It may seem simple, but how we allow prisoners to dress plays a big factor in the ease they have in concealing contraband. What options do we have? One piece jumpsuits that may or may not have a chest pocket. Two piece plain uniform style that often won’t have pants pockets but will have a chest pocket. Standard button down shirt and pants with multiple pockets.
Let’s think about this a minute. The more places we give prisoners to hide items, the greater the chances they have at being successful. It’s common for prisons to use the shirt and pants option, while jails use the other two options more frequently. The facility I work in uses both the jumpsuit and two piece uniforms. We use the jumpsuit for males in general population. Females, inmate workers and work release inmates all wear two piece uniforms.
Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of the options:
One piece jumpsuits with a single chest pocket provide minimal places to conceal items and do not have a tight waistband for an added concealment location, but do generally have an elastic waistband of some sort. Cons include difficultly in preforming pat down searches due to the one piece design and sizing issues. The one piece does not move as easily as the two piece and officers must be more attentive to their sense of touch. Oversized jumpsuits are bulky and also difficult to search. In my experience prisoners like the oversized fit and will do their best to get them one or two sizes too big.
I have also deployed my TASER on a prisoner with a jumpsuit two sizes too big and found the oversized jumpsuit affected the usefulness of the TASER. The prisoner was leaning forward as I deployed the probes, allowing one probe to successfully impale into his upper chest while the other probe hit the abdomen area where the jumpsuit was very baggy and didn’t initially deliver the charge. About two seconds later, the prisoner reacted to the pain of the probe in his chest and stood upright, allowing the second probe to make contact, completing the current and making for a successful deployment.
Another issue with sizing is that not every prisoner is built to fit in a generic size. For example, a person may have a large sized waist but have a 2XL shirt size. This person will need a 2XL jumpsuit that will be way too big in the bottom.
Two piece uniforms with a single chest pocket are easier to search, and only having one pocket limits places for prisoners to carry items. The loose waistband can be easily pulled out to search. The loose bottom of the shirt is easy to maneuver, making for better pat downs.
On the list of cons, the elastic in the waistband aids in hiding small items that required officers to spend more time searching and to utilize their sense of touch to greater extremes. Prisoners also tend to like oversized two piece uniforms, but officers can be specific to top and bottom sizes.
Standard button down shirt and pants seem to be very common within prisons. These uniform styles allow for the hiding places we see on every person walking down the street on a daily basis. They will have two shirt pockets and four pants pockets. That alone provides more hiding places that the other options. These uniforms also have a zipper that can easily hide smaller forms of contraband in the zipper flap.
One other area of concern with the standard type pants is that many agencies allow inmates to wear a belt. In my opinion, I see no reason to allow more items that can hurt officers or other prisoners in the facility by choice. However, that is not the topic we are discussing today. One positive point is that like the two piece uniform the shirt and pants can be sized separately for the best fit.
The basic fact is that no matter what uniform style we use in our facility we need to make sure that searches are being done. Not just searches, but good quality searches. Anybody can do a quick simple pat down search. In order to really find contraband you need to be through and systematic. Make sure you get the head, hair, collars, armpits, waistband, groin, and bottoms of the feet. Not forgetting the around the ears and in the mouth as well as the core body parts in between.
Recently in corrections, four letters have come into play with how we preform our pat down searches. Yes, I mean PREA. I am not a PREA expert so I will not get into any details on how PREA effects how we search but I will say that we do have a safety and security interest in conducting good quality searches and we need to make sure we do that and not get ourselves in trouble either.