TESTING THE TEST

Prison drug screens need closer look

Prison Commissioner Donal Campbell is right to take complaints about inmate
drug screens seriously. It serves no good purpose to ignore possible flaws
in the tests or in the process for verifying them - unless one thinks it is
a swell idea to punish inmates for the sport of it and to stick taxpayers
with the bill.

Prisoners who test positive for drugs can lose work-release jobs, forfeit
the good time they've earned, blow their chance for parole or get sent to a
more secure lockup. While it's fitting to punish inmates who use drugs -
they obviously need more attention from the prison system - it is imperative
the penalties are doled out based on accurate information.

Prison officials acknowledge there is a small chance for their drug tests to
have a false positive result, indicating an inmate has used illicit
substances when he has not. In some cases, cold medicines, valid
prescription drugs and other substances have been known to trigger an
incorrect reading.

In recent weeks, lawyers who represent Tutwiler inmates in a suit against
the Department of Corrections have raised the issue, calling the current
testing procedures unreliable. But the same concerns can apply to other
prisons as well, since the same procedures are being used elsewhere.

Among the areas of concern: Should a positive drug test be sent to a private
laboratory for confirmation? That's the protocol for prison system employees
who test positive, but not for inmates. Should inmates be allowed to pay for
a test outside the prison system? Parolees get that option, but not those
still in prison.

All of these boil down to one point: How seriously should the prison system
take complaints from prisoners who insist their drug screen was in error?

To his credit, Campbell isn't reacting with the knee-jerk, tough-guy
philosophy that has sometimes infected his predecessors. As he points out,
with the state's budget problems and overcrowded prisons, it makes no sense
to ignore problems that could be extending sentences of people who don't
deserve it.

Certainly, the department needs to continue drug testing. But Campbell is
looking into the department's procedures to see if there are enough
safeguards in place to catch erroneous drug tests. That's a sensible
approach which is good news for inmates and taxpayers.