Overdose Deaths In State Prisons Have Jumped Dramatically Since 2001
July 15, 2021
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Prisons and jails in the United States have been increasingly deadly places in recent years, according to new
federal data. But one cause of death has climbed most dramatically: overdoses.
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Drugs get into prisons and jails in a variety of ways, according to current and former prisoners and staff, including through visitors and packages and letters to incarcerated people. Friends and family can tuck strips of paper soaked with drugs into mail or books, and if they get past the mail room, people in prison can eat them, or roll them up and smoke them. Incoming prisoners can swallow drugs or hide them in body cavities.
Prison staff are often responsible as well: During the pandemic, even though
visitation from family and friends was suspended, attorney visits were restricted, and teachers, tutors, and volunteers stayed home, drugs got into many prisons anyway. As The Marshall Project
reported, the number of incarcerated people disciplined or charged for drugs actually increased during the pandemic in Texas prisons.
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In the Alaska prison system, the biggest problem was methamphetamines, said Aprelle McCarty, who retired in 2019 after 14 years as a correctional officer there, where overdose rates are fourth highest in the nation. "It would come in waves. When the pruno — which was the
homemade alcohol that they would make with fruit — when we started seeing a lot of that being made, then we'd know, ok, there's not as many drugs in the prison because they're turning to pruno."
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In a statement, Alaska corrections department spokesperson Betsy Holley said, "Alaska DOC takes the introduction of contraband into facilities very seriously," and said the state has recently secured funding for body scanners and a new drug-sniffing dog.
When people overdose behind bars, getting them help is difficult, said several current and former prisoners and staff in interviews — whether because a prisoner code prohibits asking for help, or because understaffed or apathetic correctional officers don't respond quickly, or at all.
"If you seek help for your overdosing celly, that is tantamount to snitching," said Enrique Alan Olivares-Pelayo, who served four years in Arizona prisons on drug and trespassing charges. If the staff found drugs on anyone, the entire unit would lose visitation, have their cells searched, and be monitored more closely, said Olivares-Pelayo. "You'd be watching someone turn blue and be on the fence about whether you should call for help or not because of the consequences of, what's this going to mean for everyone else."
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"Narcotics were always more prevalent in facilities where the officers were getting paid less," said Adam Barger, who served 25 years of an Alaska prison sentence, including stints in private prisons that Alaska contracted with in Colorado and Arizona. Barger said friends and family outside could wire money to certain correctional officers, who could earn upwards of $1,000 just for picking up a package and bringing it into work with them.
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"As you apply such pressure on the supply, trying to detect and intercept the distribution of drugs, you're creating pressure for ever more potent,
ever more compact alternatives," he says. "There's always been drugs in prisons, but right now the supply is much more toxic."
