Weaving through a line of orange lockers, Dexter was focused.
He sniffed at each one before stopping and sitting in front of a locker near the end of the row on the right.
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“Good boy! Good boy!” cheered his handler, Anthony Roling, patting him on the back.
The 3-year-old Dutch shepherd mix had successfully found the locker at the Maryland Correctional Training Center building with a hidden jar of “prison moonshine.”
Dexter, along with his furry colleagues — Marley, Gisele and Raven — are part of a new team the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) K-9 Unit has established to train and deploy dogs to sniff out alcohol in correctional facilities.
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With homemade prison wine leading to inmate violence and potential deaths, officials say the unit will save lives.
DPSCS Secretary Robert Green said the unit was created in part after he saw an increase in alcohol-related activities and overdoses during the coronavirus pandemic due to limitations on activities and visits. Dining halls became socially distanced, and many prisoners had meals brought to their cells, increasing the access prisoners had to ingredients for alcohol made in cells with a “mash” of fruit, sugar and bread or yeast.
Green believes the unit is the first of its kind in the country for a state correctional setting with an assigned team of trained alcohol-sniffing dogs.
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“Those furry four-legged officers, as each one of them is to us, is a force multiplier that helps us do our job,” Green said.
“Pruno,” a term used for prison alcohol, can lead to illnesses such as botulism and has caused several outbreaks in prisons in California, Arizona, Utah and Mississippi, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After seeing a local spike in pruno consumption, Green held a meeting with the K-9 unit in April to develop training for dogs to detect alcohol. Within six weeks, Gisele, the sole female trainee, was the first dog out, and two weeks later, the team was deploying all four dogs — including a chocolate lab, an English springer spaniel and a lab mix — in their new roles.
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The four dogs work throughout the state with correctional facilities in Cumberland, Baltimore and Jessup, Hagerstown and the lower Eastern Shore.
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The dogs are “dual purpose” within the DPSCS K-9 Unit and are also trained to detect artificial drugs, cellphones, thumbdrives and other contraband, making them ideal to also detect alcohol, said Maj. Mark Flynn, commander of the unit.
Sgt. Jessica Hite, an assistant trainer, created the training plan for the dogs. Hite said she starts training the animals with 10 drops of ethanol, having the dogs do a search pattern, sniff the alcohol and then telling them to sit. The dogs are rewarded with a ball and play time with their handler after they successfully find the alcohol. After repeating the process multiple times, Hite said it will “click to them,” and they begin sniffing to find the alcohol on their own.
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Flynn said the dogs can learn a new odor in a week, and the training plays into their natural tendency to hunt and desire to be rewarded.
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“We’re also being trained as well,” said Amanda Nusbaum, Marley’s handler. “They’re our partners 24/7, so that bonding and playing is really rewarding for us as officers.”
The “four-legged officers” can sniff out both methanol and ethanol, which prison wine contains high concentrations of, making it dangerous to consume, Flynn said.
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“Methanol is produced through the distillation process and is deadly,” Flynn said. “The inmates, unfortunately, are trying to consume this product, and it’s causing overdoses and injuries to the inmates.”
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Flynn said the overdoses in the prison system during the pandemic were “unacceptable.” Assaults on staff and inmates can increase with intoxication as well, he said.
As prison contraband, the alcohol is also sold by inmates, Hite said.
Sgt. Daniel Harmon, an assistant trainer, said prisoners have a process for creating the illegal prison wine that starts with creating the “mash,” which can be consumed directly as “wine” after sitting for a while or is distilled into something much more potent, Harmon said.
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One of the brews that officers found in a correctional facility recently was 98-proof ethanol, and another was 199.8-proof methanol.
The distilling process, Harmon said, involves making a heater, nicknamed a “stinger,” that resembles a wire and plugging it into a light socket or power source. The “mash” is placed in a crate in a plastic bag, and as the stinger heats it up, droplets form in the plastic bag, creating a potentially deadly mix of methanol and ethanol. The liquid is poured out into another plastic bag or container through a funnel and sealed.
“If they’re not pouring that [methanol] out, it’s mixing with the ethanol, which is the alcohol they drink,” Harmon said, “It’ll put you in a hospital very quickly,” or can be deadly.
Dexter, Marley, Gisele and Raven can detect the smell within minutes during prison searches, said Sgt. Stephanus Roling, Gisele’s handler.
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Since the team’s creation, recoveries of alcohol have tripled by including the trained dogs, Flynn said. About 45 percent of the dogs in the DPSCS K-9 Unit are rescue dogs, he added.
United States Police Canine Association Executive Director Don Slavik said he’s seen prison systems across the country certify and train dogs for narcotics and cellphones but has not heard of them using dogs to sniff out alcohol before.
“Dogs,” Slavik said, “are the best mobile device that we have in the United States to sniff out contraband.”
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