New York Corrections Facilities Crack Down on Weekend Visitors

We see stories all the time about criminals out on the streets getting busted by law enforcement for any number of various offenses. When these criminals get caught, they are arrested, they go through the legal process and many of them end up serving time in some jail or prison, because that's how the legal system works.

This brings us to this passed weekend where the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYS DOCCS) had the opportunity to flip the script, well partially anyway.

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Weekend Contraband Crackdown

Over the weekend NYS DOCCS in conjunction with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) with their K-9 units went through the process of random searches throughout various DOCCS facilities across the state. According to the post on the NYS DOCCS Facebook page, a total number of facilities searched was not given but by the end of the event, 35 visitor arrests had been made.

Now let's just call this for what it is, you've got to be either really brave, really confident or just plain dumb to try and sneak contraband into a jail or prison or any facility. In this case the "contraband" was various quantities of various illegal narcotics and weapons brought to the various facilities by the various visitors.

The Weekend Haul

When the searches and subsequent arrests were completed, law enforcement had quite a bit of counting and measuring to do. In total officers were able to confiscate...

• 34 MDMA pills with 7 additional miscellaneous pills
• 926.6 grams of Marijuana
• 140.3 grams of synthetic cannabinoids
• 79 pieces of sprayed paper
• 25.4 grams of Cocaine
• 59 Suboxone strips
• 7.3 grams of Methamphetamine
• 5 THC gummies
• 11 grams of tobacco
• and 11 razors

Needless to say but jails and prisons have VERY strict rules about what you can and cannot bring to a facility, for obvious reasons. Also needless to say but, these confiscated items are definitely on the 'cannot' list.

Whether you are a visitor to a particular facility or an inmate at a facility, being caught with contraband is a crime. In fact it is a felony crime called 'Promoting Prison Contraband' and in the New York Law, you can face some pretty steep penalties for this crime.

Depending on various like whether or not it is in the first or second degree, one can find themselves having to serve jail time themselves. If you were already serving time, then it's possible that time will be added on in the form of a concurrent service.

Promoting Prison Contraband is also a crime under federal law and if caught you should hope to be charged under state law because the federal penalties are much worse. Under state law penalties could be between 1-7 years behind bars, but under federal law it could be between 6 months and 20 years. The difference is based on what contraband you were caught with.

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There are other penalties in play as well like probation or losing your visitation rights either permanently or for specified amount time. The point overall remains the same, you've either got to be brave, confident or just plain dumb to try and sneak into a facility.