Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice officials are taking a beating this morning from Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, regarding the agency’s efforts to keep contraband from coming into state prisons.
Whitmire has been on the agency since receiving a string of phone calls this fall from a death row inmate who’d had a cell phone smuggled to him on the row. Reportedly, the inmate’s mother worked with a prison guard to get the phone inside.
The department says now it will pat down everyone entering prison — including guards. But Whitmire is wondering why officials didn’t already have such a policy in place. “Were you aware of the degree and amount of contraband [entering the prisons] and covered it up? Whitmire asked. Or is it that officials just didn’t know about all the contraband? “I’d suggest that a ‘yes’ to either is bad.”
You can watch the flogging here.
This article appears in November 7 • 2008.