POLICE, PRISONS SAVAGED

Reports: Quebec jails drug-filled, cops are bunglers

MONTREAL -- (AP) -- Quebec's police force is riddled with sloppy and abusive
conduct and gang-controlled drug use is rampant in the province's prisons,
according to two stinging official reports.

The report on the 4,100-member Surete du Quebec, released Thursday, said
conduct problems were so widespread that the police force should be placed
under a new civilian oversight panel.

The three-member inquiry commission that compiled the 1,700-page report was
formed in 1996 in response to a bungled police investigation involving 26
tons of hashish. The drug case was thrown out in 1995 when a judge ruled
that police officers had tampered with evidence.

The other report, issued by the provincial ombudsman Monday, said Quebec's
17 prisons are on the brink of a crisis because of rampant drug use and
dangerous overcrowding.

"It's a mess," said Daniel Jacoby, who conducted a yearlong study of the
corrections system.

Jacoby said cuts of $3.4 million (U.S.) from the prison budget last year and
the elimination of 600 jobs "have seriously compromised the system's ability
to provide for the safety of inmates and guards."

He said Quebec has the highest prison suicide rate of any province in
Canada.

Quebec's public security minister, Serge Menard, acknowledged the widespread
drug trafficking in prison, much of it controlled by powerful motorcycle
gangs. He said it was unlikely Quebec, which is trying to eliminate its
budget deficit, would be able to increase spending on prisons in the coming
year. Menard also acknowledged the need to reform the provincial police.