Correctional officers and drug smuggling: Boundary work, horizontal surveillance, and cultural responses to drug entry

Drug entry into prisons represents a serious issue for both incarcerated people and prison staff. Although substances enter prisons in many ways, staff drug smuggling represents a consistent problem facing correctional institutions globally. We draw on 131 interviews with correctional officers (COs) working in four Western Canadian prisons to analyze how COs understand and respond to drug smuggling. Participants drew on specific cultural narratives to portray coworkers who smuggled drugs, suggesting that CO occupational subcultures played a meaningful role in shaping how they perceived drugs, drug smuggling, and “dirty” correctional staff. Officers further detailed cultural narratives and frames they employed to detect and prevent drug trafficking among their peers. These included the informal social controls of boundary work and horizontal surveillance, which we analyze using Douglas’ concepts of purity and impurity. Participants justified such practices as efforts to reduce drug smuggling but also described how boundary work and horizontal surveillance stratified the CO population in distinctive ways. We conclude by discussing how CO cultures should influence our perceptions of staff drug smuggling.