JAIL DRUG PROBLEMS 'CHRONIC'

Guards powerless to stop influx of illegal drugs into prison , inquest told

Testifying during the first day of an inquest into the deaths of two St.
Catharines people who died while in custody, Lucille Rouselle, the acting
deputy superintendent of the Niagara Detention Centre, said drugs on the
inside "are a chronic problem."

Both Sandra Tyson, 26, and Ryan William Langelaan, 24, died of drug
overdoses while they were serving intermittent sentences, said Kevin
McKenna, an assistant Crown attorney in Hamilton.

"Both individuals died of drug overdoses -- of drugs they brought into the
institution and voluntarily ingested," said McKenna. Tyson died Sept. 6,
1998 in the Hamilton Detention Centre "due to the depressant effects of
methadone and diazepam," and Langelaan died June 13, 1998, in the Niagara
Detention Centre in Thorold of "acute methadone poisoning," he said.

Although the methadone that killed him was ingested before he reported to
the jail, Langelaan was also carrying other drugs, said McKenna.

An autopsy performed on Langelaan revealed five balloons in his lower bowel,
Constable Todd McKinnon of Niagara Regional Police testified. The balloons
contained 32 pills of various types, eight capsules, "a quantity of
marijuana," paper matches, crumpled cigarette papers and a match striker
"torn from the cover of a matchbook," said McKinnon. The balloons and pills
were intact, and there's no evidence of any leaking, he said.

But even though detention centre officials had placed Langelaan in a
segregation cell because he had brought drugs into jail on previous weekends
during his 90-day intermittent sentence, they couldn't force him to undergo
an internal body search, said Rouselle.

"It's very intrusive," said Rouselle, and such a search must be done by a
member of the detention centre's medical team.

When prisoners report to the detention centre on Friday evenings, their
clothes and personal property are confiscated and they are strip-searched
according to policies established by the provincial Ministry of Corrections,
Rouselle said. They stand with their feet spread apart and their hands on
the wall, while guards check for drugs in their mouths, ears, hair, armpits,
palms, soles of feet, between their legs and even under bandages and false
teeth, she said.

But guards will only ask the naked prisoners to "bend over so we can see
body orifices," said Rouselle. "It's a quick glance, no touching. Only
whatever you could observe by looking."

According to Corrections policy, inmates must give their permission for the
more thorough internal searches, and guards never ask "because if the inmate
is concealing something they are never going to agree to the search," she
said. In her 15 years experience, "I have never seen it done."

Rouselle said "it is very, very common" for drugs to be concealed in
prisoners' rectums, but corrections officials "are virtually powerless," to
find them.

Instead, suspicious prisoners are segregated, and kept apart from the
general population, but even then there are "many ways," for drugs to be
smuggled through the prison, she said.

The biggest problem for jail guards, she said, are the intermittent
sentences handed down by judges for minor crimes, which allow inmates to
hold down jobs or care for their children during the week, and serve their
sentences on weekends. Most intermittent sentences are served from Friday
evening until Monday morning, the five jurors were told.

Inmates serving regular sentences "will call somebody who is serving an
intermittent sentence and tell them to bring drugs in for them," said
Rouselle. "This happens all the time."

The contraband drugs are dropped on the floor, hidden in mops, handed off on
the way to a medical appointment, or hidden in food trays, said Rouselle.
"It's all pre-arranged."

Because there can be up to 150 inmates in the dormitories and only two
officers guarding them, with some inmates moving through the institution on
work duty, "you cannot look after each and every one of them," she said. The
jail is searched weekly and drugs are routinely found, she said.

"I would like to see far fewer intermittent sentences," she said, "because
they pose a real security and health threat to our institution and the
inmates who are there."

The jurors also heard that Langelaan's cellmate, Chris Ridolfo, said
Langelaan had been snoring loudly half an hour earlier on the morning he
died, but then Ridolfo was unable to wake him up.

The guard's handwritten logbook shows that at 7:14 a.m., Ridolfo was banging
on the cell door and screaming for help.

The lone guard on duty, Kevin Brady, peeked through the window but was not
allowed to open the cell door until he went back down the hall and
telephoned for help.

Another guard arrived for backup about 60 seconds later and the door was
opened.

Nurses arrived a minute after that, and began trying to resuscitate him. An
ambulance was called, but by the time Langelaan arrived at the emergency
department of St. Catharines General Hospital, at 7:48 a.m., there was no
heart activity and attempts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at
8:05 a.m.

The inquest, conducted by Dr. Ken Ockenden, is expected to continue all week
with the first few days of evidence dealing with Langelaan's death, and the
final days dealing with Tyson's death.

Under provincial law, an inquest must be held into the death of anyone who
dies while in custody.