Doing Time, Doing Drugs
An investigation by Lou Michel and Susan Schulman of the Buffalo News has found that New York prisons are saturated with drugs. Their "Jailhouse Highs" report reveals drug use so rampant that some inmates stay wasted nearly their whole time behind bars, leading to more crimes once they are released and fatal overdoses at twice the national rate. Their stories also explore how visitors and guards (including one 20-year-employee who dealt cocaine to inmates and other corrections officers) often smuggle drugs inside the prisons. The problem, Michel and Schulman write, extends to county jails as well as state prisons. I admire how Schulman and Michel were willing to report on people and places that most of us would prefer stay hidden away. Thanks to News Gems reader Brian Summers for showing me this story.