GETTING RUFF ON DRUGS

Ruby is a bundle of energy and bounds through the visiting room at
Collins Bay Institution.

Always sniffing, she pulls at her leash, leading her handler around
the room.

When Ruby finds what she is looking for, she is trained to sit and
await her chew toy reward.

"They want their reward. Any dog wants their reward," said
correctional service officer and dog handler Sean Hearon.

"It's fun for the dogs."

What is fun for the dog is also part of an expanded federal government
anti-drug prison detector dog program.

In November, Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews announced an
expansion of the detector dog program in federal prisons.

The new dog teams are part of Correctional Service Canada's anti-drug
strategy that includes 163 new security intelligence officers, 30 new
X-ray machines and the replacement or upgrading of 20 ion scanners,
increased security patrols and better monitoring of visitors to prisons.

In 2011, there were 90 detector dog teams working at the 53 federal
institutions across Canada.

By 2013, there is to be 126 detector dog teams, including close to 20
in the Kingston area.

"The complement will increase by three teams," said Jacqueline
Edwards, spokesperson for the Correctional Service Canada's Ontario
region.

The new detector dog teams are to be in place by April.

The added dog teams will mean there is to be about two detector dogs
teams stationed at each federal prison.

"The idea is that we always have a dog on site or we have a detector
dog available sort of at all times so we don't have that lax or that
break," said Wayne Buller, assistant warden management services at the
Collins Bay Institution.

"The dogs will run, the dogs will do their exercise, but the dogs need
a break, too. We can't run them seven days a week, 365 (days a year),"
Buller said.

"They, like other correctional officers, like their handlers, need
their down time."

The dogs are part of an anti-drug policy in federal prisons that
involves prevention, education and deterrence, Edwards said.

According to CSC, about 80% of inmates had substance-abuse issues
before entering prison.

"It is a fact of life for most of the offenders who are incarcerated,"
Buller said.

"There are addictions that they are trying to beat."

Those addictions are fed by what is considered a steady flow of drugs
into prisons.

On Tuesday, the same day Ruby was training at Collins Bay, a detector
dog team found a shipment of drugs being smuggled into the
medium-security Joyce-ville Institution.

The drugs included 250 grams of tobacco and 21 grams of marijuana and
were being brought in by visitors.

The drugs are valued at about $7,000.

Tuesday's bust was added to the 25 or so incidents in 2010 and 2011
that involved drugs or tobacco being smuggled into or found in prisons
in Ontario.

Those incidents included drugs smuggled into prisons inside items
being delivered to inmates or packages of drugs being thrown over the
walls into common areas of prisons.

The 25 or so incidents involved about $470,000 worth of drugs and
tobacco.

The detector dog teams are trained in Quebec at a Canada Border
Services Agency facility.

The handlers are selected through an application program that includes
a written exam, an interview and a 10-week training program.

"It's very intense," Hearon said.

"You have to know the dog," he said. "You have to know how to interact
with the dog and read the dog."

The dogs and their handlers are recertified every year.

In the prison system, the dogs are used to inspect visitors and items
coming to the facilities, perform sweeps of the areas around the
outside of the prisons walls, and perform searches of cells and common
areas.

"They are one part of the tools we use," Buller said.

"They have been known to prevent drugs from entering the institution."