Faulty prison drug tests still triggering concern

Concerns over the reliability of prisoner drug testing continue to plague
the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Four Bullock County Work Release inmates who tested positive for alcohol in
late March recently got those results overturned after complaining to prison
Commissioner Donal Campbell that they had not been drinking alcohol and
wanted a re-test.

Campbell ordered another.

Similar problems have arisen at Birmingham Work Release, with several
inmates who tested positive claiming they were not using drugs, or
that a legal medication tainted the results.

A positive result can hurt an inmate's shot at parole, force an inmate
to lose a work-release job, cost him or her good time and possibly
result in return to a more secure prison.

"The biggest thing was they took his employment," said Veneatria
McKinnon, whose husband Carl McKinnon was one of the Bullock inmates
recently cleared. "When they took his job, that cut anything he was
able to send home."

Veneatria McKinnon, Birmingham, wrote to Campbell's office on behalf
of her husband, prompting the re-examination.

Campbell has ordered an evaluation of the entire prison system's drug
testing program, but that has not started. He's searching for an
outside agency to perform the probe.

Most urinalysis tests are not 100 percent accurate. That's why
employers and most government agencies require a second test using a
different testing method for confirmation. DOC policy does not.