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| Illicit goods keep flowing into prisons |
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| Published: 03/16/2009 |
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Illicit goods keep flowing into prisons 300 employees reprimanded from '03 to '08 By LISA SANDBERG and MATT STILES - Houston Chronicle AUSTIN — Knives and drugs, cell phones and smokeless tobacco. Even McDonald’s hamburgers. Texas prisons were a virtual bazaar of prohibited and illicit goods smuggled in by guards and correctional employees who rarely faced harsh punishment when caught, according to a Houston Chronicle review. Nearly 300 employees, many lowly paid correctional officers, were reprimanded for possessing prohibited items at 20 prison units with the most pervasive contraband problem between 2003 and 2008, records show. Of the 263 employees disciplined solely for contraband, about 75 percent, were given probation. Thirty five were fired; 26 received no punishment at all. One of the 263 was criminally prosecuted for the contraband, but served no prison time. Contraband trafficking, one of the biggest security problems facing the state’s 112-unit prison system, gained national attention last fall when a death row inmate used a smuggled cell phone to threaten a prominent lawmaker. The phone was used by fellow death row inmates to place nearly 3,000 other calls. John Moriarty, the prison system’s inspector general, called contraband “the biggest security problem the prisons face.” Until recently, guards found introducing contraband into the system were more likely to be handed minimal penalties rather than fired and the punishment varied widely, a newspaper review of five years of disciplinary records shows. In 47 cases in which an employee attempted to deliver contraband to an offender, only seven cases resulted in dismissals, according to the analysis. Firing not automatic Top prison officials have called for zero tolerance in stamping out prison contraband, though it “doesn’t mean someone is terminated,” said the prison system’s spokeswoman, Michelle Lyons. “It means it’s addressed and is dealt with accordingly. In some cases, depending on the contraband, the fitting punishment is probation or suspension,” she said. “In more serious cases, where the facts support that the person intended to introduce contraband to an offender, then it’s dealt with possibly by termination.” But in 2003 a correctional officer at the Estelle Unit was given 10 months probation and suspended for four days without pay after his backpack turned up an assortment of knives, prescription drugs, a cell phone, two electric razors, a box blade, a lighter, a set of portable radios, cigarettes and cigars. Another correctional officer with an otherwise clean record at the Beto Unit got six months probation, simply for walking through a metal detector with an unopened can of chewing tobacco. A retired Estelle Unit prison guard said getting cigarettes into the prisons was never a problem. “I used to walk behind the cell blocks every night and would find cigarette ashes out there behind maybe a third of the cell blocks,” said the former guard, who was once placed on probation for being found on prison grounds with a bag containing a paring knife, a spoon, scissors, an alarm clock, a deck of playing cards and an ashtray. Not all contraband is intended for inmates. “A lot of it is personal use stuff,” Moriarty said. Officials must try to figure out whether a guard simply forgot to unload his cell phone before entering a prison, or intended to deliver it to an inmate, and pocket as much as $2,000 for one destined for death row, he said. Smuggling now harder Lyons said changes instituted after the death row cell phone scandal, such as pat-downs of everyond entering the prisons, have made it harder for contraband to get in. Still, more than 200 cell phones have been confiscated systemwide since a lockdown for illicit items ended in November, including eight seized from death row. While contraband has been a problem for years, the issue received scant attention until Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, received several threatening calls from death row inmate Richard Tabler, a man linked to four murders. Low pay called a factor Whitmire said last week that few inside the system would acknowledge the problem until he found himself on the line with a death row prisoner. Now, the lawmaker is calling for a no-tolerance policy regarding contraband. He said staffing shortages have forced prison administrators to compromise in both discipline and hiring practices, adding, “There are instances where they are hiring people with matters in their background who normally wouldn’t be hired.” He said rank-and-file officers’ salaries — their base pay is capped at $34,000 annually — contribute to the problem. “The low pay certainly would make those who are susceptible to being dishonest cross the line.” One legislative proposal would give correctional officers as much as a 20-percent raise — at a two-year cost of at least $400 million. Pressing prosecutions Brian Olsen, executive director of the Texas branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union that represents prison workers, said the contraband problem could persist unless guards receive professional wages. Still, he said most officers follow the rules, and others get into trouble for “trafficking” in seemingly harmless items, such as candy and soft drinks. “There are going to be bad officers,” Olsen said. “I don’t think it’s as rampant a problem as everyone says.” The newspaper analysis found smokeless tobacco to be the most popular contraband linked to correctional employees, followed by cell phones and alcohol.Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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