ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Jails and prisons across the state are scrambling to keep up with a surge of contraband.  It’s one of the issues that led to the recent strike of corrections officers across New York State.

As the state looks for ways to prevent drugs from getting into prisons, it’s looking at a policy the Monroe County Jail has implemented when it comes to inmate mail.

Most of the time drugs come into a facility, inside an inmates’ body but there is a growing trend of people using the mail.  

“They come up with more creative ideas to get drugs within the facility and we have to come up with ways to stop them,” says Lt. Jeffrey Lamartina of the Monroe County Jail. 

A few years ago, six inmates in the jail had to be hospitalized for ingesting an unknown substance. “They were all acting irrational, on the ground, so we had to send 6 individuals all at once and come to find out, they had all smoked some sort of a substance that was saturated on paper,” Lt. Lamartina recalls. 

Since then, there’s been a change in the mail policy at the jail. “Every piece of mail that comes in the facility, we make a photocopy of, once we make the photocopy, we deliver the photocopy to the incarcerated individual and then the original goes in their property, which they can get along with the envelope when they leave the facility,” Lt. Lamartina explains. 

One employee handles all of the incoming mail, wearing a mask and gloves to avoid contact with any foreign substances that could be harmful. That person has come across a number of envelopes sent to the jail over the last few months that have been soaked in synthetic drugs and dried out.

While most of the contraband recovered from inside the bodies of inmates is drugs in pill, powder or loose form, some of what people are trying to smuggle is saturated paper too.

While state corrections officers were on strike, they said one of their main concerns was safety, with too many drugs inside the prisons and officers getting sick from being exposed to toxic mail.

The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) is looking for ways to curb that and it’s looking at how it’s handled at the Monroe County Jail.

“With the mail, its cut down significantly, a huge amount because it’s cutting it right off at the source now,” Lt. Lamartina says. 

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