Drug Search at Pennsylvania Prison Targets Inmates, Guards

Hundreds of law enforcement officers with drug-sniffing dogs searched the nation’s fifth-largest state prison Tuesday in a cell-by-cell raid aimed at rooting out drug-dealing by inmates and guards alike.

Shortly after the raid began, the deputy prison superintendent and the chief of guards announced their retirements. Two captains, four lieutenants and a hearing examiner were temporarily transferred, pending further investigation.

State Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn said the transfers and resignations weren’t necessarily related to the drug activity.

The raid, ordered by Gov. Thomas J. Ridge and characterized by state officials as the largest of its kind in U.S. history, will take officers into every corner of the 1,700-acre grounds at maximum-security Graterford State Prison by Friday night, Horn said.

“We have been alarmed for some time about the drug activity at Graterford,” Horn said, estimating that one-third of the drug sales in the state prison system occur there, even though it contains only 1/10th of the inmates. During the past six years, 11 inmates have died of overdoses at the prison.

In the same period, 13 guards, including three this year, have been charged with drug violations.

At a state Senate hearing last month, inmates testified that about 20% of the guards at Graterford were involved in illegal activities.

The raid, involving 250 state police and 400 members of prison emergency response teams from across the state, will include strip searches of all 3,490 prisoners and will cover areas used by the 1,100 staff members, prison spokesman Alan LeFebvre said. The inmates will remain locked in their cells until the raid ends.

Hours after the raid began Monday night, Horn said authorities had confiscated only a few ounces of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. But they said they expected to find few drugs because word travels quickly in prisons, giving inmates time to flush bags down their toilets.

What authorities did expect to uncover, Horn said, was paraphernalia needed to run drug operations from prison--cellular phones and ledgers. The search has yielded weapons ranging from knives to a homemade grappling hook and a partially finished gun.