Will prison contraband go up in smoke when Mississippi’s tobacco ban ends? Will it mean higher health care costs?

Mississippi Department of Corrections plans to reintroduce tobacco sales in the state's prisons beginning Feb. 1, 2021. Shutterstock

By Jerry Mitchell
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

Updated Jan. 15,2021

Mississippi officials are hoping that lifting the ban on smoking inside prison will help curb the huge contraband trade that some inmates estimate may run in the millions.

“By selling the same cigarettes that are allowed to free people, we are breaking the contraband tobacco trade, designating smoking areas outside, clearing the air inside for the majority of inmates who don’t smoke, reducing inmate contraband violations, and recouping for taxpayers some of the dollars it takes to run prisons,” Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said.

Burl Cain
Courtesy of MDOC

The Mississippi Department of Corrections’ decision runs counter to the national trend. Currently, 49 states have banned tobacco use indoors in their prisons. Mississippi banned smoking a decade ago.

“We have fought so long and so hard to protect the health of everyone whether they are prison workers, casino workers, kids working in convenience stores, as well as all Mississippians,” said Sandra Shelson, executive director of The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. “It’s troubling that we would take a step backwards.” 

A group of public health groups have joined in voicing opposition to MDOC’s plan.

“We’re disappointed by the recent decision to nullify lifesaving policy that has protected people who are incarcerated, as well as staff, from the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke for over a decade. The leading cause of preventable death, smoking is a proven risk factor for developing cancer, heart disease and other diseases – and additionally puts people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19,” says the statement issued by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, American Heart Association and The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi in response.

“Research also shows there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke and only smoke-free laws provide effective protection its dangers. The right to breathe clean, smoke-free air has never been as important as it is today.

“Now is the time decision makers should be doing everything in their power to protect the health of individuals who are incarcerated– not compromising it. Rather than increasing exposure to these deadly products, policymakers should be providing tobacco cessation services to help those who are incarcerated quit and leading state efforts for such programs.”

Eldon Vail served as deputy secretary when the Washington Department of Corrections eliminated tobacco in the early 2000s.

“What we saw when tobacco was no longer authorized was the effect of making contraband smuggling for some staff seem like less of a big deal and that was a slippery slope for more dangerous contraband to be moved once the contraband in question was ‘only’ tobacco,” he said. “This faded in Washington and became less of a problem over time.”

But given what he has seen from inspecting Mississippi prisons in recent years, “I don’t think this is crazy,” he said. “It might make some staff less likely to get started moving contraband. Once you move tobacco, why not a cell phone, alcohol, etc.?” 

Earlier this month, officials at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution near Leakesville recovered 38 cell phones, 4 pounds of marijuana, several packs of cigarettes, and 20 pounds of tobacco and rolling papers — plus 7 pounds of barbecued chicken wings. In October, corrections officials bragged that they had smashed a smuggling ring that could have netted gang leaders $69,000.

Matthew Naidow, who worked at East Mississippi Correctional Facility and served as an acting warden for GEO in Michigan, questioned the change: “The state is already so far behind in progressive correctional practices that stepping further back by reinstating smoking in prisons is astounding.”

Contraband will always be one of the most valuable currencies in prison, he said. “You will always have the haves and have nots, the controllers and the controlled, and the gangs will continue to control the currency.”

The cost alone for health care “in a smoking facility is astronomical,” and it harms the staff who have to breathe in the smoke every day, he said. “Giving in to the prison population to supposedly solve a contraband problem will definitely present itself with a whole new set of negative issues.”

Inmates interviewed by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting have long cited the smoking ban as something that has fueled increased contraband and gang activity.

Alger Retherford, who spent more than four decades inside the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman for murder and robbery, predicted the move would eliminate at least 80% of the corruption behind bars.

“These guys come off the streets, and they’re addicted to tobacco,” he said. “They will do virtually anything to get it. I’ve seen guys trade sex, demean themselves and be abused by gang members, just to get a smoke.”

One night, he said he listened to an inmate tallying up the day’s tobacco sales and was stunned to hear the total surpass $8,000.

An inmate behind bars, who asked not be named for fear of retribution, told MCIR that the money made through tobacco is staggering.

“You can get a pound of tobacco for $15 and then sell it for $500 a pound,” he said.

After that, the tobacco is split multiple times until it is sold to inmates, he said. The sale of contraband, which also includes alcohol, drugs and cell phones, nets gangs millions behind bars, he said, making it possible for gangs to more than double correctional officials’ salaries, which start at $25,650.

Mississippi’s smoking ban lifts Feb. 1.

“Inmates who smoke are smoking anyway,” Cain said, “but they’re having to smuggle in tobacco to do it, which is illegal, and it’s even more illegal because state law prohibits smoking in state buildings. That compromises our Corrections officers and staff and puts them at risk to either break the law by allowing the smoking or to put themselves in danger by enforcing the rule.”

Corrections officials say profits from prison tobacco sales will fund MDOC’s Reentry Program by buying simulators and computer programs to teach parole-eligible men and women inmates the skills for truck driving, welding, backhoe, caterpillar and dragline operations, and in oil and pipeline work. The tobacco sales will also help fund remedial courses so that inmates can pass a high school equivalency test and begin college coursework.

Officials say that name-brand cigarettes will be sold at current prices in the prisons’ canteens. Cigars and smokeless tobacco products will also be sold.

“Inmates who smoke now not only are breaking laws and losing a chance at early release,” MDOC Deputy Commissioner Jay Mallett said, “but also they are paying as much as $500 a pound to do it.  The smokers will save money, and the state will make money.”

In a Dec. 22 memo obtained by MCIR, Cain detailed the plan, saying employees “will be allowed enough tobacco for one day of usage, any more will be considered contraband.” Inmates will be allowed to purchase and possess enough tobacco for a week.

Vail said the one-day barrier would make it harder for staff to move contraband tobacco, “but I suspect the one-week limit on inmates will be hard to police. I saw more than one cell in MDOC prisons that looked like small stores operated by inmates who were basically running their own business.”

Mississippi’s reversal on smoking could face opposition in courts. Prisons began to curb smoking after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that a prisoner’s exposure to secondhand smoke constituted “cruel and unusual” punishment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure to secondhand smoke causes the deaths of an estimated 41,000 adults each year in the U.S.

J. Cliff Johnson
Courtesy of the MacArthur Justice Center

The smoking ban has long been cited as a way to reduce medical costs inside prisons. CDC officials say that for every one person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.

Cliff Johnson, director of the University of Mississippi School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center, said he’s heard no talk of challenging the change.

“We all know that many of our clients are paying exorbitant prices for ‘black market’ tobacco and are smoking in their cells around other prisoners,” he said. “Providing places to smoke legally and more safely outside and using money from tobacco sales for reentry services and job training sounds like a step in the right direction to me. We’ll see how the actual implementation goes.”

He said he believes another step would be to offer smoking cessation products to prisoners.

Vail recalled being pushed by his state lawmakers “to stop allowing tobacco, and they had some pretty good data on how that would save health care dollars. I bought some time to put the ban in place so there was lots of notice and time for the stop smoking efforts to be available, but we got it done.”

Retherford said the problem is that many come into prison already addicted. “They’re expected to automatically cease smoking, but no treatment is given inside the prison system. It’s just cold turkey.”

He praised Cain for trying to clean up corruption and make Mississippi prisons a better place. “It’s about time.”

Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for MCIR’s newsletters here.

Email him at Jerry.Mitchell@MississippiCIR.org and follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.