Prison guards soon find out if they want to earn some extra money, they can smuggle as a sideline. Often, it starts out in a minor way, with a convict asking a guard if he'd smuggle out a letter that he doesn't want read by prison officials. If a the guard accepts, and takes payment from the addressee, the hook is planted. The next request might be to bring in an envelope or small packet, without disclosing the contents to the guard.
If the packet contains illicit drugs, the guard is more beholden than ever. this gives the inmate and his outside confederate a hold over the guard, and leverage to oblige him to do more 'favors.'...
In some especially corrupt prisons, administration officials are part of the scheme. The prison administrators can try to stamp out smuggling if they wish, by enforcing strictly all of the regulations, or they can turn a blind eye. Some will go so far as to take part of the action by themselves, on the basis that, as smuggling is inevitable, they might as well profit from it. In one prison, the deputy warden was the leader of the smugglign ring, and the illicit drugs 'passed across his desk.'....
The guards who are 'clean' resent this, but are powerless to do anything. Smugglers operate secretly, and in any event any guard who exposes another runs the risk of reprisals from his fellow employees, much the same situation that affects a corrupt police department. This affects the morale of honest guards."
