KIDS USED TO SMUGGLE DRUGS INTO JAIL

Guard Faces Disciplinary Action For Alerting Social Services

Hard drugs are entering prisons through an unlikely source -- babies.

Children are increasingly being used as tiny drug mules as they
accompany parents on jail visits, according to the Union of Canad-ian
Correctional Officers.

And some prisons, such as the maximum-security Kent Institution in
Agassiz, are inadvertently encouraging the practice by not searching kids.

"Federal penitentiaries are awash in drugs," the union's Gord
Robertson said at a press conference yesterday. "We have an
opportunity here to protect the most vulnerable of society's members,
its children, while stopping sources of drugs in our prisons."

Robertson pointed to the case of an Abbotsford prison guard who could
face disciplinary action after reporting an incident involving a baby
to social services.

Last fall, Terry Leger, a guard at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford,
discovered a baby stroller belonging to a visitor had tested positive
for cocaine residue in an ion scan. When he reviewed other visitor
files, he found another case where a baby's clothing had twice tested
positive for cocaine and meth. This was after the baby's mother had
previously tested positive for morphine and heroin residue in eight
trips between March and July 2007.

The woman had been allowed to visit on three of the eight attempts.
Police were never called.

Leger said he contacted the Ministry of Child and Family Development
and learned he had a legal duty to report the case to child-welfare
authorities.

"That was my concern -- to protect those children," he said. "Any kid
. . . that is around these drugs is in serious danger."

The guard never expected his actions would put his job in danger. He
now faces a disciplinary investigation by the Correctional Service of Canada.

But former convict Glen Flett was "outraged" by the union's
statements, saying prison visits are vital for inmate rehabilitation.
The convicted murderer and father of three said family does not
deserve to be "mugged at the gate."

Flett's wife, Sherry, recalled her seven-year-old daughter being
"interrogated" after morphine residue was found on her clothing. The
little girl had likely come in contact with the drug through a family
friend who was dying of cancer.

"It was demeaning," she said. "For a while [my daughter] was afraid
to hug her dad because she thought he might get in trouble."

Criminology professor Darryl Plecas called the issue "complex,"
saying it's almost impossible to prove the babies were being used as
drug mules from the residue. "At the end of the day, no drugs were
found, so it makes it difficult to be certain."

Calls by The Province to the Correctional Service of Canada, Matsqui
Institution, Kent Institution and the Ministry of Children and Family
Development were referred to the public safety ministry.

Ministry spokeswoman Melisa Leclerc said the minister, Stockwell Day,
recently wrote to the CSC commissioner asking for the policy on drug
searches to be updated to ensure "the use of children to traffic
narcotics into an institution is not inadvertently encouraged by CSC policy."