Saturday, March 29, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
"Drugs are out there, there's no question, as they are in every other prison system," state Prisons Director Bob Bayer said.
In recent months, prison officials have tightened security, prohibited the delivery of packages and won a grant to conduct drug testing.
They also have launched a pilot program using drug-dogs at the Lovelock State Prison, and its effectiveness will determine whether the program will be expanded statewide.
Roberto Nerey of Reno, a former inmate who spent two years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, estimated 55 percent of inmates are involved in drugs.
"Heroin, cocaine, crank, all the way to alcohol - there's nothing you can't get in an institution," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Bayer said he's aware of drugs entering prisons through visitors, delivery trucks and mail, but the extent of the problem is difficult to determine.
Edward Neidert, a correctional officer at the Nevada State Prison, said guards lack the time and resources to adequately check the 60 to 70 daily visitors at the Carson City facility.
"An inmate's sweet grandmother brought stuff in," he said. "We had four officers arrested in the last year just at my facility (for selling drugs to inmates).
"I know from inmates that stuff is getting in there and that anything on the street will be in the prison yard within a week."
Neidert, who has worked for 17 years as a correctional officer, testified about the problem at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month.
The committee recommended passage of a bill that, among other things, mandates random drug tests to catch inmates moving contraband behind prison walls.
Neidert said the bill is a step in the right direction but doesn't go far enough. Drug-sniffing dogs are needed at the main gates of all seven prisons to stop the drug flows, he added.
"Nothing goes in or out of that prison except at the main gate," he said. "... If they're going to be serious about controlling narcotics into prison, this (dogs) is about the only thing that will do it."
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