Illicit goods keep flowing into prisons



300 employees reprimanded from '03 to '08

By LISA SANDBERG and MATT STILES Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
March 14, 2009, 2:38AM

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.
The Stiles Unit in Beaumont, the Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony and 
the Allred unit in Wichita Falls had the most documented incidents 
involving workers and contraband.
At four units, Connally in Kennedy, Hughes in Gatesville, Estelle in 
Huntsville and Smith in Lamasa, all employees disciplined for 
contraband received probation, rather than dismissal. Six other units 
gave probation to their staff for contraband in more than 80 percent 
of the cases.
Gina DeBottis, head of the prison system’s Special Prosecution Unit, 
has sought to prosecute 68 prison employees for contraband since 
2003, filing more than 90 charges. At least nine cases were dismissed 
after indictment for various reasons, and grand juries refused 
charges in three other instances, records show. The rest are pending, 
she said.
The contraband prosecutions include at least 26 cases involving 
tobacco and another 17 related to mobile telephones. There were also 
at least seven cases from allegations that inmates bribed prison 
employees.

matt.stiles@chron.com
lsandberg@express-news.net

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6310340.html