Baby Used to Smuggle Drugs

CBC, Canadian Press

A correctional officer is being investigated after he alerted the B.C. children's ministry about a woman who allegedly used her baby to smuggle drugs to an inmate, according to his union.

A guard who was reviewing prison records found a woman visiting an inmate at Matsqui prison in Abbotsford had tested positive for cocaine residue eight times, and her child had tested positive twice, all during a five-month period.

The guard, Terry Leger, who had eight years of experience on the job, felt he had a moral responsiblity to report the pattern of incidents to the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

But when authorities at Correctional Service Canada found out, they launched a disciplinary hearing, alleging Leger breached inmate confidentiality when he made the report, according to Gord Robertson, president of the B.C. region of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

“They felt it was a breach of the inmate's privacy that this officer had actually contacted social services,” said Robertson, who called the investigation misguided.

It's wrong for an inmate's right to privacy to trump a child's right to safety, Robertson told CBC News on Wednesday morning.

“Realistically it [is] a very strong law that requires reporting when someone suspects child abuse and neglect. So in this case we feel it is absurd,” said Robertson.

After the incident came to light, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he wants to change prison policies to make sure children aren't being used to smuggle drugs into Canadian jails.

Nobody from Correctional Service Canada was available for comment.

It's hard to turn prisoners around with drugs rampant.
      Joey Thompson, The Province, Friday, January 25, 2008

The fact that drug mules manage to trundle pot, heroin and cocaine into federal prisons, past the noses of guards and screening tools, is old news to most of us.

But what we hadn't realized until now was that Ottawa considers the privacy rights of criminals getting wasted to be more important than society's right to put a stop to an illegal, risky behaviour that studies indicate is on the rise inside.

Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford, a medium-security pen for men, was visited late last year by a mom wheeling a baby stroller that tested definite for cocaine.

Instead of taking mom and inmate awaiting her arrival to task, Correctional Service Canada raked the employee over the coals for doing what he was supposed to do: tip off the B.C. children's ministry that a toddler's safety was at risk.

According to CSC, his squealing amounted to a violation of the inmate's right to privacy.

Victims of crime have tried for years to get CSC to release details about the criminals who caused them such cruel suffering: such non-threatening info as where a prisoner is held, his conduct behind bars, the rehab programs he attended (or not), that type of thing.

Federal privacy rights, they're told repeatedly, trump access.

Now we learn that a guard discovered a female visitor pushing a stroller into Matsqui that had traces of blow on it and all CSC officials can do is hound the whistleblower.

What are they smoking?

Drug use and substance abuse is rampant within federal prison gates: “The importation of illegal drugs into jails has increased over the past five years despite several new efforts to curb the flow,” a 2006 internal government audit found.

It advised CSC to beef-up detection and enforcement, and yet the problems seem to be getting worse.

Matsqui had to be locked down just recently because of a series of inmate knifings that guards claimed were linked to a battle over who controlled the prison's drug trade.

Indeed, studies consistently show prison drug use – mostly pot, hash, heroin, cocaine and benzodiazepines, a favourite with heroin and cocaine abusers – is busier and more violent than on the street.

As a result, the health harms are far worse and more burdensome on prisoner, corrections staff and the nation's health-care budget.

A recent report by the federal prison ombudsman found drugs played a role in one-quarter of all prison deaths. Of those that were accidental deaths, 80 per cent were drug related.

Studies by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the Canadian Medical Association found seven of 10 inmates abused drugs, leading to more incidents of HIV and hepatitis C in jails, as well as criminal activity and violence. They also found that prisoner usage undermines efforts by CSC programs to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into the community.

So what is CSC doing, other than picking on concerned guards? Policy requires random searches, use of screening and detection devices, even drug-sniffing dogs. Yet we've heard little about whether these are enforced, whether they are effective and, most importantly, what the consequences are to the culprits.

Don't tell us the answers fall under privacy protection, too.

© The Vancouver Province 2008