The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has wrapped up a six-week lockdown of all 100 of its prisons and jails with troubling reports of discovering...
of all 100 of its prisons and jails with troubling reports of discovering thousands of pieces of paper soaked in liquefied drugs.
Inmates wad up bits of drug-laced paper, often sent to them through the mail, and swallow them to get high. A single sheet is estimated to provide 100 to 150 hits.That’s why the department was right to recently adopt a digital-only mail policy to help stem the flow of drugs into prisons.Beginning last month, TDCJ began scanning all inmate mail and sending color copies to each recipient’s computer tablet.
But the recent trend of drenching letters and other paper products in drugs and sending them to inmates has prompted prison officials nationwide to look for solutions. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, an inmate advocacy group, at least 14 other states have adopted digital-only mail policies for prisoners.We acknowledge the organization’s concerns that taking away hand-written notes and photographs deprives inmates of important links to family and loved ones in the free world.
But the increase in drug-laced paper found behind bars is too dangerous a problem to overlook. Officials tie drugs to a significant spike in homicides in the last year. Seven inmates were killed in prisons in all of 2022. But that number soared to 16 by Sept. 6, prompting the lockdown. As of this week, that number had risen to 21. Drugs, Hernandez said, are often at the center of disputes that lead to these killings.
How bad has the drug problem gotten? On average last year, prison officials reported 238 illegal drug “discoveries” every month systemwide, Hernandez said. But during the lockdown, they found far more than that: 1,239 sheets and 865 credit-card sized stamps of methamphetamines, amphetamines, fentanyl, PCP or K2, a synthetic marijuana.
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