18 USC 1791: Contraband Categories, Penalties, and Visitor Liability

18 U.S.C. § 1791 is the federal statute that criminalizes providing contraband to a federal inmate or possessing it while incarcerated. Maximum prison terms run from six months to 20 years depending on what the item is, and for inmates any sentence under this section must run consecutively to the one they are already serving. The Bureau of Prisons layers its own administrative sanctions on top, including loss of good conduct time and up to a year in disciplinary segregation.¹

Who Can Be Charged

The statute targets two groups. The first is anyone on the outside who provides, or attempts to provide, a prohibited object to an inmate in violation of a statute, rule, or order. That reaches visitors, family members, contractors, attorneys, and correctional staff. The second is any inmate who makes, possesses, obtains, or tries to make or obtain a prohibited object.¹

Attempts count the same as completed acts. Tossing a package over a perimeter fence, walking a phone through a checkpoint, or fashioning a weapon from workshop scraps all trigger the statute even if no inmate ever receives or finishes the item.

The law defines “prison” broadly. It covers every federal correctional, detention, or penal facility, and it also reaches any institution that holds people in custody under a contract or agreement with the Attorney General. Privately operated facilities housing federal inmates for the Bureau of Prisons or the U.S. Marshals Service are inside the statute.¹

The Seven Categories of Contraband

Section 1791 sorts prohibited objects into seven categories, and the category controls the penalty. Congress ranked them roughly by dangerousness.

Category A: firearms, destructive devices, and controlled substances in Schedule I or II other than marijuana and the drugs listed in Category C.
Category B: ammunition, weapons other than firearms, any object designed to be used as a weapon or to help someone escape, marijuana, and Schedule III controlled substances not already in Category C.
Category C: narcotic drugs, methamphetamine (including its salts and isomers), LSD, and PCP. These sit at the top of the penalty ladder.
Category D: any controlled substance not covered above, plus alcoholic beverages.
Category E: U.S. or foreign currency in any amount. A single dollar bill qualifies.
Category F: any phone or device used for commercial mobile service, which reaches smartphones, basic cell phones, and SIM cards.
Category G: a catch-all for any other object that threatens the order, discipline, or security of a prison, or the life, health, or safety of any individual.

The catch-all matters. An item that looks harmless outside the wall, such as a USB drive or certain foods, can be treated as contraband if the Bureau of Prisons determines it poses a security risk under its own rules and orders.¹

Maximum Prison Terms and Fines

The statutory maximums track the categories directly:

Category C (dangerous narcotics): up to 20 years.
Category A (firearms, Schedule I/II drugs): up to 10 years.
Category B (weapons, escape tools, marijuana, Schedule III): up to 5 years.
Categories D, E, and F (other drugs, alcohol, currency, cell phones): up to 1 year.
Category G (catch-all): up to 6 months.

Each tier also carries a fine. Under the general federal fine statute, an individual convicted of a felony can be fined up to $250,000. When the offense produced a gain, such as a smuggling operation selling phones to inmates at a markup, the court can impose a fine of twice the gross gain instead if that figure is higher.²

Consecutive Sentences Stack the Time

Two consecutive-sentencing rules in § 1791 hit inmates hard, and one is easy to miss.

Any sentence for a § 1791 violation involving a controlled substance must run consecutively to any other sentence imposed by any court for an offense involving that same substance. If an inmate is charged under § 1791 for smuggled drugs and also faces a separate drug distribution charge tied to those drugs, the two sentences stack.¹

Separately, any sentence imposed on an inmate under this statute, regardless of what the contraband was, must run consecutively to the sentence the inmate is already serving. A judge has no discretion to run it concurrently. An inmate serving 15 years who is caught with a cell phone and receives a one-year sentence will serve 16 years, not 15.¹

Administrative Penalties Come on Top

Criminal prosecution is only half of what an inmate faces. The Bureau of Prisons runs a parallel disciplinary system, and a contraband finding there does not require a criminal conviction.

Introducing, possessing, or using narcotics, drugs, or alcohol falls at the Greatest Severity Level in BOP’s discipline program. Available sanctions at that level include forfeiture of up to 100% of earned good conduct time, disallowance of 27 to 41 days of the good conduct time credit available for the year, up to 12 months in disciplinary segregation, loss of visiting, telephone, commissary, and recreation privileges, job loss, monetary fines up to $500 or 75% of the inmate’s trust fund balance, property impoundment, and housing reassignment. Good conduct time sanctions at this level cannot be suspended.³

Less dangerous contraband classified at Moderate Severity carries lighter but still meaningful sanctions: up to 3 months in disciplinary segregation and forfeiture of up to 25% of earned good conduct time or 30 days, whichever is less.³

The good conduct time loss is what most changes the release date. It reduces credit that would otherwise shorten actual time in custody, and it applies on top of any new consecutive criminal sentence.

What Visitors Face

Bureau of Prisons policy authorizes staff to remove, and if appropriate detain and arrest, any non-inmate suspected of prohibited activity on prison grounds.⁴

A visitor stopped at screening with drugs, a phone, or another prohibited item can expect to be held on site while staff contact local and federal law enforcement, then charged under § 1791. The attempt is enough. The item does not have to reach an inmate for the charge to stick. A permanent ban from the facility, and likely from BOP visitation lists generally, follows.⁴

Drone Deliveries and Pending Legislation

Drone drops over prison fences already fall inside § 1791. The method of delivery does not change the underlying offense, and the statute’s attempt language reaches an operator whose package never lands where intended.

As of 2026, the SAFER SKIES Act has been introduced in Congress. It would add five additional years of imprisonment for anyone convicted under § 1791 who used an unmanned aircraft to deliver contraband to an inmate. Until it passes, drone cases proceed under the existing category-based penalties.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1791 – Providing or Possessing Contraband in Prison
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 3571 – Sentence of Fine
3
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Discipline Program
4
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Searching, Detaining, or Arresting Visitors to Bureau Grounds and Facilities