Unethical Prison Staff Jeopardizes Prisoner Rehabilitation and Public Safety

July 10, 2024 was a day like any other at Nash Correctional Institution in Nashville, North Carolina: hot and humid outside, while a noxious cloud of K2 (spice) smoke permeated every corner of the housing units.

Nash Correctional isn’t unique. This drug problem is spreading across the North Carolina prison system. North Carolina prisons are being inundated with K2 and other drugs, and prison wardens are unable to prevent this activity. North Carolina citizens expect the prison system to fulfill its obligations to public safety and prisoner rehabilitation. The prison system’s inadequacies, however, give the citizens of North Carolina legitimate reason to question the effectiveness of the prison system.

Drug use among prisoners is a long-standing problem in North Carolina prisons. Officially, drug use is met with serious disciplinary action that includes monetary penalties, the loss of multiple privileges, loss of earned time toward early release, and up to 60 days in segregation. Unofficially, staff ignore drug use and focus on minor infractions such as walking on the grass, an unmade bed, or an untucked shirt.

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Willful negligence by prison staff to hold prisoners accountable for drug use exacerbates addictive behavior instead of encouraging recovery and rehabilitation. With this lapse, the Department of Adult Correction (DAC) is failing both the incarcerated and North Carolina citizens.

To safeguard the citizens of North Carolina and prepare prisoners for re-entry to society, the DAC must offer comprehensive rehabilitation programs that effect positive change in the lives of North Carolina prisoners. Those convicted of crimes need programs that provide educational and occupational opportunities, along with drug and alcohol treatment, followed by long-term after care. Additionally, programs that provide life skills education can aid healthy decision making, and may be the difference between success upon release or a relapse into old behaviors. But a lack of meaningful classes and programs in North Carolina prisons contributes to higher recidivism rates. Compounding rehabilitation failures is the department’s ineptitude to keep drugs out of North Carolina prisons, despite changing mail and visitation procedures for this purpose.

DAC officials claimed for years that most drugs got into North Carolina prisons through prisoner mail and visitation. In October 2022, the DAC contracted a private company, Text Behind, with processing all incoming prisoner mail, with the exceptions of legal mail and some publications. After confirming that correspondence complied with DAC mail policy, Text Behind employees scanned and transmitted mail digitally to a prisoner’s assigned facility. Since the elimination of physical mail, the DAC now claims that the family and friends of prisoners are responsible for the drug crisis in North Carolina prisons.

DAC policies and facility visitation rules change often, sometimes with little or no notice to prisoners and their visitors. Physical contact was permitted during visits in the past, but now prisoners and their visitors are allowed one brief hug and a short kiss at the beginning and end of a visit. Very little contact is allowed during a visitation period, and scenes of confused children crying for the affection of their parent are common in North Carolina prison visitation areas. Apparently, the DAC is willing to destroy family bonds in pursuit of the failing endeavor to keep drugs out of North Carolina prisons.

Ironically, since the implementation of these new mail and visitation policies, drugs are easier to obtain in North Carolina prisons than ever before. This leads to the conclusion that some DAC employees are smuggling in the drugs themselves.

DAC officials are aware of this. Smuggling drugs may provide a lucrative supplemental income, and thanks to staff shortages, employees have little fear of being investigated. While prisoners are asked to provide information about staff misconduct to administrators, most prisoners don’t because they fear retaliation by prison staff even though the DAC’s policies and procedures manual forbids it.

Prisoners who report staff misconduct subject themselves to retaliatory transfers, fabricated or targeted disciplinary action, and the terrifying possibility of violence by staff or other prisoners. The North Carolina prison system is supposed to protect the men and women in its custody; but retaliation is systemic and whistle blowers have many reasons to fear for their safety.

Although some North Carolina prisoners share the blame in the prison drug crisis, the DAC and prison wardens are also culpable. North Carolina citizens are told that DAC prisoners are given the tools and information to succeed upon their release. The unfortunate reality is that North Carolina prisoners are immersed in a culture that breeds staff corruption and continued criminal activity by prisoners.

Unless the DAC is willing to admit its failure to keep drugs out of North Carolina prisons, which is a result of staff corruption, the citizens of North Carolina have reason to doubt the efficacy of the prison system and the DAC’s commitment to public safety.

Brian W. Jones #0214445
Nash Corrections Inst. (NC)
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

The post Unethical Prison Staff Jeopardizes Prisoner Rehabilitation and Public Safety first appeared on Prison Writers.