Technology takes on drug smugglers: Can drug detection technology stop drugs from entering prisons?

Illicit drug use is a disruptive and dangerous element in the prison environment. In 1996, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) began a comprehensive program of drug interdiction and inmate drug testing and treatment that highlighted this point. Within two years, program evaluators saw

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) are looking for ways to give correctional officers a high-tech helping hand to defeat drugsmuggling attempts aimed at the prison mail system. Once a scientific luxury, drug detection systems that can detect drug residue to levels less than a nanogram (0.000000001 grams) now are affordable, reliable, portable and commercially available. The U.S. Customs Service, law enforcement organizations and correctional institutions already are using these systems in a variety of settings with great success. NIU and BOP want to know if they will work as successfully in prison mailrooms. To answer that question, NIJ partnered with the Department of Defense's (DOD) Counterdrug Technology Development Program Office (CDTDPO) to study mailroom operations, survey available detection technologies and evaluate those technologies for improving mailroom drug screening.