JAIL DRUG TRADE MUST BE PROBED

The province is refusing to tell the public if it is doing anything
about allegations that a guard sold drugs in the Hamilton-Wentworth
Detention Centre.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services will not
say if it is launching an internal investigation into a corrections
officer arrested at work last Thursday.

"It's our HR policy that prevents us from releasing personal
information about our employees," says Stuart McGetrick, spokesperson
for the ministry.

Hamilton police took Jess Potter into custody during his shift at the
jail and were to charge him with trafficking and benefiting from the
proceeds of crime. Sources say the accusation was that Potter, who
worked at the detention centre for 28 years, was selling drugs on the
job.

But the charges were never formally laid in court because on Friday,
the day after his arrest, Potter was found barely alive with critical
injuries in a farmer's field in Norfolk County. He died later that day
in hospital.

The OPP says his death is not considered suspicious.

The ministry's own policy and procedures manual says that "if the
offence occurred while the employee was at work" the regional director
"may request a formal investigation under the Ministry of Correctional
Services Act."

Not shall. May.

McGetrick says there is an internal investigation currently taking
place at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre. But he will not
confirm that it is in connection to Potter.

Over the past five years the ministry has conducted 34 investigations
across the province into allegations that corrections staff - anyone
from guards to administrative staff, cooks and maintenance workers -
were involved with drug trafficking at institutions. McGetrick did not
have the results of any of those investigations, but he says one of
them involves the Barton Street jail and that it is the one which is
ongoing.

The investigations are conducted by a special investigative unit
within the ministry and often work alongside police if there is also a
criminal investigation taking place.

It seems glaringly obvious that any time a corrections officer is
accused of being involved in trafficking at a facility an
investigation should take place. How else will the ministry know what
is going on in its own institutions? If crimes are being committed?
How will it know what its staff is up to? How will it know what the
contraband situation is? How will it see systemic problems? How will
it protect the safety of both the inmates and the staff?

And, most importantly, how can the ministry do anything to fix its
problems if it doesn't find out what is happening in the first place?

But the ministry's responsibility doesn't end there. It's not good
enough to do an investigation. It has to make its results public. And
not just because jails are funded by taxpayer money, but because the
public has a moral responsibility to know what is happening inside
these institutions. Just because we lock people up doesn't mean we
should forget about them.

No doubt for some, the fact that Potter is now deceased will seem like
a reason to just drop the whole thing. He cannot have his day in court
to determine his guilt or innocence and that is a tragedy.

But that is more reason for the ministry to conduct an internal
investigation. It may be the only way for the public to learn the
truth about what is going on at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention
Centre and to be sure that it is dealt with.