The recent escape of two lifers from Clinton Prison (New York State), prompts my question: prisons are supposed to be places where the inmates are controlled by the guards/prison staff. Yet, prisoners frequently are able to obtain drugs, cell phones, etc., under the noses of the guards. The two escapees were able to use tools (owned by contractors working in the prison), and were able to roam at will (once they had left their cells at night). Now, I understand that an investigation is underway, but it sounds like several of the prison staff had allowed a lot of activity to go on. My question: if a prison staff is corrupt, why doesn’t the state root it out? It sounds like such corruption is common-as I have read about widespread drug use inside prisons in MA as well.
Do you need to know in a hurry? 
I understand that one of those upstate NY prison escapees had a really, really big dick. (Thank you, Gawker)
Really, really big dicks can net you all sorts of excellent privileges.
The guards are in on it, how do you think most of the drug trade works? People are paid to turn their heads.
And there is always nature’s pocket AKA the anus.
The big problem is packages. The families of prisoners are allowed to buy stuff and bring it in for them during visits. It’s pretty obvious that some people are going to use this as an opportunity to smuggle in drugs. Guards search the packages visually and with x-rays but drugs and other stuff still gets in.
If a visitor wants to bypass the package room search, they can just bring the drugs in and pass it off to the prisoner. Prisoners get strip searched after visits but that doesn’t stop somebody who’s willing to swallow a packet of drugs.
Prisoners can also buy stuff and have it mailed directly to them. Some companies are pretty shady and will agree to look the other way when drugs are placed inside packages.
And drugs can be brought in by guards or other employees. But this is actually one of the less popular methods. It’s the most difficult smuggling route to set up and maintain.
Really? I remember researching this one time and I forget the state but you weren’t even allowed to send a book to a prisoner, paper letters and commissary monetary donations only.
As for being able to move around inside the prison, Clinton is a really old prison. Its design is outdated. You have a rows of cells stacked on top of each other. The stuff like plumbing and electricity enters each cell through the back of the cell. If you sliced a cell block in half, it would look like this:
walkway|cell|pipes|cell|walkway
walkway|cell|pipes|cell|walkway
walkway|cell|pipes|cell|walkway
That pipe chase between the back walls of two cells is supposed to be sealed off from the cells. But if you cut a hole in the wall and get inside the pipe chase, you can go up and down inside the entire cell block and down into the basement. Each cell is hooked up to the central plumbing and electrical system and the whole system has to be designed so workers can get around inside of it and maintain it. So the vulnerability is if a prisoner can get inside the pipe chase, he can move around quite a bit.
That’s not the way it is in New York.
I guess it varies depending on in which prison system your loved one is a guest. In some systems, and I think this is including the Feds, if you want to send someone a care package or book, you have to order it via an pre-approved and trusted by the authorities company, who then packages it and ships it to the prison for further delivery to the prisoner. In this situation, the giver never lays hands on the item.
All prisons are run by the immates. They are always more and have less to lose tan the corrections officers.
Most CO are happy if the immates are quiet, not causing problems, and following rules.
In the movies, all the prisoners return to their cells at at night, and the doors are locked until morning. Do they do that IRL?
Not at all. The guards have the advantage because we’re better organized. It doesn’t matter if the prisoners have greater numbers overall as long as we control their movement. We simply keep them divided up into manageable groups.
This is true.
It depends on what level security you’re talking about. At a maximum security prison like Clinton, everyone will be locked in a cell.
But in a medium or minimum security prison, you’re more likely to see dorms. This is a big open room which is divided up into cubicles by half-walls. You can lock a prisoner up into his dorm at night but you can’t lock up a cube.
The best housing arrangement as far as most prisoners are concerned are rooms. This is where each prisoner has his own room but he doesn’t get locked in. But this is a fairly uncommon system; it’s less secure than cells or dorms and it costs more than than dorms.
We have very few dorms, and these are all in the lowest ‘open category’ prisons.
Everywhere else it is one person cells, with a small number of double cells.
I cannot imagine prison staff being content to have quiet prisoners and lots of drugs around.
My view is that when prisoners are cooperative, they are trying to keep staff sweet. That would put my radar on alert.
If they are too confrontational, that is easy to deal with - take them down the seg unit. It also usually means you’ve hit a nerve somewhere, maybe cut off a drug supply route or foiled some other scheme.
That’s why I agreed we wanted them to be quiet, not causing problems, and following rules. Quiet alone is not enough.
Back when I started working, New York was all one person cells. Around 2000, there was a big switch and we converted to mostly double cells. I can see it made sense on paper; it allowed the state to move more prisoners into existing cell space and shut down several older prisons. But double cells created a whole bunch of operational problems we never had with single cells.
Thank you for doing a difficult job!
Past tense in my case. I retired several years ago.
How Do Prison Gangs Operate?
Pretty much the same as any OR staff - sedate/subdue then cut away. The main difference is that in prison they use shanks instead of scalpels and tend to not sterilize as well between “patients”. These differences may account for the somewhat higher mortality rates from prison operations.
See, you’re not giving prisoners enough credit. It’s true they don’t sterilize their shanks after they use them. But you’re missing the principle that shanks are intended as a one-time-use tool. You stab somebody and you dispose of the weapon (down a storm drain is traditional).
Anytime there’s a stabbing, we search all the prisoners in the vicinity. And it’s counter-productive to the ongoing practice of your art if you get caught holding the shank.
Pro prison tip: If you step inside the shower room and see somebody has removed the drain cover, step back out. It’s a sign that somebody is planning on stabbing somebody in the shower and then dropping the weapon down the drain and putting the cover back on to hide it. Even if you’re not the intended victim, you’re better off not being around when this happens.