Sep 6, 2018 3 min read

Over the span of a week last month, 18 corrections employees at three state prisons were sickened by an unknown substance in five separate incidents.

At SCI-Greene, four corrections officers were hospitalized after becoming sick while searching an inmate’s belongings Aug. 13. The state prison near Waynesburg was locked down for hours while a hazardous materials team was called in to investigate. Similar incidents happened at state prisons in Mercer and Fayette counties.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Amy Worden at the time described the substance as a “liquid synthetic drug that’s taking different forms” and is being tested by investigators to learn more about it.

In response to the rash of incidents, DOC officials said they were improving security and changing safety procedures. The department announced it was providing more protective gear and training to its officers, installing safety disposal equipment for potentially hazardous substances and expanding the use of body scanners.

But it happened again at SCI-Greene on Aug. 28 when one employee was sickened and had to be transported to a local hospital for treatment. That prompted a statewide lockdown of all DOC prisons and a visit to SCI-Greene on Wednesday by Gov. Tom Wolf to announce more safety enhancements involving mail.

Thankfully, no one has been seriously injured, but it’s alarming that toxic substances are being introduced into the state prison, apparently for the consumption of inmates as a way to get high.

A similar situation occurred over Labor Day weekend at the Allegheny County Jail when 11 employees were sickened. It became so worrisome that jail Warden Orlando Harper held a press conference Tuesday to release some information about the situation, including that it’s a synthetic liquid narcotic that is stained on paper.

Pennsylvania corrections officials had released few details about what substance was entering its state prisons. That all changed with Wolf’s visit to Greene County after as many as 30 state employees had fallen ill in several state prisons.

What we learned should be concerning to all.

Dangerous drugs, such as suboxone and fentanyl, are entering state prisons at an alarming rate. But the synthetic drug K2 appears to be causing the most issues. DOC officials said the drugs are coming in primarily through letters, books and inmate visits, but they also think there are some incidents of drugs being smuggled in by staff or dropped from overhead by drones.

It seems that prison officials are taking appropriate actions in an attempt to combat the problem, including centralizing the distribution of mail and banning visitors for life if they’re caught bringing drugs in. But if such dangerous substances are entering maximum-security prisons, how easy are they to obtain on the street?

A mass overdose was reported Aug. 15 in a Connecticut town, where medics tended to at least 70 people who apparently ingested the synthetic drug K2 that was laced with fentanyl, a powerful and deadly manufactured opioid.

As DOC learns more about what is happening behind its prison walls, it should tell the public to help safeguard the rest of us.