SKIP WHISTLEBLOWER AND FOCUS ON PRISON DRUGS

It's Hard To Turn Prisoners Around With Drugs Rampant

The fact that drug mules manage to trundle pot, heroin and cocaine
into federal prisons, past the noses of guards and screening tools,
is old news to most of us.

But what we hadn't realized until now was that Ottawa considers the
privacy rights of criminals getting wasted to be more important than
society's right to put a stop to an illegal, risky behaviour that
studies indicate is on the rise inside.

Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford, a medium-security pen for men, was
visited late last year by a mom wheeling a baby stroller that tested
definite for cocaine.

Instead of taking mom and inmate awaiting her arrival to task,
Correctional Service Canada raked the employee over the coals for
doing what he was supposed to do: tip off the B.C. children's
ministry that a toddler's safety was at risk.

According to CSC, his squealing amounted to a violation of the
inmate's right to privacy.

Victims of crime have tried for years to get CSC to release details
about the criminals who caused them such cruel suffering: such
non-threatening info as where a prisoner is held, his conduct behind
bars, the rehab programs he attended (or not), that type of thing.

Federal privacy rights, they're told repeatedly, trump access.

Now we learn that a guard discovered a female visitor pushing a
stroller into Matsqui that had traces of blow on it and all CSC
officials can do is hound the whistleblower.

What are they smoking?

Drug use and substance abuse is rampant within federal prison gates:
"The importation of illegal drugs into jails has increased over the
past five years despite several new efforts to curb the flow," a 2006
internal government audit found.

It advised CSC to beef-up detection and enforcement, and yet the
problems seem to be getting worse.

Matsqui had to be locked down just recently because of a series of
inmate knifings that guards claimed were linked to a battle over who
controlled the prison's drug trade.

Indeed, studies consistently show prison drug use -- mostly pot,
hash, heroin, cocaine and benzodiazepines, a favourite with heroin
and cocaine abusers -- is busier and more violent than on the street.

As a result, the health harms are far worse and more burdensome on
prisoner, corrections staff and the nation's health-care budget.

A recent report by the federal prison ombudsman found drugs played a
role in one-quarter of all prison deaths. Of those that were
accidental deaths, 80 per cent were drug related.

Studies by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the Canadian
Medical Association found seven of 10 inmates abused drugs, leading
to more incidents of HIV and hepatitis C in jails, as well as
criminal activity and violence. They also found that prisoner usage
undermines efforts by CSC programs to rehabilitate and reintegrate
them into the community.

So what is CSC doing, other than picking on concerned guards? Policy
requires random searches, use of screening and detection devices,
even drug-sniffing dogs. Yet we've heard little about whether these
are enforced, whether they are effective and, most importantly, what
the consequences are to the culprits.

Don't tell us the answers fall under privacy protection, too.