DRUGS GETTING INTO FEDERAL PRISONS TOO EASILY, REPORT SAYS

Smuggling, Addiction Are Major Problems For System, Justice Inspector
General Finds

WASHINGTON -- Federal prisons fail to search visitors adequately and need
more security cameras and personnel to thwart drug smuggling to inmates, a
report released Wednesday says.

The report by the Justice Department inspector general sheds light on how
the use and trafficking of drugs have become significant problems in the
federal prison system, whose inmate population has boomed since the 1980s.
Drug laws that increased the number of federal crimes and lengthened
sentences have raised the number of inmates in the federal system from
24,000 in 1980 to nearly 165,000.

Drug addiction and a lack of treatment are ongoing problems at the nation's
102 federal prisons, according to the report, which found that visitors,
prison staff and the mail are the main ways drugs are getting into the
prisons. From 1997 to 2001, the report said, more than 2,800 inmates tested
positive for drugs each year. In 2001, the prisons' overall rate for
positive tests was nearly 2%. The results varied among prisons and were as
high as nearly 8% at a high-security unit in Beaumont, Texas.

The report said the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) does not provide enough
drug treatment because it relies on outdated estimates of inmates with drug
problems. The report said the bureau's estimate of 34% is at odds with more
recent research that places the percentage at 50% to 80%.

Key avenues for drugs to enter prisons are ''contact'' visits in which
inmates are allowed to touch family members and friends, the report said.
Drugs have been passed to inmates through soda cans, babies' diapers and
kisses, the report said.

The report said the bureau does not police its employees through random
drug testing, despite winning a court case in 1993 that allows such tests.
It also said that efforts to find drugs are hurt by the bureau's failure to
search prison employees' duffel bags and coolers.

''The vast majority of BOP employees have high integrity, but a few corrupt
staff can do enormous damage to the safety and security of an
institution,'' said Glenn Fine, the inspector general.

The report said prisons should: * Perform ''pat'' searches of visitors. *
Buy more surveillance cameras and other equipment to detect drugs. * Use
more drug-sniffing dogs. There is only one canine unit in the prison
system; it's assigned to the facility in Lewisburg, Pa.

Dan Dunne, a prisons spokesman, said several of the recommendations are
being implemented. He said employee drug tests would begin soon. But he
said the bureau does not have much money for more staff or equipment. ''The
bureau has made significant progress to prevent the introduction,
possession and use of drugs,'' he said. ''We are doing the best we can with
the resources we have.''