The Bottomline: Strategies Against Contraband Items

An article in The Namibian titled ‘Offenders risk their lives hiding phones in rectums’ intrigued me.
That contraband gets into correctional facilities and police holding cells is a fact. Keeping contraband out of correctional facilities or police cells is a constant problem for the Namibian law enforcement agencies and policing generally worldwide.

Prohibited items commonly smuggled in prisons or holding cells include, drugs, cellphones, alcohol, tattoo equipment, razor blades, weapons, money, gang paraphernalia, etc.
The best way to control contraband is prevention.

BANNED ‘BOOTY’

Contraband is any object, substance, or material forbidden by correctional institution or police rules or state laws from being in an offender’s possession or control in a prison or police cells.

It often enters these facilities through inmates who return to prison or cells following outside medical appointments, through exchanges with visitors, and even through correctional or police officers.

Admittedly, officers are sometimes bribed to allow banned items to pass through security; providing contraband can be profitable for these officers.
Although contraband is commonly thought to refer to illicit weapons and drugs, it can also include permissible items that are manipulated by inmates to be used in a way other than intended.

For example, a person could sharpen a toothbrush and use it as a weapon, or make homemade alcohol using fruit, vegetables and other available ingredients. In addition, excessive accumulation of otherwise permissible items, such as items from the commissary, newspapers, toiletries, or food, is considered contraband.

Weapons, narcotics and cellphones are among the most critical contraband items in terms of posing a serious threat to safety and security in prisons or police holding cells.
 
WAYS AND MEANS
 
To combat and control contraband, correctional administrators and police officers rely on various strategies.
These focus on preventing contraband entering facilities, or detecting and removing items once found on the premises.
Interdiction strategies are formally integrated into officers’ training, and members also gain substantial amount of working knowledge on contraband interdiction from their colleagues.

They use a variety of metal detectors, including walk-through devices, hand-held wads, other portable units, and surveillance cameras.
However, most technologies rely on detecting metal found in many contraband items, such as weapons and cellphones, but are ill-suited for finding other types of items, e.g. narcotics, cigarettes, and non-metallic weapons.

There are also challenges finding technologies that can keep up with the new and innovative ways that contraband is smuggled into facilities.

TECH AND
TRADITION

Although technologies are crucial for contraband detection and institutional safety, it is contended that technology alone is not sufficient.
Hence, traditional strategies have to be heavily relied on – including pat searches, hourly cell searches, cell shakedowns, K-9 searches and intelligence gathering.

In addition, various other steps can be taken.
Proper searches of inmates and the cells are equally essential in preventing the smuggling of banned items.
Using K-9 dogs is very effective in locating drugs within the prison or cell environment.
Proper perimeter security and in-custody and re-entry screening is also very important in keeping out contraband.
In some countries, drones have also been used to smuggle drugs into prison.
It can be especially challenging to detect drones that may deliver contraband at night, but some measures to counter this modus operandi have been developed.

Enhanced accountability among correctional and police officers can also prevent them from giving in to temptation to make a quick profit and ensures that officers do everything they can to detect contraband.
 
MULTIMODAL
APPROACHES

Eradicating contraband from correctional facilities and police cells requires a comprehensive and multimodal approach.
Technology is not a panacea for drug interdiction in correctional facilities or police cells but has the potential to provide additional way to combat the evolving drug market.

The best security technology available can only augment dedicated correctional or police staff doing their job.
It can never automate or supplant a correctional or police officer being vigilant or the searching of inmates and institutional environments, supervisory staff making regular rounds to ensure staff are executing those duties and confirming security equipment is operational and calibrated.

Engaging the community is critical because awareness of interdiction strategies can deter attempted drug smuggling.
Furthermore, communities do not want the incarcerated population continuing to use drugs or drug-addicted inmates released back on the street.

Therefore, robust technologies and campaigns that effectively target drug contraband will also discourage people from attempting to enter correctional facilities or police cells with drugs.

COMMUNITY
OUTREACH

Engaging with the community on escalating drug issues observed within prison or cell walls, and the reasoning behind newly implemented drug interdiction efforts can build trust between the public and the correctional or police systems.
The most important education effort correctional or police leaders can take is modelling and implementing a zero-tolerance organisational stand on drug introduction and use by inmates and staff.

This includes the deployment of appropriate drug detection and interdiction technologies, searches of inmates and staff, and situational awareness of every visitor, contractor, staff member, and inmate who enters police cells or correctional facilities.
In conclusion, drugs and weapons pose a particular risk in prison environments, where there is a high potential for violence and drug abuse.

Incarcerated individuals can use cellphones to help smuggle in drugs and weapons, organise escape attempts, or order crimes to be committed inside or outside prison or holding cells.
 

• Major general JB Tjivikua served in the Namibian Police for 27 years.

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