Pubdate: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2015 Associated Press Contact: http://www.utsandiego.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area. DRUGS 'RAMPANT' IN CALIF. PRISONS; INMATE DEATHS TOP NATIONAL RATE VACAVILLE (AP) - California inmates are dying of drug overdoses at nearly triple the national rate and it's unclear whether the tough steps state officials took this year to stop illicit drugs from getting into prisons are having any effect, though they are prompting criticism from civil rights advocates. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is spending $8 million this year on drug-detecting scanners and a new breed of drug-sniffing dogs while also employing strip searches on visitors suspected of carrying drugs. Corrections officials believe the stepped-up efforts are discouraging smuggling, but the data that's available so far doesn't support that - - more than 6,000 scans have been done on visitors and employees at 11 prisons since December without finding anyone with drugs. The state doesn't track if anyone has been arrested because of the dog searches and waited until mid-May to begin tracking the number of arrests made using any of the new procedures. Meantime, criticism is mounting about false-positive results by the scanners and dogs that can lead to strip searches. Concerned lawmakers who oversee state prisons included language in the California budget plan passed last week that would end the searches and require an evaluation of the department's other efforts. "It's a humiliating process, can be easily used to humiliate and demean people, and was only for visitors, often women," Democratic Sen. Loni Hancock, said of the strip searches. But no one wants to see drug deaths, and she said the evaluation will show which of the new programs are effective. More than 150 California inmates have died of drug overdoses since 2006, with a high of 24 in 2013. Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard recently told lawmakers that drugs are "rampant in the prisons." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom