Security in prisons needs to be improved to prevent prisoner escapes, exchange of drugs, and development of corrupt prison guards. Prisoners have escaped by exploiting security issues, pulling toilets from walls, and using tools to bypass fences. Drugs enter prisons through visitors and corrupt guards smuggling them in. Corrupt guards also provide information to harm prisoners, engage in illegal activities, and turn a blind eye to crimes. To enhance security, prisons should use GPS tracking, improve guard training, conduct thorough searches, install cameras, and regularly monitor guards. Improving security is necessary to protect the public from dangerous criminals and ensure prisons do not cause further harm.

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Tyra Gilliard
ENG 101
Professor Bolton
April 8, 2013
Security in Prisons
In March 2012, a prison guard from Bloomfield, New Jersey pleaded guilty to one count of
second-degree official misconduct. The prison guard placed himself in a scheming role to smuggle drugs,
cell phones, and other contrabands into the facility. In January, 2 prisoners from an Oklahoma prison
escaped from a maximum-security prison. These prisoners pulled toilets from their cell walls and
escaped through a hidden maintenance tunnel and a vent. In February, 6prisoners at the medium-
security, St. Clair Correctional Facility located in Alabama managed to escape. The prisoners used a
broom to sneak under a fence and bypass prison guards along with the facility’s high-tech security
systems. When it comes to the topic of security in prisons, most of us will readily agree that prisons are
highly secured with well-trained guards and security systems. Where this agreement usually ends,
however, is on the question of how many prisoners managed to escape or attempt to escape? Whereas
some are convinced that prison guards help inmates escape, others maintain that inmates will do
whatever it takes to escape. Many wardens at prison facilities, assume their facility is well constructed
and consisted of efficient security. Ultimately, what is at stake here is prisoners (murderers, rapists, and
burglars) are retaining their freedom by escaping. However, recently experts suggest that security in
prisons aren’t enhanced enough. Today, most citizens or victims of crimes made by prisoners are
concerned and care about what the inmate may be capable of doing. Security in prisons needs to be
enhanced quickly to prevent prisoners from escaping, exchanging drugs, and developing crooked prison
guards.
First, security needs to be enhanced to prevent prisoners from escaping.As Engdahl questioned,
“Is the purpose of prison to punish the criminal, to rehabilitate, to deter others from crime, or simply

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protect the public from individuals who are dangerous” (19).Majority of the prisoners are in prison to
prevent themselves from committing other crimes, receiving punishment for the crimes they’ve
committed, or rehabilitation. Most of the time,prisoners are harmful to society and that’s why they
shouldn’t escape. For example, if a sex offender was to escape from prison and get back into society, it’s
a huge possibility that he/she will continue to live the life of a sex offender and continue to hurt society.
When these criminals commit these horrible crimes, they show no remorse for what they have done and
no care in the world what happens. Most of them are self-centered and care about no one except
themselves. When prisoners feel as if they don’t belong there or they can’t take being there anymore,
they find a way to escape. They find any and every opportunity and also think of good solutions to
escape. Security issues are mainly the primary source of them escaping. The escaping routines vary from
cutting wired fences or finding a hole in the facility’s security structure and exploiting it.But in order to
prevent prisoners from escaping prisons, the facility should be enhanced in several ways. First, each
prisoners should have a tracking device braceletalso known as GPS, located on their ankles. The tracking
device will locate each and every prisoners’ whereabouts in the prison and outside of the prison. If the
prisoner is wearing the device and enters a prohibited area, an alarm would sound off.According to
“Keeping Tabs on Dangerous Parolees”, the electronic monitoring bracelet helped authorities locate
Peter Whitmore’s whereabouts (Ko).Therefore, if inmates are required to have GPS tracking bracelets, it
will also help monitor their whereabouts as well. Second, the security staff should be well-trained. As
usual, each security staff or prison guard or correctional officer must be trained. However, the question
is, are they being trained efficiently and effectively? When it comes down to doing searching for
training, the trainees may show their best during training but in reality they don’t enforce the same
techniques. For example, in training in relation to searching, the trainees must do a thorough search the
cells, accommodation units, work and recreation areas, vehicles and etc. But once reality hits, their lack
of searching will lead to a misled prevention of aprisoner finding an escape way out. Prisoners are

