Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2000
Source: Arizona Republic (AZ)
Copyright: 2000 The Arizona Republic
Contact:  200 E. Van Buren St., Phoenix, AZ 85004
Website: http://www.arizonarepublic.com/
Author: Mike McCloy

ARIZONA FINDS 4% OF INMATES USING DRUGS

Inmates in Arizona's prisons have tested positive for drugs more than 2,900
times because marijuana, heroin and other illegal drugs are being smuggled
behind bars.

The 4 percent rate of positive test results reported for 1998, the latest
year available, is lower than the national average, but corrections
officials say it's still too high. The methods most cited for sneaking drugs
into prisons include work crews bringing drugs in from outside, returning
parole violators and, chiefly, prison visitors.

"Eighty percent of the inmates come in here with drug problems," said Don
Greenwald, Department of Corrections administrator. "We're doing a pretty
decent job. But we can always do better."

Each month, 10 percent of the state's 27,000 inmates are randomly screened.
When the tests first began in 1988, about 20 percent tested positive.

James McFadden, warden of the Lewis Prison south of Buckeye, blames most of
that prison's 9.7 percent failure rate on visitors.

Ray Valenzuela, executive director of the employees union representing state
corrections workers, agrees.

"It has to come from visitors," Valenzuela said.

But Valenzuela said that when officers pushed for closer searches of
visiting family members, advocacy groups complained.

"There was a lot of outcry," he said.

Donna Hamm, director of the Tempe affiliate of Middle Ground, a prisoner
advocacy group, acknowledged that visitors bring drugs into prisons. But she
said, "These amounts of drugs are generally very small, for the personal use
of a prisoner."

Guards smuggle in larger amounts, contributing to drug trafficking and gang
violence in the prisons, she said.

Visitors, Hamm said, rarely object to being sniffed by drug dogs or even to
private body searches by same-sex prison officers.

"Families of inmates are a very easy scapegoat," Hamm said.

"The problem is that they don't search the employees. If you're going to
have a zero-tolerance policy, it has to be for everyone."

The Department of Corrections has been authorized by the Legislature since
April 1999 to conduct random urine tests of employees. A plan is in the
works, but no date has been set to begin the screenings.

Greenwald said employees of every prison are sniffed by drug dogs without
warning at least four times a year. But he said employees will not be
subjected to the same search standards as visitors or inmates because morale
demands that employees be trusted.

"If you can't start from a position of professional trust, you are in
trouble," Greenwald said.

Said Valenzuela: "We wouldn't want to even suspect that we would possibly
have some officers who are doing this. That's very unlikely."

Prisoners tested positive for drugs at some state prisons more than others:

* At the Safford Prison, 10 percent of urine tests came up dirty over the
year that ended June 30. Officials noted that hundreds of inmates are sent
out to work daily, doing mostly landscaping and maintenance for local
governments. Two drug-dog teams were used to check the returning workers
until last month, when two more teams were added.

Two canteen workers were fired recently for bringing in sunglasses and other
"nuisance" contraband for Safford Prison inmates. "It is suspected but not
proven that they were also bringing in narcotics," according to a
Corrections Department memo.

* At the Arizona Center for Women, returning parole violators are blamed for
the Phoenix prison's 7.6 percent drug-test failure rate.

* At the Yuma Prison, Warden Sam Sublett investigated the 6.7 percent
positive test results but did not report major smuggling problems among
visitors or inmates returning from work assignments.

In his report to corrections managers, Sublett said he plans to use
drug-sniffing dogs and random urine tests on employees as soon as possible.

Testing inmates costs Arizona taxpayers about $3.20 a test - $699,500 for
308,000 drug screens and quality assurance checks.

Texas, which reported no random testing of employees and only about 850
urine tests for its 155,000 prisoners, finished last year with a 19 percent
dirty-urine rate for inmates - more than four times higher than Arizona's
and the highest among U.S. prisons reported by the Criminal Justice
Institute, a Connecticut research firm.

"We do some random testing, both for inmates and employees," Texas
Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Todd said. "Our system is
stopping any smuggling of contraband. We do a decent job, but we're far from
perfect."
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MAP posted-by: Don Beck