Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of five excerpts from Corrections1 contributor Joe Bouchard’s book “Wake Up and Smell the Contraband: A Guide to Improving Prison Safety.”
There are a ride range of principles that apply to all categories of contraband.
Regardless of if the item is tobacco, stamps, food, pornography, weapons, drugs, etc, all laws generally apply to anything that’s being smuggled into your jail.
Understand the benefits of contraband and why inmates would rather risk a major misconduct for contraband than face an assault on the yard, and you could greatly improve the safety of your prison.
Click here for the first 5 fundamentals. Numbers 6 through 25 are below.
Some staff underestimate the lure that power derived from commerce has on prisoners. Some staff believe that sanctions are sufficient to keep potential problems spawned by illegal trading manageable. Staff does not always consider the rationale of truism number 5. Still, staff may do themselves a disservice by thinking in terms of what they would do themselves in similar situations. All corrections professionals need to assess ulterior motives, losses and gains, and the lure of prestige.
Contraband control is a never-ending proposition. Prisoners new to the system will test it as though it had never been tested. Older prisoners will patiently wait until classic modes have been forgotten. With the profit to be had, the lure will always be present. I believe that staff must be realistic in contraband control. It may seem like sweeping sand back into the ocean, but that is the nature of the beast. It becomes, then, a question of sweeping the sand in crucial areas and being ever vigilant for interesting finds. One of the best ways to become disappointed is to labor under the delusion that contraband control has an endpoint.
Contraband lords are magnets for those who want to obtain associative power. Many inmates will hitch their wagon to the rising stars of bootleg entrepreneurs. The more successful a reputation, the more followers a contraband lord will have. A great legend does not have to be absolutely accurate. The power is in what followers are willing to believe about the capabilities and resources of the leader. As in many things, perception is reality.
The greater the profits from commerce, the more difficulty in prisoner management. For example, when something is eliminated from an area, the scarcity drives the prices up. If tobacco becomes officially forbidden in segregation units, the demand may stay the same or slightly increase, but the reward for traffickers definitely increases. More prisoners will take risks when the profit margin increases. The catalyst is increased comfort and increased power.
Old tricks recycle while new inventions of concealment and transport, though less frequent, continue. Seasoned professionals may take note, for example, of recurrent resurgences in certain methods. One might see the old hollowed-out book vehicle for contraband once in a few years. Through a career, we see fewer new methods as our collection of known modes expands with experience. This is not to say that innovation is dead. However, many new prisoners believe that they’ve invented the wheel when it is actually a rediscovery.
For more information on this, please consult the following, chapter 2 in particular: Bouchard, Joseph. “Wake up and smell the contraband: A Guide to Improving Prison Safety” (2nd edition) Horsham, PA: LRP Publications, 2005. Click here to purchase the book.