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incarcerated to prevent others from becoming hurt and for prisoners to recuperate and get their lives
together.
In addition to the prevention of prisoners escaping, security needs to also be improved to
prevent prisoners and guards from exchanging drugs. Drugs in prison systems have become an issue for
corrections staff for several years. Although they are a big issue, drugs are the main reason how people
land in jail. The same ones who were selling drugs on the outside want to continue their business in the
inside.Drugs in prison can bring up to many more times as much as the street value. This is
allowingprisoners to gain more credibility and power than they should actually have. However, the
question is, how are drugs coming into prisons? Prison officials believe that visitors of prisoners are the
main source of how drugs are entering the prisons. Most visitors will try to smuggle the drugs inside a
body cavity. On February 3, 2012, a North Carolina woman named Tammy Amaon, was charged with six
drug-related offenses after she was found with possession of marijuana and cocaine during a visit to
aprisoner at the Johnston Correctional Center. The woman had four bags (one bag of cocaine and three
bags of marijuana) in her pants pocket. Second, drugs are entering the prisons by corrupt prisonguards.
In February of 2013, a former Philadelphia prison guard was charged for allegedly working with
aprisoner to smuggle drugs, tobacco and cell phones into the prison. The prison guard tried to smuggle
in marijuana, Xanax pills, tobacco and cell phones. Although, some prisons have installed X-ray
machines, drug sniffing dogs, and metal detectors, there are still ways that drugs are getting in. But if
security was enhanced, drugs wouldn’t be entered into the prisons.However there are many solutions to
prevent this from happening. First, prison security personnel should conduct thorough “pat” down
searches of all visitors and also use more sniffing dogs. Pat down searches are used to resolve any
alarms of a metal detector, anomalies identified by imaging technology, and prevent dangerous or illegal
items such as guns, drugs, contraband into the prison. Sniffing dog also known as “detection dog” is
used in prisons to detect substances such as drugs. In this case, when security fails in prisons, dogs could

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be a powerful backup system. Second, prisons should also purchase more surveillance cameras and
other equipment to detect the drugs that visitors or officers bring in.Surveillance cameras simply will
monitor everything from prisoners to visitors to prison staff. Furthermore, prison systems could reduce
the amount of drugs making their way behind their doors if only they have the right resources. In
Prisons, it states, “If we were serious about using our limited resources most effectively in reducing
crime and victimization and increasing public safety, then we would begin to responsibly and
systematically transfer some of the resources now used to imprison people to community based
prevention, reentry and capacity building” (42). What this simply means is that we have the resources to
increase the security of prisons, but aren’t taking it into consideration as we should.
Next, security in prisons needs to be enriched to stop the development of corrupt prison
guards.In October of 2012, aprisoner named Calvin Kingcade was arrested and sent to the Miami-Dade
pre-trial detention center for domestic violence and robbery. While at the detention center, he was
receiving a series of brutal beatings from a group of inmates but didn’t know why. A month later, he
found out that he was a target because prisoners assumed he was a confidential informant. But, the
person who gave them the information was one of the prison guards at the prison facility. The guard lied
in order to get revenge for a supposed theft. The guard plotted the beatings to the prisoner because he
robbed his nephew of a gold chain which belonged to him. Corrupt prison guards should be prevented
for several reasons. First of all, prison guards are supposed to maintain order, prevent disturbances,
assaults, and escapes of prisoners. But in reality, they don’t do their job the correct way. Also, they are
responsible for the safety and security of the facility. They shouldn’t be involved in any harmful or illegal
activities that may harm prisoners and others. Second, prison guards are responsible for most of the
fights and drug activity in prison. They take advantage of their jobs and don’t show any remorse for
things they have done or said. In Prisons, a civil rights lawyer stated, “A prison is not supposed to turn
you back out to society with more harm than when you came in. No one, no one in this country, no one

