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“Think of the Pinellas County Jail as a small city with about 3,000 residents,” said Sergeant Will Snyder of the Detention Investigations Unit (DIU). “Just like in any small city, people have fights, they commit crimes. In a nutshell, DIU investigates crimes that occur in the jail.”
Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) detention deputies take care of day-to-day things such as violation of policy among inmates. “But when criminal offenses occur, they redirect them to us and we take it from there,” said Corporal Edwin Belvis. Crimes range from inmate-on-inmate battery, destruction of property, battery against jail staff, fraud, and introduction of contraband. Almost any crime that occurs on the outside, inmates do – or attempt to do – on the inside.
Any crime that occurs inside the jail automatically has enhanced charges by virtue of it occurring inside the jail. An incident that might be a misdemeanor battery in the outside world – such as punching or shoving someone – becomes a felony in the jail. Scuffles occur over things like who gets to use the phone next or what channel to watch. Hygiene complaints lead to conflict when inmates get upset that a neighbor isn’t showering. Bets over cards or sports are another common cause of fights. Just like in the outside world, a victim has to want to press charges. For the suspect, it is a separate new charge, not something tacked on to their original sentence.
There are two types of contraband in the jail. One involves misuse of something they are permitted to have. That might include having more than is allowed of something, such as hoarding batteries, or altering something from its original intent. If they tear a book to make rolling papers, it’s contraband. If they strip a wire from a headphone so they can use it with a battery to start a fire, it’s contraband. Batteries and headphones are both permitted, but changing them or using them for something other than their intended purpose turns them into contraband. Inmates have even used parts from a Walkman along with a battery, pen ink, and a needle made from a sharpened paperclip to improvise a tattoo gun.
The other kind of contraband involves criminal items such as weapons or narcotics. Inmates might melt down the end of a plastic toothbrush and shape it into a sharp point. They might even add a razor or a piece of scavenged metal to craft a makeshift knife. Improvised blades are called shivs or shanks. Inmates might put batteries in a sock, making a bludgeoning weapon called a sap. Items like those are quickly discovered through intelligence or shakedowns. DIU detectives said that most of the time inmates don’t make weapons to use for a specific reason, but to have “just in case.”
One of the biggest problems in the jail is the introduction of narcotics. Inmates go through the Conpass full body X-ray scanner to detect contraband located in or on the human body. It can be used to find both concealed weapons and narcotics. If an inmate has drugs hidden inside them it is vital to find it, because if it breaks it can be deadly for the carrier, and it can wreak havoc if it is introduced to the jail population.
When narcotics are introduced into the jail inside the human body, it’s usually a more thought-out scheme than a user just hiding their stash when the cops show up. “If someone has a court appearance because they violated probation and they know they’re going to get remanded, they come prepared with drugs inside them,” said Sergeant Snyder. “A lot of them are addicts who are bringing it in for personal use. They know in jail they’ll have to dry out, go through detox, and they don’t want to go through withdrawal.”
The Pinellas County Jail uses video visitation instead of in-person, so that cuts out a big method of introducing contraband. Instead, people try to mail drugs into the jail. “When I first got here the trend was putting a Suboxone strip behind the stamp,” Sergeant Snyder said. Later, they tried soaking paper in liquid drugs such as synthetic cannabinoid, disguising it as a letter or a crayon-scribbled page from a child’s coloring book. All personal mail is opened and checked, but legal mail is confidential, so they might create fake legal mail soaked with drugs.
If it makes it through, one piece of paper could be cut into multiple small pieces and sold, with a little strip going for $20. A full page might sell for $1,000. Deals and payments are arranged through convoluted connections of people on the outside. That method will be a thing of the past, because all jail mail will soon be sent to a separate location and scanned, so inmates only receive digital versions of their mail on a tablet.
Intelligence-gathering is a huge component of DIU’s job. All phone calls are recorded, so they can gather information about when inmates might be planning an illegal activity. “We monitor them, then when we know something is coming in based on what they are discussing we can get it before it gets introduced,” Corporal Belvis said. The dedicated DIU civilian analyst can comb through calls, picking out pertinent information, identifying who the inmate was speaking to, and correlating security video with the call. Detectives from PCSO and other agencies often review calls from certain inmates to check for admissions, evidence, or connections to other suspects.
DIU detectives also spend a lot of time talking to inmates. Inmates might decide to admit something they did, or rat out a cellmate. Sometimes inmates will try to provide information in exchange for a deal, but that isn’t something DIU will offer. Instead they’ll take any information the inmate is willing to provide, validate it as far as possible, and then share it with the agency involved in the case. “We have contacts in federal, state, and local agencies to share information,” Detective Belvis said. DIU also facilitates interviews when outside agencies want to interview inmates. “We have more than 300 federal inmates at any given time, so the feds are always in and out, interviewing them. Last year we had more than 2,000 interviews.”
DIU also initially handles any Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) investigations, which can include sexual harassment, unwanted touching, as well as a physical sexual battery. Inmates aren’t allowed to have sex in jail. If they do consensually it is an institutional rule violation, but it will be investigated to see if there is a victim.
In major cases, such as the death of an inmate, DIU will act as liaison for the Robbery and Homicide Unit, which will be the case agent. Beyond that, DIU uncovers or helps investigate some serious cases. On at least two occasions they received intelligence that inmates were using jail phones to try to hire a hitman to eliminate victims or witnesses who could testify against them. They worked with the FBI to set up a controlled phone call with someone posing as a hitman.
Sergeant Snyder emphasizes that crimes and contraband aren’t rampant in the jail, thanks to the diligent work that PCSO employees do at every step of the way. “We’re a society of 3,000 citizens and not all of them have the best background.” The inmates have nothing but time to figure out new ways to commit crimes from jail, and the DIU works hard to stay one step ahead.
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