By Kyle Wind
The Times-Tribune
SCRANTON, Pa. — Synthetic marijuana is driving a recent surge in violence and drug-smuggling in Lackawanna County Prison.
“Pep spice (synthetic marijuana) is becoming an issue at the prison,” Warden Robert McMillan told the prison board Wednesday. “We are seeing an increased number of inmates being admitted and requiring detox for spice.”
When Lackawanna County Judge Vito Geroulo expressed concern about “a high number of violent incidents in late July and early August,” the warden attributed many of the problems to the synthetic drug.
The warden’s monthly extraordinary occurrence report cited several dramatic encounters with prisoners that ended with inmates in restraint chairs, like a work-release inmate who returned to the facility, began acting erratically and took a swing at a correctional officer on
July 29.
In another case on Aug. 11, a federal prisoner used feces and toilet paper to obstruct a surveillance camera and launched himself from his bunk at an extraction team who came to deal with the situation, the warden reported.
Six correctional officers suffered injuries while trying to restrain the prisoner, but most of them have since returned to work. The warden characterized the maladies as “arm injuries, sprained wrist, hurt backs.”
“In addition, several inmates have attempted to smuggle spice and suboxone into the prison recently,” Mr. McMillan said. “We have intercepted quite a bit of it coming through the mail, and we have also intercepted it coming back through the work release (program).”
Judge Geroulo, who opposed moving the center from downtown Scranton to the prison in January 2013, was alarmed by the work release issues and wanted the county take a more active approach to dealing with them.
“(Work release) just seems to have injected more problems into the prison than we ever had before,” he said. “We are paying an awfully high price for having the work release at the prison ... It certainly seems to be worthwhile looking into an alternative if we have continued introduction of drugs into the prison coming through the work program. We have a reduced number of (men) participating in the work-release program because it is located in the prison and we are not doing anything about it because we don’t have other arrangements made for the women.”
Ideally, the county would build a new work release center, Mr. McMillan said.