OUR PRISONS CONTINUE TO BATTLE CONTRABAND

They spend their leisure time in different ways - shooting hoops in
the gym, working on stained glass pieces of art or woodworking
projects, chain-smoking cigarettes, lounging in common areas, waiting
for the phone or chatting with friends.

They're all men - all 278 of them - and all are serving federal
sentences at Mission Institution.

Statistics show that many of them entered the Correctional Service of
Canada system with an addiction, or that substance abuse was a factor
in their criminal behaviour.

So when their cell doors are locked behind them at night, it's not
unlikely that some are devising new plans to keep their habits fed, to
somehow get drugs and paraphernalia through the towering razor-topped
fences, through the luggage scanning X-ray, the cameras, the drug dog
and the ion scanner.

Sometimes, they succeed.

"We know it's getting in somehow," said Mission Institution assistant
warden Diane Mousouliotis. "That's why we have all these steps in
place to stop it from coming in."

CSC officials are limited in how far they can go in searching
visitors, which is one likely way contraband and illegal items make it
into the system. CSC employees can conduct non-intrusive searches of
visitors, after the visitor has been cleared by the visitors review
board, a screening panel comprised of CSC employees who work at each
institution.

The steps each visitor must take are extensive and start with a
baggage scanning X-ray machine [of the same calibre used at airport
and Canada customs security checkpoints] that each visitor must put
any luggage, purses, handbags or backpacks through.

All must enter the facility through a single walk-in entrance
[delivery vehicles are searched before going through the delivery
entrance], and after visitors give identification and sign in, they
walk through a metal detector and go through a hand-held metal
detector search.

Then it's Duke's turn.

CSC search co-ordinator and dog handler Wade Perry works with Duke, a
black Labrador retriever, to search visitors, cells, delivery
vehicles, and to do perimetre checks of the facility grounds on a
regular basis.

"You never know what someone might throw over the fence in the middle
of the night," Perry said. "There's a hundred and one different ways
to bring [drugs] in, and where there's a will, there's a way."

Opium, gum, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, speed and amphetamines have
all made it through at one point or another, despite the security
measures and the cameras, microphones and CSC employees monitoring
visits.

Duke's sensitive nose and an ion scanner - which reads molecules taken
from swabs of a visitor's clothing or personal effects and measures
them to detect the presence of drug molecules - tell CSC officials
that a person may have drugs on them.

Should that happen, a supervisor will be called to determine whether
the visitor can or cannot enter the facility, and whether the visitors
review board or the RCMP will be contacted.

A recent lockdown of the institution helped CSC officials do a more
thorough search - drugs and alcohol-brewing paraphernalia were found -
but the prison cannot remain in constant lockdown.

Mousouliotis said inmates must have contact with people in the
community, so they can, upon their release, be able to function as a
contributing member of the community.

"If [visitors] do have drugs on them, it's our job to make sure they
don't come in," said Don Havlin, co-ordinator of correctional
operations at Mission Institution. Havlin has seen boxes with false
bottoms, speed under postage stamps, postcards cut open with money
inside, and even hollowed-out books.

Mousouliotis, Havlin and Perry agree the best way to stop such
contraband coming in is for visitors to stop helping inmates.

Each visitor, when new, is shown a video entitled Don't Risk It, which
tells of the possible consequences of sneaking drugs into the prison.
Some visitors, apparently, pay the video little heed.

Whether it's a body cavity used for a hiding place, a grandmother or a
child, officials know their job would be made easier if visitors
didn't co-operate with CSC inmates.

"It's a never-ending battle," Havlin said. "Unfortunately, the harder
we try, the more creative they get."