Prison officials who already have their hands full line of drugs and weapons from prisoners now spend time tracking of tobacco smuggling, some of whom are guards and other prison staff. Fights broke out over tobacco: in one Northern California prison, the guards had to use pepper spray to break up a fight among 30 inmates.
The ban was enacted in July 2005 to improve working conditions and reduce the growth of spending on health among prisoners, but it also led to the explosive growth of trade in tobacco. The combination of potentially big profits and relatively light penalties are the cause of wavelets.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Lt. Kenny Calhoun Sierra Conservation Center, a prison northern California, where officials report cigarette prices of $ 125 Pack.
Darren Cloyd is nearing the end of his 15-year sentence in prison, the State of California, Los Angeles, for second-degree armed robbery. Before the ban he remembers paying about $ 10 (7.60) for a can with enough rolling tobacco for dozens of cigarettes. Now one contraband cigarette can cost that much.
"Black market", here, "said Cloyd, 37." Everyone and their mom smoke. "
California's largest prison population 172,000 adult inmates. While many states limit tobacco use in prisons in California, among the few that ban all tobacco products.
Nevertheless, tobacco finds its way in.
Sometimes, family and friends secret transfer of prisoners during his visits. Other times, inmates assigned to work crews from the prison grounds to organize cohorts outside the prison to leave stashes of tobacco at the sites of pre-fall, and then smuggle it behind bars.
A less risky method: culling small amounts of tobacco from cigarette butts found along roads and on other sites work.
In California Correctional Center in Lassen County, officials reported more than 60 tobacco offenses among inmate crews at the work of the institution's camp in December, Assistant Superintendent Mullin said Matt. In the same month, cigarettes caused a quarrel between 30 Hispanic and white inmates in a high degree of security in the yard. Follow-up interviews with inmates revealed the dispute over control of the sale of tobacco products.
In the fortress, like Pelican Bay State Prison, the offender made his way back to jail on the basis of hours after word of honor. He was found with a pillowcase of almost 50 ounces (1420 grams) of rolling tobacco thousands of dollars on the black market. The plan was to throw him over the fence of the Fund.
"It's almost better market than drugs," said Devan Hawkes, anti-gang officer in Pelican Bay. "Many people are trying to make money."
This includes prison staff.
In the past year, one of the guards was put on leave from California State Prison, Solano, for smuggling tobacco products. The guard made several hundred dollars a week selling tobacco, officials say.
At Folsom State Prison, a cook out last year after it was caught walking on the prison grounds with plastic bags from rolling tobacco in his jacket. He told authorities he was earning more smuggling tobacco to $ 1000 (760) in a week than he had in his day job.
"There's quite a lot of money to be," said Lt. Tim overturn, a spokesman for Solano prison. "In a department of this size you're going to have people who will succumb to the temptation."
Unlike illicit drugs, which bring harsh penalties when smuggled into prison, punishments for inmates caught with tobacco usually range from a written warning of additional job responsibilities. Prison employees can lose their jobs, but there is almost no chance of prosecution.
Chuck Alexander, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Association, said lawmakers should either return the prohibition or add stronger penalties.
"She did not do anything but make (tobacco) a lucrative business," he said.
