How inmates smuggle drugs into Minnesota correctional facilities
MINNEAPOLIS — Investigators have retrieved new evidence showing how prison inmates continue to smuggle narcotics, including now through books and magazines.
John Melvin, Director of the Office of Special Investigations for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, told WCCO Investigates that the contraband is extremely tough to detect and they've relied on "intelligence" to intercept the drugs.
"There are people that want to use and they want to get high, and they will do just about anything to try to introduce that," Melvin lamented.
Starting in June, staff at Stillwater, Rush City and Faribault correctional facilities began screening, scanning and reprinting mail after investigators discovered pieces of legal and personal mail stained and contaminated with synthetic narcotics.
Still, a recent two-day lockdown at Stillwater caused by an inmate smoking an unknown substance underscored the limits of the pilot program and the risks of persistent drug smuggling.
"Sometimes it takes a while to move a particular kind of contraband around without it getting in the hands of security and not taken away," Melvin added. "This stuff comes in such small doses that are very strong. It takes a while to use it up."
So far this year, the DOC says there have been at least 70 cases of suspected overdoses in Minnesota prisons, with most leading to lockdowns that frustrate inmates, staff, and their families.
"I think their approach is misguided," Holly Bot, whose husband, Corbyn Bot is an inmate at Stillwater, told WCCO Investigates. "It's focused on plugging holes in a system instead of creating pressure on the system that's creating the holes. The people that are in there are who they will be when they're released. So improve that situation to improve your community. It just makes sense to me."
The Department of Corrections has stressed that its Office of Special Investigations will continue its investigation into the Stillwater incident, as well as crack down on drug smuggling.
Also last month, a former correctional officer at Faribault, 43-year-old Lindsey Adams of Farmington, was arrested and charged with third-degree possession of methamphetamine and introducing contraband into a state correctional facility, the Rice County Attorney's Office said.
According to prosecutors, authorities saw the inmate and guard making an exchange on live video.
