By Irene Rotondo
masslive.com
BOSTON — At the Shirley branch of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution this August, staff noticed a woman in the visiting room with her cheeks bulging.
When they stopped the visit, a balloon was found in her mouth stuffed with 11 stamp-sized pieces of paper — each soaked in a synthetic drug that thrives almost exclusively behind prison walls.
It’s one glimpse into a growing battle against synthetic cannabinoids, known as K2, inside Massachusetts state prisons.
Officials tout tighter visitor screening and mail surveillance as victories, but questions persist about addiction treatment and transparency — especially after six unexpected deaths across the state prison system since Sept. 20 . Four of the deaths were apparent suicides, according to data released by the DOC.
DOC leaders insist they’re targeting everyone, from family members to correctional officers, to educate and hold accountable.
“Unfortunately ... this is a pretty lucrative enterprise that people have engaged in and the ability, or availability, to bring this in is pretty simple. It’s because it’s paper based,” said Shawn Jenkins, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC).
He spoke in response to how the DOC handles its correctional officers’ role in bringing K2 into the prison.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep it out, but we’ll take wherever investigations lead us and we will address people ... whether it’s staff or visitors,” Jenkins said.
What does new data show?
The DOC announced new data on Wednesday on its efforts to prevent drugs and contraband from entering state prisons. Through an existing joint task force with Massachusetts State Police and collaborations with federal and local partners, the DOC has implemented educational programs, staff training, new tools and enforcements.
Since the beginning of 2025 and as of Dec. 2, the measures led to 26 cases opened in which arrests were made or charges filed, with most involving the delivery of drugs or other illicit items to incarcerated individuals. Additionally, 15 state and three federal search warrants were executed, according to the DOC.
Besides 120 oxycodone pills, 17 doses of fentanyl and 2 grams of heroin, a total of 110 pages of K2 were seized as a result of the task force, the DOC said.
The K2 was valued at $9 million alone.
Also known as “spice,” K2 is a psychoactive substance that impacts a person’s mental state, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Reported effects can vary widely, including altered mood and perception, hallucinations, relaxation, anxiety and paranoia, suicidal tendencies and increased heart rate.
Since K2 is mostly a prison-only drug, Jenkins said, the DOC has been left to learn its own way through detection and treatment — while advocates argue the department still isn’t transparent about the health toll behind the walls.
Prevention through education
But key to prevention, according to the DOC, is education. Jenkins pointed to the department’s existing medication-assisted treatment programs and its six‑month Correctional Recovery Academy, along with clinical groups and substance use classes across the system.
He said those programs are now being adapted to address K2 specifically, even as DOC and the Department of Public Health are still trying to understand what works for such a “novel” substance.
“We feel like we have a very successful blueprint for treating other types of drugs,” Jenkins said. “But again, the novelty associated with K2 is something that we’re constantly kind of reevaluating and engaging with others on from a public health perspective,” he said.
He added the DOC has had “numerous conversations with this, with different commissioners and directors throughout the nation” as part of the Correctional Leaders Association.
The department has also expanded education efforts aimed at incarcerated individuals and their loved ones, whom the DOC says would be potential people to smuggle in the drug.
Jenkins said the department is working to bring formerly incarcerated people back to facilities to speak directly with individuals on how this “disrupts their reentry,” their education and ”abilities to put those pieces of their life back together.”
Additionally, key department strategies — besides aforementioned mail and visitor screenings — include canine detection, technology such as the TruNarc machine and the Attorney Verification System (AVS) to process privileged mail between attorneys and incarcerated individuals.
But advocates and incarcerated people’s loved ones say those initiatives are difficult to evaluate without transparency from the department on its incidents, such as hospitalizations, overdoses and deaths.
Is K2 connected with suicides?
Last month, the DOC announced it would be conducting an independent review led by Dr. Sharen Barboza, a mental health expert in correctional facilities, in light of the recent rash of deaths.
Barbosa’s findings will include if there’s a “tie-in,” between “this product inside our facilities and the spike of suicides,” Jenkins said.
“She is tasked with examining and seeing if there are commonalities, if there are trends that we’re missing, and coming up with recommendations on how we can do things better,” Jenkins said.
“Certainly, if there are connections, or there are some sort of commonalities that involve K2 — that is something we’ll certainly look at.”
The announcement of Barbosa’s review followed the incarcerated individuals’ deaths this year and a call out from the Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, which demanded the DOC provide “full transparency and accountability, including publicly disclosing the circumstances of each death and implementing immediate reforms to prevent future tragedies.”
PLS also said it did not believe the DOC has a treatment plan for people with K2 use disorders and that the DOC “responds to K2 addiction through punishment and isolation, which is countertherapeutic and counterproductive,” a spokesperson previously told MassLive.
Jenkins said the DOC treats K2 through its general substance-use framework, but acknowledged there’s no settled, evidence-based K2 treatment model yet and are adapting with help from the Department of Public Health.
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