An evaluation of drugs smuggling in prisons

Abstract

“Prison does not just contain addiction, it creates it” (The Centre for Social Justice - CSJ, 2015, p. 21). It is no secret that drugs are frequently smuggled in prisons thereby portraying prison authorities in a negative light, while accentuating and proving their failure to curb the availability of drugs in correctional facilities. This dissertation is set out to discuss the smuggling process of drugs in prisons, a topic which has to date been scantly researched, especially locally. This study presents a comparative analysis of Malta and the United Kingdom (UK) in order to determine any similarity, if any, between the methods. This is achieved by gathering and analysing information from a sample of 88 different cases using quantitative tools. The most common drugs smuggled in prisons are cocaine and heroin, and the most common route is social visits by relatives or partners of inmates. The study further looks into the motivations of the prison staff being one of the sources through whom prisoners manage to acquire unwanted substances. Among others, intimate relationships with residing individuals in prisons, threats by the latter or financial gains are identified as the main motives for the prison staff to become involved in such smuggling operations. Furthermore, this dissertation provides a profile of the inmates and mules, focusing especially on their age and gender; most of whom are aged between 20 and 41 years. With regard to gender, only a relatively small percentage of the inmates are females. However, the high involvement of female mules, particularly in Malta, is extremely conspicuous. The ever-increasing rates of drugs found in prison demonstrate that the prison authorities are not fulfilling their duties as they should. While acknowledging the importance of the current prison management techniques at Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF), namely CCTV surveillance, trained sniffer dogs and physical searches, this study suggests the consideration of authorities to install x-ray machines in prisons to detect any internal or external concealment of drugs.