Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jan 2008
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Glenda Luymes
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

KIDS USED TO SMUGGLE DRUGS INTO JAIL

Guard Faces Disciplinary Action For Alerting Social Services

Hard drugs are entering prisons through an unlikely source -- babies.

Children are increasingly being used as tiny drug mules as they 
accompany parents on jail visits, according to the Union of Canad-ian 
Correctional Officers.

And some prisons, such as the maximum-security Kent Institution in 
Agassiz, are inadvertently encouraging the practice by not searching kids.

"Federal penitentiaries are awash in drugs," the union's Gord 
Robertson said at a press conference yesterday. "We have an 
opportunity here to protect the most vulnerable of society's members, 
its children, while stopping sources of drugs in our prisons."

Robertson pointed to the case of an Abbotsford prison guard who could 
face disciplinary action after reporting an incident involving a baby 
to social services.

Last fall, Terry Leger, a guard at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford, 
discovered a baby stroller belonging to a visitor had tested positive 
for cocaine residue in an ion scan. When he reviewed other visitor 
files, he found another case where a baby's clothing had twice tested 
positive for cocaine and meth. This was after the baby's mother had 
previously tested positive for morphine and heroin residue in eight 
trips between March and July 2007.

The woman had been allowed to visit on three of the eight attempts. 
Police were never called.

Leger said he contacted the Ministry of Child and Family Development 
and learned he had a legal duty to report the case to child-welfare 
authorities.

"That was my concern -- to protect those children," he said. "Any kid 
. . . that is around these drugs is in serious danger."

The guard never expected his actions would put his job in danger. He 
now faces a disciplinary investigation by the Correctional Service of Canada.

But former convict Glen Flett was "outraged" by the union's 
statements, saying prison visits are vital for inmate rehabilitation. 
The convicted murderer and father of three said family does not 
deserve to be "mugged at the gate."

Flett's wife, Sherry, recalled her seven-year-old daughter being 
"interrogated" after morphine residue was found on her clothing. The 
little girl had likely come in contact with the drug through a family 
friend who was dying of cancer.

"It was demeaning," she said. "For a while [my daughter] was afraid 
to hug her dad because she thought he might get in trouble."

Criminology professor Darryl Plecas called the issue "complex," 
saying it's almost impossible to prove the babies were being used as 
drug mules from the residue. "At the end of the day, no drugs were 
found, so it makes it difficult to be certain."

Calls by The Province to the Correctional Service of Canada, Matsqui 
Institution, Kent Institution and the Ministry of Children and Family 
Development were referred to the public safety ministry.

Ministry spokeswoman Melisa Leclerc said the minister, Stockwell Day, 
recently wrote to the CSC commissioner asking for the policy on drug 
searches to be updated to ensure "the use of children to traffic 
narcotics into an institution is not inadvertently encouraged by CSC policy."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom