He has raised the issue in public hearings; he's raised it in private meetings. It's one of the reasons the state is about to allow inmates access to pay phones. But nothing quite prepared Mr. Whitmire for the calls he received recently from a murderer on death row.

"I had no idea the extent of it," he said.

He was so dismayed by his experience, in which confessed killer Richard Tabler was so brazen he called and left messages with Mr. Whitmire's Senate staff, that he convened an emergency meeting of the criminal justice panel to discuss the prison system's "lax attitude on contraband."

Prison officials began a massive lockdown and sweep of the entire system, the first in almost a decade. But Mr. Whitmire said more is needed.

For instance, only 22 of the state's 112 prison units have walk-through metal detectors. "This is an opportunity," he said. "Tabler was dumb enough to call me, which now has brought the full focus and attention of state government on the problem of contraband."

Phones are just one of countless forbidden items prison officials discover every day – even on death row, where inmates are locked alone in Spartan cells 23 hours a day.

Minutes before Ponchai Wilkerson was executed in 2000, prison officials watched in stunned disbelief as he spit out a handcuff key while strapped to the gurney.

Another condemned man, Leon Dorsey, was routinely found with everything from homemade weapons to alcohol during his eight years on death row, including 25 bottles of homemade spirits during one search in the months leading up to his August execution.

Weapons are the biggest concern for prison officials – with good reason. When inmates get their hands on weapons, death or injury usually follows. In 1974, several inmates led by drug kingpin Fred Carrasco took 11 people hostage and held prison officials at bay for 11 days with the help of guns smuggled into prison in a hollowed-out ham and bullets sneaked through in a can of peaches. Two hostages and two inmates died in a shootout.

Other officers and inmates have died after materials such as typewriter rods were sharpened into knives known as shanks.

At the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville, a display case includes three fake pistols made by inmates planning to escape in the 1960s. The weapons are carefully crafted out of wood to look real. "I guarantee you if somebody pulled one of these and stuck it at you, you'd raise your hands to the ceiling," said director Jim Willett, a retired warden.

Alcohol, like weapons, often is not smuggled in but manufactured behind bars.

Mr. Dorsey's stash of alcohol "was not, obviously, a bottle of Bud Light," said Michelle Lyons, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman. "He probably filled some sort of bottle with an alcoholic beverage – it could have been any type of bottle we're talking about, a container of baby powder or a container of lotion."

And the alcohol wouldn't be quite the tasty brew found in the free world.

Ms. Lyons recalled one inmate's recipe using orange juice and peppermint sticks. "It's drinkable," she said, and it could make the imbiber drunk.

But, she added dubiously, "I don't know how tasty it is."

Mr. Willett, who worked for TDCJ for 30 years, said he always had his staff search for alcohol, particularly around the holidays.

"Look around the Christmas, New Year's season," he said. "If you got any sense about you, you better start checking your unit for alcohol."

Though prison officials take contraband seriously, particularly weapons and cellphones that may be used for criminal activity, not all of it is dangerous. Common contraband includes personal clothing, personal hygiene items and excess food.

Not long ago, Ms. Lyons said, a pet mouse was confiscated from an inmate.

"He had gone to the infirmary and said he had an ear infection and got one of those little droppers you use, so he could feed the mouse," which he kept in a box, she said.

More unusual was a jar of brown recluse spiders kept by another inmate.

Apparently, "he was trying to figure out a way to extract their venom," Ms. Lyons said. "We don't know where he got them. Don't know if he got them outside during recreation, don't know if spider eggs were smuggled in. We don't know."

Mr. Willett said experience taught him never to underestimate the ingenuity of people with endless hours on their hands and nowhere to go.

One of the favorite items among visitors to the museum is an intricately crafted board game dubbed "Prisonopoly."

The game was made with cardboard, tape and colored pencils. While it looks remarkably like its inspiration, Monopoly, the names of the game spaces were changed to reflect prison life. Instead of going to jail, the player goes to "ad seg" (solitary confinement); instead of starting at "Go," the game begins at "The Walls," the unit where inmates are processed; and the spot known as Boardwalk in the real game is labeled Death Row.

The board game, confiscated about four years ago, wasn't dangerous, Mr. Willett said, but "you've got certain ways that inmates are legally allowed to have things – and this would not be one of them."

That's not to say officials weren't impressed.

After it was discovered, the inmate begged the warden not to destroy it. "It took me forever to make it," he said. "Can I send it to my mother?"

The warden agreed – on the condition that he make a second one for the prison museum.

He did, and Mr. Willet said that after the inmate was paroled, he dropped by the museum to admire his handiwork.