Inmates in our jail are usually very respectful, that is until you add some drugs into the mix. What alarms me as a corrections officer is when these inmates will tell you that they can get their hands on drugs inside the jail easier than when they were out on the street. That makes me want to work even harder to keep drugs out of our jail, but that can be a very challenging task.
The inmates have nothing but time on their hands, so they are able to see things and spot opportunities to exploit any weakness in the system. Perhaps the weakest part of our facility is in the visitor center, because inmates and visitors are in such close quarters with one another. Even with our beefed up police presence, inmates have discovered some very creative ways to get the items they want, even after we warn visitors they could be facing jail time themselves if caught trying to give the inmates anything.
Our team is very grateful for Securus Technologies and the inmate call monitoring system they installed in our facility. Richard Smith is the CEO of the company, and he says his Dallas-based company is dedicated to making the planet a little safe for us all. We see how that plays out in real-time inside our jail each day.
The LBS software does the work of several of my fellow officers, and can pick up chatter on drugs easily. The calls we are alerted to often involve inmates talking about how to get the drugs by security, how to transfer the drugs to the inmates, and how the inmates hide the drugs from the officers. Now when we hear these calls, we are able to spring into action and make the that the other inmates see that we are starting to gain ground on this growing problem.