INMATES DISCIPLINED FOR WEAPONS, DRUGS FOUND AFTER SEARCH

Inmates will be disciplined at Matsqui prison after a post-assault search
turned up weapons and drugs.

The medium-security federal institution in Abbotsford was locked down
Monday after a prisoner believed to be on crystal meth allegedly assaulted
two guards.

Officials ended the lockdown Friday after searching every cell and common
area and strip-searching all 304 inmates.

Corrections staff found five homemade knives, a club fashioned from a broom
handle, 70 steroid pills, three syringes and unidentified pills.

An as-yet undetermined number of inmates linked to contraband will be
charged and disciplined under in-house policies, said assistant warden
Wayne Marston.

Punishment can include fines and segregation.

Prisoners' creation of weapons "boils down to ingenuity," Marston said.
"They can be made out of wood, they can be made out of plastic, they can me
made out of a chair leg, a piece of metal taken from a desk."

Drugs may be thrown over the prison fence, in a tennis ball, for instance,
but prison officials believe most drugs enter with visitors.

"They come in hidden in body cavities," Marston said. "It can involve a
visitor coming in and going to a washroom and then coming back to a table,
and then someone else going to a washroom and . . . inserting into a body
cavity."

Abbotsford police are investigating the alleged assault on the two guards.