Prison Contraband: Prevalence, Impacts, and Interdiction Strategies

ABSTRACT Prison contraband poses a substantial threat to the safety of correctional staff and incarcerated people. Yet there has been little research on critical contraband issues. Using descriptive analyses of the 2018 National Survey of Correctional Contraband, a data collection effort involving 301 prisons across six state departments of corrections, the current paper addresses these knowledge gaps through a multi-state, scholarly examination of contraband. We found that prisons recovered an average of 34 weapons, 31 cell phones, and 28 controlled substances over the 12-month study period. Respondents also noted that both staff and visitors were conduits for illicit items in prisons, though they reported more staff violations than visitor violations for contraband-related incidents. Finally, we found that agencies employed a mix of strategies and policies to prevent, detect, and remove contraband from their prisons. We discuss the implications of our work for policy and future research.