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in a civilized society is sentenced to be raped and assaulted in prison” (74). Therefore, most prison
guards aren’t what they look like in their uniforms.Development of corrupt prison guards are affecting
the prison in several ways. First, this is labeling the good and bad guards. The good guards will abide by
the right rules while the bad guards abide by their own rules. Their own rules lead to prisoners being
beat to death in prison, favoritism over prisoners, and also dating relationships between guards and
prisoners. They also indulge themselves in bribery and turn their backs when crimes are committed
among inmates. For example, if an inmate is ganged by a few inmates or if two inmates are in a solitary
cell fighting, the guard will watch the inmates fight until one of them is dead or just purposely leave the
scenery. According to “Encyclopedia of American Prisons”, prison personnel get caught up in the
contraband trade and smuggle items into prison for prisoners. Prison personnel who smuggle
contraband may be corrupt to begin with. Some who get caught up in smuggling, however, are tricked
or coerced into doing the bidding of the prisoners. Enterprising prisoners may solicit small favors from
officers or other staff (113-14). However, there are several solutions to prevent the development of
corrupt prison guards and hiring them. First, each and every prison guard should receive updated
training throughout their career. Updated training will determine whether the guard has improved or
not, whether the guard is doing what he/she is supposed to be doing correctly. In “The Date Game:
Training of Prison Guards”, it states that most correctional facilities require a prospective staff member
to meet stringent criteria before being hired. References and criminal background are checked and drug
tests and pre-hire psychological tests are also administered (53). However, these training procedures are
extremely important when considering whether a prison guards is corrupt or not. Second, prison guards
should be monitored as well. Individuals looking to become a prison guard should be background
checked which will help analyze the history of their unethical behavior or if they have any gang-tied
relations.Prison guard corruptions are extremely devastating to the prison system and consists of
behaviors that shouldn’t be allowed. Security needs to be enhanced to prevent corrupt prison guards.

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However, does the evidence I’ve cited prove conclusively that security in prisons needs to be
enhanced? People have said that security in prisons doesn’t need to be enhanced. At this point I would
like to raise objections that have been inspired by the skeptic in me. I feel that everyone who believes
this is ignoring what is at risk for citizens. If security isn’t improved within prisons, there will be several
things at risk that shouldn’t be at risk. No one’s life should be at risk simply because a false alarm
enabled a prisoner to escape. A mother of three children shouldn’t be worried that a sex offender will
harm her daughter again. No one’s life should be taken because of a false accusation of prisoners and
prison guards. Any mother or father shouldn’t be the one burying their child due to security issues.
Before considering that security doesn’t need improve, people need to consider the what-ifs.
In conclusion, security in prisons needs to be improved to ensure the safety of citizens,
prisoners, and other individuals. The lives of children, parents, friends and family are at stake. As
security is steadily being improved in prisons, the percentage of escapees escaping are decreasing, the
number of convictions by employed corrupt prison guards and drug transactions are increasing. By
considering and making huge improvement, citizens would reconsider prisons as a harmful place and
think of it has a safe place with efficient security. However, in order to continue increase the security in
prisons, it’s up to the victims of crimes, victims in prison being mistreated and the people who care to
continue to have efficient security.

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Works Cited
Casey, Steven. “Never Cry Wolf.” Set Phasers on Stun (And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and
Human Error. Santa Barbara: Aegean Press, 1993. 89-91. Print.
Engdahl, Sylvia. Prisons. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Joyner, Ruby. “The Dating Game.” American Jails 26.5 (2012): 51-54. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5
Apr. 2013.
Ko, Marnie. “Keeping Tabs On Dangerous Parolees.” Report/Newsmagazine (National Edition) 29.3
(2002): 27. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Apr. 2013.
Life Behind Bars. Films Media Group, 1999. Films On Demand. Web. 05 April 2013.
<http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=3503&xtid=10167>.
Williams, Franklin P., and Marilyn D. McShane. Encyclopedia of American Prisons. n.p.: Garland Pub,
1996. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 4 Apr. 2013