By Ron Maxey
The Commercial Appeal
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Trish Doty rolls her eyes at the Hollywood-inspired notion of a file being smuggled into prison inside a cake.
She knows, however, that the basic idea — getting things to inmates that they aren’t supposed to have — is a problem that’s all too real. As deputy warden of the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs, she deals with the issue daily.
“Drugs and cellphones,” she says matter-of-factly. “That’s the biggest problem when it comes to contraband.”
Sometimes, she says, people will try to throw items to inmates, which explains the netting above the fence line around the complex that houses about 1,000 prisoners of various security levels. Other times, visitors will try to bring items into the facility, which is usually thwarted through thorough searches of everyone entering.
Now, the facility has an added line of defense. Their names are Blek and Maja, a pair of 2-year-old German shepherds that have been added to help keep out anything that shouldn’t get in.
The K-9 unit isn’t assigned exclusively to the Marshall County facility. Instead, it rotates among four Mississippi prisons operated under contract with the state by Management and Training Corp. MTC also operates facilities in Meridian, Walnut Grove and Wilkinson County.
But even though the K-9 union is not present all the time, Ed Porter, MTC’s director of security operations for Region IV, said just knowing that the unit could show up for random checks is enough to help keep inmates — and staff — honest in terms of not having banned items.
Contraband and the constant efforts by inmates to get it can be a major source of problems for prisons. Just last week, the Walnut Grove facility operated by MTC was in the news because of a fight that broke out in the Central Mississippi facility over an attempt to bring in contraband.
During a visit to the facility Friday, Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps identified contraband as the source of the altercation.
Nine inmates were injured during the incident.
Doty and Porter agree that any measures that reduce the chances of slipping in contraband also help reduce the potential for other problems. That’s why they’re thankful for the added K-9 deterrent.
The two Slovakian-bred dogs, currently the only two MTC has, live with their handlers, Blek with Sgt. James Tunstall and Maja with Sgt. Sandra Staden.
“They do well with families,” Tunstall said, “but these aren’t really pets. They’re trained for a very specific purpose.”
The dogs haven’t been trained in pursuit, though they can be aggressive. Their training is in search, which they do very well. They can sniff out phones, sensing the smell of chemicals present in cellphone batteries, and any kind of drug.
During a demonstration outside the gates of the Holly Springs prison, the two sniffed out phones hidden in the wheel well of a car, cocaine stashed in a stack of pallets and other drugs planted by officers in a field. After locating an item, the dogs sit until their handlers retrieve the found material.
Porter said the dogs will sometimes be used to do searches of inmate and staff, or sometimes they might be called in to search particular areas where prison reports indicate there have been problems.
“You can tell the inmates are on high alert whenever they’re here,” Doty said. “Even if they (the dogs) don’t find anything, it’s a constant issue and having them here makes everyone cautious.”
Porter said about $75,000 was added to the budget to pay for the K-9 unit, and the results documented since the unit was activated in February have been promising.
“It’s just an additional level of security,” Doty says, “and that’s always good to have.”