Staff As a Conduit for Contraband: Developing and Testing Key Assumptions of Professional Boundary Violations in Prison

ABSTRACT

The breach of professional boundaries by correctional staff involves various transgressive behaviors and improper relationships with incarcerated individuals. Extant literature has focused on identifying and measuring such behaviors using non-probability samples of correctional officers and formerly incarcerated individuals from single jurisdictions. This research aims to build on this body of work by exploring how key measures related to a specific type boundary violations – staff involvement in introducing contraband – affects the level of contraband in 301 prisons across six states. We investigate three key assumptions about staff motivations for smuggling contraband into their facilities. Some motivations, such as (1) inappropriate relationships with residents and (2) financial gains, tend to be premediated while others, like (3) the lack of accountability and oversight at work, can create opportunistic circumstances that affect staff motivations. The results from negative binomial regression show modest support for each assumption tested in explaining the levels of contraband drugs and cellphones while accounting for relevant prison characteristics. We conclude by delving into the implications of our findings for research, policy, and practice.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Institute of Justice [grant number 2015-IJ-CX-K001]. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We used the statewide average salaries for North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 92,214: Correctional Institutions in the 2019 BLS data. While BJS provides some county-level salary information under this code, it was not available for most counties in which NSCC facilities were located. It is also worth noting that, though state departments of corrections may adjust staff salaries slightly to account for cost-of-living differences between counties, there was very little variation between county-level and statewide salaries in the BLS data. Thus, we used statewide data as the measure of staff salaries.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bryce E. Peterson

Bryce E. Peterson is a senior research scientist in the Center for Justice Research and Innovation at the CNA Corporation. He leads a portfolio of research and technical assistance projects focused on correctional policies, institutional safety and security, and technological interventions in criminal justice settings. He received his PhD in criminal justice from the John Jay College/The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

KiDeuk Kim

KiDeuk Kim is a senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute. He leads multidisciplinary research teams to examine issues related to criminal justice interventions and policies. He has extensive research experience and national expertise in data-driven decision making in criminal justice.