The Bag at the Staff Entrance
You are a correctional officer with 14 months' service at a mixed-security centre. At 06:40 you arrive at the staff entrance and find a plastic bag on the bench near the staff lockers with your first name written on it in marker pen. Inside are two 50 g pouches of tobacco, a phone charging cable, $150 in cash, and a note reading: 'For looking after my brother in 3 Wing - D.' You recognise D as the brother of an inmate you dealt with in the visits area last week. A senior colleague standing nearby says: 'Chuck it in the bin and forget it. If you report a bag with your name on it you'll be on the investigation list for months and everyone will know.'
1. What are your immediate actions in the first ten minutes?
Read the worked answer
The bag is now evidence, and every minute you hold it without reporting it makes your account harder to believe.
Do immediately:
- Do not take it to your locker, do not put it in the bin, do not take the cash, and do not take it home or to your car. Discarding it destroys the evidence and converts an attempt to corrupt you into a possible misconduct matter about you.
- Stop handling it further. Leave it where it is or secure it in a visible, supervised location; do not disturb the contents beyond what you have already seen.
- Notify your supervisor straight away, in person, and state plainly: 'There's a bag at the staff entrance with my name on it, tobacco, a charging cable, $150 and a note about an inmate. I haven't moved it.'
- Request that CCTV of the staff entrance be preserved for the relevant period - it is the fastest way to establish who left it and when.
- Hand it over under the property/evidence process and obtain a record of what you handed over, to whom, and at what time.
- Write a statement the same shift, while the detail is fresh: exact wording of the note, condition of the bag, time found, who was present, what you said and did. Keep the note's wording verbatim.
- Do not contact D or the inmate in 3 Wing, and do not mention it to other inmates or staff beyond those who need to know.
The reasoning: the test is not only whether you took a bribe, but whether you can prove you didn't. Reporting within minutes and asking for CCTV preservation is what makes that provable.
2. How do you respond to the colleague, and does their advice change anything about what you report?
Read the worked answer
Respond briefly and without heat: 'Thanks, but I'm reporting it. A bag with my name and cash in it goes to the supervisor - that's not something I get to sit on.'
Why that framing: it moves the decision out of the personal sphere. You are not accusing the colleague of anything; you are stating that you have no discretion to decide whether a bribe attempt is looked at.
Does their advice change what you report?
- It does not change the core report. The bag, the note and the timing go in regardless.
- It may need to be recorded. If the advice was casual and well-meant, note it factually and move on. If it becomes pressure - 'don't put my name in it', 'just get rid of it, no one will know' - that is itself a reportable matter, because a person proposing to conceal a bribe attempt is a risk to the integrity system, not just to you.
- Do not promise confidentiality about the conversation, and do not agree to leave a name out of a record. Promising that and then being asked about it under oath is a worse position than the original conversation.
A useful way to think about it: the colleague's argument is that reporting is costly to you. That is true. It is also the reason the system relies on officers reporting anyway - and why 'I was advised not to' is not a defence anyone accepts.
3. Three weeks later, D approaches you at the visits area and asks how his brother is 'getting on'. What do you do?
Read the worked answer
Stay neutral, stay brief, and do not create the conversation that the note was trying to buy.
In the moment:
- Give a procedural, non-informational answer, or redirect: 'I can't discuss another person's matters. If you want information about a prisoner, the visits supervisor can tell you what the process is.'
- Do not discuss the bag, the investigation, or the note. Not to deny it, not to explain it, not to 'clear the air'. Anything you say will be reported back and characterised.
- Do not accept any further gift, food, cigarette or favour, and do not do any small courtesy that could be read as reciprocation - expediting a visit, moving a queue, passing a message.
- End the interaction politely and report it the same day: that D approached you, what was said, and where you were standing. If possible, note whether CCTV covers the area.
Why this matters more than the bag itself: the first approach was crude and easy to refuse. The second approach is designed to look like ordinary conversation so that a relationship can be established gradually. Officers are compromised incrementally, not in a single moment.
The governing principles are straightforward: no gifts or benefits from inmates or their associates, no preferential treatment, no unauthorised passing of information, and declare and report every approach. If the situation continues, request that the visits supervisor be notified so that D's visits can be managed and you are not placed in the same area again.