Detecting drug contraband smuggled into correctional facilities through the mail is challenging, because drugs can be sprayed onto paper, incorporated into ink, hidden under stamps, and concealed within a piece of correspondence. The methods used to hide the drugs, coupled with the high volume of mail received daily by inmates, increase the difficulty in detecting all drugs by using physical screening. In attempting to address this threat, some correctional facilities are using strategies that replace physical mail with electronic communication or reproductions of originals.

This technology brief is part of a series of documents that focuses on contraband in corrections. This document specifically focuses on detection and management of cell phones. Additional documents provide information on contraband, including types of associated technologies and products used to detect contraband on people, in vehicles, and in an environment. The goal of this series is to offer foundational insights from use cases, highlight challenges of contraband detection, compare illustrative products, and discuss the future of contraband detection and management.

This technology brief is part of a series of documents that focuses on contraband in corrections. The first brief provides an overview of contraband, including types and associated technologies and products used to detect contraband on people, in
vehicles, and in the environment. This brief focuses specifically on strategies to detect and manage drug contraband. The goal of this series is to offer foundational insights from use cases, highlight challenges of contraband detection, compare illustrative products, and discuss the future of contraband detection and management.

This report includes statistics on demographic, criminal justice, and suicide incident characteristics and link 2019 suicides with facility-level information obtained in BJS’s recent censuses of local jail and prison facilities.

This report details characteristics of inmates, including demographics, conviction status, and most serious offense. It also reports data on jail facilities, such as rated capacity, facility functions, and jail staff.

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States began an experiment in mass imprisonment. Supporters argued that harsh punishments such as imprisonment reduce crime by deterring inmates from reoffending. Skeptics argued that imprisonment may have a criminogenic effect. The skeptics were right. Previous narrative reviews and meta-analyses concluded that the overall effect of imprisonment is null.

This report examines the state of federal civil rights protections for incarcerated women to explore women’s experiences while incarcerated. It covers a range of issues incarcerated women face, including access to healthcare, prevention of sexual assault, discipline and segregated housing, parental rights, and availability of programming. The report provides examples of prison administrations seeking to address these issues and it evaluates the response of the federal government.

Parole and probation violations have an outsized effect on state prison populations. The Course Corrections Cost Calculator uses data, soon to be released in our annual Confined and Costly report, to show how simple changes in probation and parole outcomes can impact a state’s prison population and costs.

Community supervision agencies commonly use resource allocation models to identify the amount of monitoring and treatment to provide individuals under supervision. The risk-needs-responsivity model guides these decisions, suggesting the level of supervision should align with one’s risk level, with fewer services provided to those at a lower risk of recidivism. However, probation officers often operate under a risk management model with perceptions of risk guiding decisions.

Four studies of medium and high research quality have examined the use of sanctions grids by parole and probation departments; however, only two examined the effect on recidivism. These studies show that there is no effect of the use of sanction grids/matrices on re-offending, compared to the use unstructured supervision policies. However, there is promising evidence that the use of sanctions grids/matrices provide for a better use of agency resources and lower the use of custodial (i.e., prison or jail) sanctions.