Arrows, slingshots, dead birds deliver drugs

Smugglers continue to find novel ways to get drugs to Canada's federal inmates, including launching tennis balls -- even dead birds -- filled with contraband over perimeter fences and into exercise yards, a parliamentary committee heard Thursday.

In some cases, outsiders shoot arrows over prison walls with drugs stuffed in their shafts or taped around them, while in other instances drugs are delivered using old-fashioned slingshots, said Don Head, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.

"We still have a lot of challenges," Head said. "As we put our time and energy to choke off the drug supply at one spot, people become quite innovative at looking at how to get drugs in."

Thursday's hearing was the first in a series of meetings the House of Commons public safety committee plans to hold to study how drugs and booze get into the prison system and how they affect the rehabilitation of offenders and the safety of correctional officials.

Last year, there were 1,700 drug seizures in federal institutions, the committee heard. About 80 per cent of convicted offenders arrive in prisons with a history of substance abuse.

Authorities at Stony Mountain Institution, 11 kilometres north of Winnipeg, said earlier this month they are grappling with an increasing number of drug packages being tossed in over the fence. Marijuana, hashish, cocaine and pharmaceuticals have been seized after outsiders lobbed packages into the prison's exercise yard.

Head testified contraband is not only being sent over fences, but is smuggled into prisons by visitors, who conceal drugs in body cavities and other places, including in babies' diapers.

Inmates have been known to pay $200 to $2,000 just for a pouch of tobacco.

A very small number of prison staff, including correctional officers, food service workers and psychologists, have also been caught smuggling drugs.

There were 12 such cases in the past year, resulting in dismissals, he said.

Head said in 2008, Ottawa provided the agency $122 million over five years to detect and thwart drug smuggling. The money has helped to increase the number of drug-sniffing dog teams to 100 by the end of the year and allowed prisons to install thermal-imaging and infrared technology to help detect people sneaking up to prison grounds.

The percentage of inmates testing positive for drugs in random urine tests has dropped from 11 per cent to about 7.5 per cent, a positive sign, Head said.

But Pierre Mallette, national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, testified while new tools have made it more difficult for drugs to get into prisons, there remains a thriving "underground economy" controlled by money-driven inmates who have affiliations to organized crime and gangs.

"You can have all the equipment you want, but at the end of the day, there are people inside there that want to make money," he told the committee.

The percentage of inmates using drugs or alcohol is "easily" more than 7.5 per cent, Mallette said.

"It's true, there's a problem with statistics," Mallette said, suggesting some inmates may have tampered with tests.

On the treatment front, Head said the amount of money the agency has for programs, including substance-abuse programs, has gone from $130 million to $154 million over the last few years.

The amount of time inmates have to wait to enrol in these programs has also been cut in half, Head said.

Asked whether funding is keeping pace with increases in the prison population, Head said, "it is not necessarily keeping pace with the demand. We have to make some choices as to where we'll put our time and energy."

The discussion comes as the Harper government is trying to push through its controversial crime bill, the Safe Streets and Communities Act.

Critics have said the bill puts too much emphasis on incarceration and will increase the inmate population by thousands, straining the system more.

Head said he welcomes a provision in the bill that would toughen penalties for inmates caught trafficking drugs.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 30, 2011 A20