ADDICTS NEED MORE RESOURCES: JURY

A mandatory drug addictions awareness program for all members of the
Saskatoon police personnel is one of eight recommendations by a
coroner's inquest jury looking to prevent further deaths in detention cells.

The six-person jury also stressed the city's need for a detoxifi
cation facility with long-term treatment and after-care programs and
counselling.

Saskatoon's "incredible lack of resources" for addicts was a focal
point of the inquest into the 2005 death of Dona Sanderson.

The 42-year-old aboriginal woman and mother of a young girl died on
June 26, 2005, in police custody after being arrested on drug charges
and an outstanding warrant. Sanderson was arrested June 19 on a
routine traffi c stop when police found 270 grams of marijuana under
her seat. They didn't know she also had a packet of cocaine, worth
about $5,000, hidden in her vagina.

While she was locked up, waiting for a court appearance the next
morning, the drug leached into her system through the sandwich bag in
which it was wrapped. Sanderson collapsed and stopped breathing early
on June 20. She was taken off life-support six days later.

The inquest wrapped up on Monday and the six-member jury, comprised
of five women and one man, was charged with finding how, where, when
and by what means Sanderson died and with making recommendations to
avoid similar deaths.

"I think the recommendations were excellent," said Michelle
LeClaire-Harding, the Sanderson family's lawyer.

Recommendations won't bring back their loved one, but there is a
sense of gratifi cation in probing the reasons behind Sanderson's
death and bringing those to light, LeClaire-Harding said.

"I think those last moments of her life were made loud and clear, but
I don't think there will ever be closure," she added.

There is no binding requirement in the Coroner's Act for any
recommendations to be acted on, so "at the end of the day, it's up to
the police to decide what they're going to do," LeClaire-Harding said.

The jury also suggested participants of the provincial methadone
program should submit to weekly drug-testing upon receipt of their dosage.

Sanderson was part of the program but her system also contained
cocaine, the active ingredient in cannabis and a sedative.

The police service should salvage the matron program it scrapped 20
years ago, which had female civilians working in the area of the
cells to solely attend to female inmates' needs, the jury recommended.

The matron would be an advocate and provide peer support and guidance.

There was debate during the inquest as to whether Sanderson would
have revealed her cocaine stash to a female peer.

The matron program was replaced with female special constables, but
they fall short of serving the same purpose, said lawyer Dawn
McBride, who represented the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry
Societies at the inquest.

"Her specific task isn't to be in the cell area performing human
contact and intervention," she said.

No one from the police service testifi ed at the inquest to answer
that question. The service does not want to respond to the
recommendations until it receives the full coroner's report, said
spokesperson Alyson Edwards.

McBride had urged the jury to acknowledge the larger systemic issues
surrounding aboriginal women in prison and their needs. She hoped to
see recommendations that would direct police to consider social
factors, such as children, addictions and mental health, before
opting to lock someone up.

"I understand that a police station is not the place to deal with
social issues, so maybe there would be somewhere else these women
should go for the help they need," McBride said. "We can never
understand cases like this (Sanderson's) in a vacuum.

We can't ignore the social issues that are there.

That's why we wanted standing at the inquest." The police detention
unit should also have a portable telephone for emergency 911
communications in order to accurately relay the condition of
prisoners, the jury recommended.

In Sanderson's case, the 911 call was made from the detention booking
counter, away from the cells.