Continued vigilance and a pro-active stance have paid off at Her Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Service (HMCIPS), by keeping drugs and other contraband from making their way inside prison walls.
Just weeks after an officer with HMCIPS stopped an intruder that had thrown a large quantity of marijuana over the prison’s fence, a recent inspection ended in the discovery of illicit items at the prison.

On Sunday, 5 March 2017 a female visitor was arrested after prison officers learned she was trying to smuggle around one pound of marijuana inside.
In the same day, a cell phone was also confiscated from an inmate after a search was carried out by a prison officer.

“We have zero tolerance when it comes to preventing drugs or any kind of prohibited materials from entering the prison,” Prison Director Neil Lavis says. “We have taken the necessary precautions and increased our surveillance throughout. We have also increased our success rate in the discovery of illicit items by detecting the ways it’s transported into the prison, and how it’s being concealed once inside.”

It’s a criminal offence to knowingly introduce contraband including drugs, weapons and other forbidden items.

“When members of the public traffic such items into the prison they are encouraging continued drug abuse, which puts inmates and staff member’s lives at risk,” Director Lavis explains.
The Director says the Prison Service will continue to crackdown on complicit visitors and anyone else who breaks the law.

“We have strategies in place to combat this issue and if anyone is caught trying to do such a crime, it will be reported to police and they could find themselves behind bars,” he states.