During a City Council hearing back in October 2022, then-Department of Corrections (DOC) commissioner Louis Molina illustrated the opioid crisis in city jails through stories of fentanyl-soaked letters rampantly sent to facilities for detainees to sell, smoke, and chew. His evidence included photos of a children’s drawing and a T-shirt, which were seized from the mailroom and tested positive for the deadly drug.
As it turns out, though, neither item was actually laced, according to a report by the Department of Investigation (DOI) released last Wednesday, Nov. 20. The findings point to the DOC relying on preliminary field tests to determine whether suspicious mailroom items are laced with fentanyl, even as manufacturers recommend subsequent lab testing to confirm the results.
When the DOI sent a sample size of 71 items the DOC claimed were laced with fentanyl to a private lab, 85% of them came back negative, including the children’s drawing and T-shirt Molina used as evidence during the meeting.
Narcotics seized in city jails almost never lead to new criminal charges against the sender or recipient, so lab testing is rarely ordered for confirmation, especially given the high costs, but the false positives can still play a big role in policy and detainee discipline.
“What we found is that these field tests — that are not only presumptive, but [also] based on our work, wrong 85% of the time when it comes to fentanyl — are being used as a basis for public statements about the number of narcotics coming in,” said DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber over the phone. In response, she said, “There’s been an effort on the part of the department to reduce, if not eliminate, actual physical mail and move to a system where all mail comes in electronically over tablets.
“There’s also been a move to limit or eliminate packages sent from relatives’ or friends’ homes, and require everyone to work through a third-party vendor who could be responsible for procuring and shipping items. There are decisions [or] plans being made at least in part on these unreliable field tests.”
According to Strauber, field testing typically is at the discretion of mail officers, who can flag suspicious packages and initiate x-ray exams. From there, the DOC’s Correction Intelligence Bureau can be enlisted to conduct the field tests. Of course, any item tested positive for fentanyl would be withheld from the recipient.
To be clear, the report backs the suspicions of increased fentanyl use in city jails despite the erroneous field tests. The synthetic opioid is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine and just 2 milligrams is enough for a lethal dose.
Preventing drugs from entering city jails often creates a hostile atmosphere, not only for detainees, but for their outside family and friends. A Freedom Agenda member who asked to be only identified as Marie recounted how a corrections officer prevented her from a contact visit with a loved one on Rikers Island after swabbing her hands.
“He gave me a piece of paper and stated I had THC on my fingers,” she said. “I told him I did not even smoke weed and he said it was 99% positive and after I washed my hands, 75%. I was shocked, annoyed, and embarrassed. Another woman said, ‘Don’t worry, they always do that.’ Every visit after that, I managed to have some kind of drug that I never took in my life on my fingertips, from cocaine to marijuana.”
Yet an accompanying DOI report also published on Nov. 20 found that DOC staff themselves served as a significant source of contraband smuggled into city jails.
“We are not suggesting that there is not contraband coming through the mail, but the point is, to the extent that it is coming in [through] common items [like] cards, books, toys, etc., that is not an accurate perception, because the field tests are not accurate,” said Strauber. “To the extent that the department is focused [on] controlling the mail system better, that is not going to address what, in our view, is at least an equally significant, [if] not more significant, source of contraband, which is contraband that is smuggled in through staff.”
The DOI’s report provided multiple recommendations for the DOC, including conducting a formal review on which persons-in-custody were sanctioned due to a false positive, removing contraband recovery data without lab confirmation from official reports, and reconsidering efforts to restrict physical mail from entering city jails.
“We take the safety of our staff and those in our care very seriously, including preventing dangerous substances like fentanyl from entering our facilities,” said a DOC spokesperson by email. “Field tests are a tool used to quickly assess potential threats, and while not perfect, they play an important role in our safety protocols. We will review the report and continue to refine our testing processes to ensure the highest standard of safety for all involved.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.