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| Jail contraband an ongoing problem |
| By timesdaily.com - Tom Smith |
| Published: 06/03/2011 |
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Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan said he thought he had seen almost every way people try to smuggle items into jails — until recently. “We had a grandmother breaking up pieces of pills and putting them in her ears to slip them to her granddaughter,” Logan said. “You have to give them credit, they are inventive.” For law enforcement officials, keeping contraband out of jails is like playing a game of hide and seek. “They'll try anything. They hide it and we try to find it,” said Gerald Baer, chief deputy of the Wayne County (Tenn.) Sheriff's Office. “It's a constant battle,” Sheffield Police Chief Greg Ray said. “We search the individual when they are arrested, we check items that are brought in for them by visitors and we do routine checks of the cells, and we still find stuff.” He said recently when someone dropped off clothing for an inmate, officers found an ink pen in the bundle. When they unscrewed the ink pen they found it contained enough marijuana for a couple of cigarettes. “We've even found a half-pint bottle of liquor in a roast beef sandwich,” Ray said. People who bring in contraband can face jail time themselves. Prisoners caught with contraband can face additional charges, he said. Colbert County Sheriff Ronnie May said tobacco, cellphones, marijuana and pills are usually the main items being passed to inmates. “We've found marijuana in toothpaste tubes, and tobacco and drugs in potato chip bags,” May said. “We've seen people try to bring in items in shoes and clothing.” May said the best way to prevent items being passed is to stop visitors from having any kind of personal contact with the inmates. But the inmates find other ways of getting contraband. “We have video visitation, but we also have a work crew that goes out every day,” Baer said. “Most of our stuff that we're finding is coming in through the work detail. They'll get paid to bring something back.” Jackie Keenum, director of the Lauderdale County Detention Center, said it's an ongoing game with prisoners and their visitors. She said corrections officers are constantly finding drugs and tobacco. “When prisoners are taken to court, they'll pick up cigarette butts and try to hide them in their clothes to bring back to the cells,” Keenum said. “And we find them hidden in the shrubs outside the center and on top of the building where someone has tried to throw them to an inmate,” she added. She said a few years ago the wife of one inmate brought ice cream for a program the inmates were having. “We checked it and found that she had let the ice cream melt, put a bag of pills inside, and then refroze it. So we don't allow anything like that to be brought it anymore,” Keenum said. “We even had one prisoner try to bring in makeup in her body cavity.” She said inmates get creative when trying to slip items into jail by hiding items in the soles of their shoes or in the shoe tongues. “We even found a knife inside a shoe, so we don't allow shoes — they have to wear flip flops,” Keenum said. Ray said court days are times when officers have to be on the watch for contraband. Read More. |
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No offennse to all hard working, honest Corrections Officers, but I noticed this article makes no mention of officers introducing contraband.