Cracking down on contraband in prisons
Probably everyone has heard by now about the mother of a death row inmate who smuggled him a cell phone. The bright young lad used the phone to call a State Senator and threaten his daughters. Many of the people in prison are there because they don't have good decision making skills, and this young man certainly exemplifies that. No good can come from threatening a State Senator. Instead, a lot of bad things are going to happen, the first of which is you lose the cell phone, and the ability to communicate with the outside world.
I'm sure this young is the least liked person in TDCJ these days. A system wide shut down was ordered to search for contraband, which is probably going to turn up all sorts of things. They are also going to do what they can to make sure no one else gets a cell phone in prison, which apparently is more common than we all thought.
Instead of taking their typical knee jerk response, TDCJ would do well to look into the reasons behind the problem. One of those is the lack of phone service. Although they are looking into a service (from which someone will get very rich), there is currently no way for inmates to communicate with their families, other than mail and direct visits. Since many inmates are housed far away from their families, visits are often few and far between. The result is that many are effectively cut of from family contact while they are incarcerated. It's no surprise that they want to be able to have contact with the outside world. There is no doubt that cell phones are used for illegal activity, but I would guess most are used to communicate with family.
For the most part, TDCJ does not allow contact visits. That means that if you are going to smuggle something in, you need a guard. Some have commented that the low pay of prison guards encourages such activity; they need to make a little extra money, so they smuggle contraband. I don't buy that argument. Most people are not going to engage in illegal activity to make a little extra cash - at least that's what I would like to believe. I think it has more to do with the individual you hire than with what you pay them. That's not to say the amount of compensation is not a factor. You have to pay enough to be able to attract qualified people. If you don't, you are going to end up with people who don't have other options. That may not be an issue for vocations like teaching, but how many people really want to work in prison. You are going to have to raise compensation to attract qualified candidates, but then you are going to have to do the necessary screening to make sure you get the right person.
I don't have faith that TDCJ will do anything more than concentrate on enforcement. Until they address the cause of the problem though, someone is also going to be able to come up with a way to beat the system.
