BARRED IN PRISON

Following Charges That Pot-Filled Cannolis Were Sent to a Nassau
Inmate, Correction Officials Renew Quest for All Contraband

Tobacco and postage stamps are, outside of a jail or prison, perfectly
legal.

But on the inside of a correctional facility, even the most mundane
items acquire inflated value, if only because they are scarce and
banned, and they give their owners relatively enormous power in the
unique barter economy behind cinder block walls.

"Contraband is a serious matter in correctional facilities," said Lt.
Michael Golio of the Nassau County jail's Legal Affairs division.
"Things that would be innocuous are of serious concern inside the facility."

A pack of cigarettes, Golio said, can be used as a powerful bartering
tool in a jail's closed economy, where money is not legal tender for
transactions, and where inmates scramble for advantage over their
fellow inmates. "People who can get things in tend to have higher
status among inmates," Golio said.

Sometimes, the items brought into a prison or jail are illegal almost
anywhere, such as the marijuana-packed stack of cannolis that jail
officials and Nassau County police said a correction officer tried to
bring into the facility last month.

Rocco Bove, 24, of Westbury, was arrested Wednesday for trying on Dec.
24 to deliver the package to an inmate. He was charged with five
counts of first- and second-degree promoting prison contraband and
unlawful possession of marijuana and faces up to 1 1/3 to 4 years in
prison.

In Suffolk in February, a Central Islip man, Bruce Maldonado, was
charged with trying to bring into the Suffolk jail 30 bags of heroin
and marijuana by stuffing the stash into his rectum, a common method
of transport.

Suffolk Sheriff Vincent DeMarco said people try to tack tobacco and
drugs to pages of magazines mailed to inmates. He said even delivery
trucks are screened by dogs and inspected. "Rolling papers and even
matches in here become bargaining chips," he said. "It's a whole
'nother world."

Golio said that 58 people, 34 of them inmates and 24 visitors, were
charged last year with possessing or smuggling in banned items. As
many as 19 visitor arrests were for drugs, and five for other items,
such as tobacco and stamps.

In Suffolk, there were 75 arrests for contraband last year. Half the
arrests were of visitors, and the other half inmates. Besides illegal
drugs, money, tobacco and handcuff keys were among the catches.

Some contraband were items that people who are unfamiliar with a
correctional environment might not know are illegal in jail. "Not
everything that comes in is sent in with an evil intention," Golio
said. "Sometimes people don't know. Some of it is innocent and some of
it is not innocent." In both jails, visitors and staff members are
screened by walk-through and handheld metal detectors. Drug-sniffing
dogs examine property.

Some materials become illegal when they are manipulated, such as when
inmates fashion weapons from a toothbrush, pencil or a comb. Even soap
can be transformed when molded into a ball and placed in a sock to be
hurled with force. "If it's been modified from its natural function,
then it can be contraband," Golio said.