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Keeping Drugs OUT

Safety and Security - Inside CSC Institutions

BY Bill Rankin, Communications Officer, Communications and Citizen Engagement

Photos: Bill Rankin

It was a hot summer for Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) security intelligence divisions across the country. At Stony Mountain Institution (SMI) in Manitoba for example, more drugs were seized in that one season than in its entire last fiscal year, including the largest single seizure in the institution’s history — marijuana, morphine and heroin with an institutional value of over $34,000. Half a dozen seizures in one week were made in both April and August. Thanks to sharp eyes and ears and effective strategies, a total of well over $120,000 worth of street and pharmaceutical drugs have been turned over to the RCMP and charges have been laid against a number of inmates and visitors. Stony Mountain officials credit their teamwork approach and hard-working staff for the recent successes.

If they are not confiscated, homemade weapons and alcohol can lead to violent confrontations. “Shine” is pure alcohol, refined from home brew (fermented from almost any kind of organic foodstuff — even ketchup) using a crude distillery apparatus cobbled together from copper pipe and electric wires. The bottom line with drugs — be it crack, cocaine, prescription pills, marijuana or home brew — is that they are the root of violence inside correctional institutions.

This is just one recent success story concerning CSC’s efforts to halt the inward flow of drugs — a problem the Service shares with correctional systems around the world. Drugs have a serious negative impact on effective corrections, often leading to violent criminal behaviour, interfering with successful programming and contributing to the spread of infectious diseases. The detection of contraband, especially drugs, is a serious challenge for security staff, in part due to the number of persons who enter and leave an institution on any given day. For example, a medium-size penitentiary that houses 650 inmates records approximately 1,900 individuals — visitors, staff, contractors, deliveries, inmates — entering every week. Policies, strategies and staff procedures to counter the drug trade must be clear and coordinated if they are to be successful.

Part of the National Drug Strategy

CSC strategies include using existing legislation in innovative ways to deal with inmates and visitors involved in the drug trade; carrying out thorough searches of inmates, visitors and staff; random drug-testing of offenders; and working with police and Crown prosecutors to secure serious consequences for law breakers.

Innovation is Part of the Solution

In past years, Stony Mountain Institution and many other penitentiaries across the country have had a serious problem with “throw-overs” — drug packets being tossed or otherwise projected over walls and fences and landing in prison yards where inmates can scoop them up and distribute to fellow users.

“The initiative to fight this,” explains SMI Search Coordinator Christer McLauchlan, “was to gain the cooperation of community members who lived close to the institution. They could act as eyes and ears for security staff and if they saw any strangers on their property they could immediately call the Stony Mountain Suspicious Perimeter Activity Hotline and make a report.”

McLauchlan came up with the idea of placing lettered signs on the surrounding perimeter fence so that any person making a report could easily pinpoint the location of the suspicious activity for security staff, who could be dispatched swiftly to the scene.

“We involved the community in coming up with solutions,” says McLauchlan. “We also removed foliage from our perimeter, added additional camera equipment, and increased our motor patrols. This has been very successful in pushing throw-overs out of the community and on to the institutional reserve where they can be more easily detected.”

Morphine pills confiscated during an institutional drug seizure

Everyone’s Business

“The main point is that drug interdiction is everyone’s business,” says SMI Security Intelligence Officer Tim Van der Hoek. “And everyone takes part. We are not successful because of one department or one individual, we are successful because all our staff make it a priority. Everyone is involved, from the security intelligence officer, to the search coordinator/dog handler, to the front-line correctional officers, to the non-custody staff, to the management team. And we are working harder than ever to foster alliances with other criminal justice agencies, including the RCMP, Manitoba Justice, the Winnipeg Police Service and many more.”

Getting this message out to the public is another effective strategy. SMI and many other institutions across the country have been very proactive about sharing drug interdiction stories with local media. “We know for a fact that this has had an effect on persons considering smuggling drugs or other contraband,” says Van der Hoek. “They are scared about what they see on the news. Now they think twice about making an attempt.”

Able to detect substances in parts per billion, the amazing canine olfactory sense is Mother Nature’s contribution to institutional security. A trained dog can detect the tiniest trace of a specific chemical, sometimes from a considerable distance, even if the scent is masked by other harsh odours. Dogs work and live with their handlers, developing a close partnership that can become almost telepathic in nature. The dogs’ subtlest signs speak clearly to the experienced handler. Dog handlers and their canine counterparts, along with ion scanners, metal detectors and even more intrusive forms of search, are a vital part of front-line security enforcement $within federal institutions.

Solving the Problem from the Inside Out

Research across North America and Europe shows that the vast majority of offenders have alcohol and other drug-related problems that need treatment. In fact, it can be argued that no other single factor has as great an effect on criminal behaviour as substance abuse. But there’s no sense trying to stop the drug trade without also trying to limit the demand for drugs, which necessitates smuggling in the first place. Research evidence consistently demonstrates that substance abuse treatment for inmates reduces drug and alcohol demand as well as lowers criminal activity. Treatment and intervention are essential factors in the drug interdiction equation, part of a balanced and integrated approach.

Inmate Assessment is Vital

At CSC intake/assessment centres, new inmates are assessed for the purpose of drug and alcohol treatment matching. It’s important that offenders be assessed at the earliest stage possible to get them on the right track. In recent years this has become a growing challenge due to the increasing number of inmates who are serving sentences of three years or less. The pressure is on to get them assessed and treated before a significant part of their sentence has passed. Treatment is provided through various programs: Choices, the High Intensity Substance Abuse Program, and the Offender Substance Abuse Pre-Release Program.

Going from Destructive to Constructive

The CSC Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) program is one of the many successful treatment programs designed to get inmates off drugs. Started in 1997, MMT is widely recognized as a very effective approach to dealing with opiate addiction. Allan Magnin, a correctional program officer at Saskatchewan Penitentiary who works with inmates in MMT, says, “People who are not involved with MMT frequently have preconceived notions and misconceptions about methadone use. The most common of these beliefs is that being on methadone is a ‘free high.’ The reality is that there is no high, but there is a reduction in cravings and in opioid usage. And it is less costly to provide methadone treatment than to pay for the associated costs of institutional drug use [including violence] or to treat those infected with HIV and/or hepatitis.”

Brian Mitchell, a lifer at Saskatchewan Penitentiary who began MMT one year ago, says that he no longer craves drugs and he has distanced himself from the violent subculture that accompanies their use.

“I used to react quickly to frustrations and it seemed that if I wasn’t high, I was angry…. Whenever I communicated with other inmates, it was for the purpose of obtaining or selling drugs in whatever way possible. I muscled and manipulated people for drugs.

“Now I no longer communicate for the purpose of buying or selling drugs. I’m not around violence any more. I’ve been the chairman of the Lifer’s Group since beginning methadone. I’ve gone from being a destructive force in the institution to a constructive force.”

Challenging Population Calls for Ingenuity

Given the increasingly diverse and challenging offender population — more gang members, higher rates of mental health problems, higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, an aging population — CSC is seeking new ways to manage inmates that come into their custody, inmates with complex and often interlocking health and social problems, drug addiction being just one of them. It takes truly dedicated staff and a combination of strategies involving experts in treatment, programming, health care, law enforcement, education and research to come up with comprehensive solutions. ♦