmate could find it the next morning when he goes out to the yard.

Inside Drugs

The popular inside drugs are Seroquel, Trazadone, Remeron, Gabapentin, Ativan, and even Benadryl. The trend being drugs that help people sleep. I believe every person in jail or prison has a hard time sleeping at some point. Even people who never took drugs on the street sometimes bought pills from other inmates to get a good night’s rest. These drugs were usually acquired one of 2 ways. The most common way was an inmate was prescribed them and would cheek them when he/she was supposed to take them. Cheeking is simply hiding the pill in your cheek or throat when the nurse looks to see if you’ve swallowed your meds.

The second way and less common is a crooked or lazy nurse. Many of the nurses in jails and prisons are overworked and underpaid. Also, many of the inmates knew some of the nurses from their neighborhoods. These nurses would double guys meds for them or slide them sleeping pills and never do mouth checks. These inside drugs were usually available every single day because inmates took medication every single day. I routinely bought other guys sleeping meds so I could sleep at night.

Many addicts would buy multiple different medications from other inmates and crush them up and mix them to get some type of high. This is very dangerous because you never know what someone is selling you. Inmates who wanted food would sell their blood pressure medication and lie and say it was a sleeping pill.

Right From The Start

I spent my first 5 days in a detox unit puking my brains out. After day 5, I was transferred to a regular until with 52 other inmates. Before I made it 30 feet into the new unit 2 guys approached me and asked if I was “holding”. I had no clue what this meant so I said no. I found out later that many people who know they are getting arrested either swallow or boof (put drugs in their rectum) drugs and bring them in jail. These guys were hoping I had some drugs. Ironically a few months later at that same door, I was the person asking new guys if they were “holding”.

It took me 12 hours in my new unit to find some sleeping pills to buy from another inmate. I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. I was able to buy sleeping pills on the “Front” (meaning I would have to pay for them later) within 12 hours.

Jail and Prison Is A Big Business In The US

It’s no secret that jail and prison is big business in the US. Many of the private prisons are going away and for good reason. No corporation should be allowed to have a for-profit prison in which they are incentivized for more arrests and incarcerations. But the state and federal prisons are no exception. They provide many jobs for the state as well as revenue coming in. Inmates have to pay fines, restitution, and fees. The jails and prisons sell commissary to inmates in which they make a profit. They charge money for every single phone call. A big one is workshops in prison. Many of the workshops at prisons here in NY have inmates making license plates or furniture for ¢.30 an hour in which the state takes half that for fees and fines and then the state sells the license plates and furniture for regular prices.

My first job in prison I started at a whopping .09 cents an hour. I was able to move up the ranks until I was getting paid the big bucks .28 cents an hour. 

Jobs security

All these prisons and jails around the country employ thousands of guards, cooks, electricians, plumbers, counselors, Etc. The justice system knows this and this is part of the incentive to keep cycling inmates back in jail and prison to keep all these people working. This is also part of the reason so much contraband gets into prison and jail. There is never a shortage of new workers coming in, and new inmates coming into the system. 

Reality

I was in solitary confinement 5 times at multiple different facilities. 3 out of the 5 times I was in solitary there was drugs available. IN SOLITARY! This is supposed to be the most secure secluded part of the prison. It’s a prison inside a prison and we were still able to get high. The sad reality is that jails and prisons around the country are flooded with drugs, and it’s not just the inmates bringing the drugs in. Addicts who are supposed to be getting treatment and be rehabilitated are using drugs daily inside prison walls.