KEEP DRUGS OUT OF JAIL

In March of this year, an inmate at the Alouette Correctional Centre
for Women died, supposedly from a suicide.

The TIMES filed a Freedom of Information request because deaths in
prisons are relatively rare events.

The report and recommendations arrived this week, but due to this
province's restrictive policies, many key items are blacked out, in
the "interests" of protecting the privacy of a "third party."

We're not sure why a dead person needs privacy protection, but that's the law.

One key element mentioned was that either an inmate or an object in
the inmate's possession had a "high reading of cocaine."

At the end of the report there were seven recommendations, all very
technical about procedures. One finding said the staff responded appropriately.

We don't question that, but we do question the recommendations
leaving out one important point.

Maybe it's just us, but how about a recommendation saying that the
prison should NOT have cocaine within its walls? We think it's kind
of embarrassing that inmates should have access to hard drugs when
they are in prison.

After all, these inmates are locked behind walls and being guarded.
Let's keep the drugs away from people like the unnamed inmate, or
Kyle Wigham, a 20-year-old who died of a drug overdose in Fraser
Regional Correctional Centre in March, 2008.