Pubdate: Tue, 04 Mar 2003
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2003 The Calgary Sun
Contact:  http://www.fyicalgary.com/calsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Bill Kaufmann

FREE RIDE FOR DRUGS

Inquiry Hears of Jail Smuggling

Keeping illegal drugs out of the Calgary Remand Centre is an impossible 
feat, the facility's deputy security chief told a fatality inquiry 
yesterday into the morphine overdose death of an inmate.

Since corrections officers don't examine inmates' body cavities, prisoners 
are free to smuggle drugs into the Remand Centre by placing them in their 
orifices, Malcolm Parken told an inquiry into the Nov. 19, 2001, death of 
Calgarian Reginald McLeod, 39.

"If a person's going to put something in their body, it's impossible to 
stop it," said Parken, who's worked in the corrections system for 30 years.

He said in some isolated cases where such smuggling is suspected, inmates 
are sent to a hospital where doctors are asked to perform internal exams, 
"but they're reluctant to do so, for some reason," added Parken.

Provincial court Judge Cheryl Daniel was aghast at the admission, insisting 
there must be a way for authorities to thwart the transport of drugs.

"I can't believe you're telling me it's carte blanche for anyone to secret 
drugs up their rectum and they get away with it," said Daniel.

McLeod, a familiar face to remand staff, was found dead in his cell beneath 
a blanket, a syringe containing morphine in his shirt pocket, his face 
smeared with blood.

The inquiry heard McLeod had acquired 10 morphine tablets that a city 
police report alleges were smuggled into the facility by another inmate, 
later breaking them down for use in a syringe.

Parken said he wasn't privy to an allegation "a major shipment of drugs was 
to arrive at the centre," just prior to McLeod's death, information 
included in the police report.

Daniel wondered why such information wouldn't be shared.

"Do you and the police never talk about things like this -- is there a cone 
of silence?" she said.

Parken and other Remand Centre corrections officers also said once drugs 
are in the facility, it's difficult to ferret them out.
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