Pubdate: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2011 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Douglas Quan SMUGGLERS USE INVENTIVE WAYS TO GET DRUGS INTO PRISONS Even Dead Birds Used to Sneak in Contraband, Committee Hears 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 will be 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. Head testified that contraband is not only being sent over fences, but being smuggled into prisons by visitors, who conceal drugs in body cavities and other places, including in babies' diapers. Inmates have been known to pay between $200 and $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, the federal government provided the agency $122 million over five years to detect and thwart drug smuggling. That money has helped to increase the number of drug sniffing dog teams 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 that 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.