Public Safety Committee on Oct. 6th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to call this meeting to order.

This is meeting number 6 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Thursday, October 6, 2011. Today we are continuing our study on drugs and alcohol in prisons. Part of the directive of our motion is to study how drugs and alcohol enter prisons, and the impact they have on the rehabilitation of offenders and on the safety of correctional officers and on crime within the institution.

In our first hour we will hear from the Office of the Correctional Investigator. We're pleased to have that office represented by two individuals today. Appearing again before us is Mr. Howard Sapers, the correctional investigator; and Ivan Zinger, the executive director and general counsel.

It seems as if every time Mr. Sapers comes, there are bells ringing or something and usually we've had to format the day in a way that is never perfect. Other times we've put other witnesses together with him, and we don't like doing that. But today we are going to cut back on our time a little bit. I'm just going to let the opposition and government members know that I'm going to go with five-minute rounds so that we can still get to our questions.

We look forward to your comments and would welcome them now. We're probably going to go for about 40 minutes and have another 45-minute period after that.

Mr. Sapers, welcome again, and we look forward to your comments.

[Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be back. I'm happy to be involved in this study.

Mr. Chair, I realize that committee members have received a written copy of our comments in advance. I'm wondering if you would like to just consider them read into the record and proceed to questions, or do you want me to quickly go through them in any case?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Just do whatever you would prefer. I don't know how many have had the opportunity to speak.

Is that what you would want to hear?

[Howard Sapers]

It would be better to go through them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Sure, okay.

[Howard Sapers]

Thank you, I'll proceed quickly then.

There is little doubt that the presence of illicit drugs and alcohol in federal prisons is a major safety and security challenge. The smuggling and trafficking of illicit substances and the diversion of legal drugs inside federal penitentiaries present inherent risks that ultimately jeopardize the safety and security of institutions and the people who live and work inside them. I commend the committee for taking on this very important and complex review.

I am pleased to be joined today, as you noted, by the executive director of my office, Dr. Ivan Zinger. Dr. Zinger will speak to the role of my office as an ombudsman for federal offenders and he will reference some of the emerging data and research in this area of corrections.

I'll then provide some reflections on how the anti-drug strategy of the Correctional Service of Canada is working or not, and point to some forward directions for reform.

Dr. Zinger.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger, Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Office of the Correctional Investigator serves as an ombudsman for federally sentenced offenders.

The office’s mandate provides for independent monitoring and oversight of federal correctional services. On an annual basis, the Office receives approximately 6,000 offender complaints.

In 2010-11, investigators spent in excess of 370 days in federal penitentiaries and interviewed more than 2,100 offenders. In last fiscal year, the Office received 20,000 calls on its toll-free number and conducted over 1,200 uses of force reviews.

The office acknowledges that the institutional drug trade, which includes the improper use of prescription drugs, is a major source of institutional violence. The drug trade is often controlled or influenced by gang activity and the presence of organized crime. In prison as well as on the street, the drug trade is associated with predatory behaviours, such as intimidation, muscling and extortion. Within Correctional Service Canada facilities, it is estimated that gangs are involved in close to 25% of the major security incidents.

Just over half of federal offenders report being under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration. Four out of five offenders now arrive at a federal institution with a history of substance abuse. Living with addiction or managing a substance abuse problem in a prison setting creates its own laws of supply and demand.

A very high percentage of the offender population that abuses drugs is also concurrently struggling with mental health problems. As we are beginning to understand, the interplay between addiction, substance abuse and mental health functioning is complex and dynamic. Criminality adds yet another complication to an issue that defies easy solutions.

[Howard Sapers]

Within the correctional system, drug suppression activities of course have to be consistent with an environment that is conducive to rehabilitation and, eventually, to safe and timely reintegration back into the community.

Eliminating drugs and alcohol from prison appears deceptively simple, but has proven to be very difficult and costly in practice. The problem of intoxicants in prison is difficult to measure and therefore difficult to monitor. Drug supply and utilization are illegal and underground activities. It's extremely difficult to generate a reliable number, or predictor, of the extent of the drug problem inside Canadian penitentiaries. We know that drugs are in prisons. We simply don't know the extent of the drug use.

Demand for drugs has always been present in prison. The reality is that in a prison setting, there are ever more ingenious and adaptive methods to smuggle, move, and conceal contraband. Short of completely banning all visits and all interaction with the outside world, and the imposition of extraordinarily intrusive workplace rules, the idea of a drug-free prison remains commendable in theory but highly improbable in reality.

The Correctional Service recorded over 1,700 drug-related seizures in the last fiscal year. The number of drug seizures in recent years has increased, but it's difficult to say whether the service is on top of the problem or simply scratching the surface. The question remains, is the number of seizures related to better enforcement, intelligence, and staff training or simply to increases in the amount of drugs being smuggled into federal penitentiaries?

Sometimes, well-meaning policy changes contribute to the problem of contraband in prison. In May of 2008, the service instituted a total tobacco ban. Now tobacco is the number one illegal commodity on the inside. According to information contained in daily situation reports, there appear to be far more seizures of this substance on a regular basis than any other contraband.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

The Correctional Service of Canada wants to find ways to restrict and deter the entry, trafficking and demand for drugs in its institutions. In recent years, the government has made significant investments in support of CSC’s drug interdiction efforts. In August 2008, for example, the then Minister of Public Safety announced a five-year $120 million investment in the Service’s anti-drug strategy.

Since 2008, that investment has supported the following initiatives: expansion of the drug detector dog team program; hiring of new security intelligence staff; purchase of advanced detection technologies, such as ion scanners, x-ray machines and metal detectors, and; more stringent search standards, enhanced staff training and more robust deployment rosters at principal entrances and perimeters.

It is important to note that at the time no new funding was provided for or invested in substance abuse programming.

As these measures have been rolled out, there have been some positive, if modest and even expected gains, including a rise in the number of drug-related seizures. In his appearance before this committee, the Commissioner of Corrections reported that some staff members have been dismissed from the Service as a result of their involvement in the prison drug trade. According to CSC’s Corporate Reporting System, the national average of positive random urinalysis drug results in CSC facilities has remained remarkably stable over the last decade—averaging 10.5%. The random urinalysis testing rate is a good gauge of whether drug use is up or down in federal institutions and right now the jury has still not ruled conclusively.

The importance of performance evaluation, empirically based evidence and supporting research cannot be under-estimated in the context of a coherent, comprehensive and cost-effective prison anti-drug strategy.

Two recent reviews conducted by the service’s own research branch—one looking at the use of drug detection dogs in correctional facilities and the other examining the use of ion scanners—indicate the need for additional research to support the effectiveness of these measures. In the case of ion scanners, the review noted:

Additional research is needed to address gaps in our knowledge such as determining the impact of IMS units (Ion Mobility Spectrometry) on inmate drug use and institutional behaviour, drug smuggling by inmates, staff and visitors.

And in the case of the drug detector dog review: “the only available evidence for the effectiveness of drug dogs in reducing drug importation and smuggling in a correctional environment is anecdotal.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We're already at 11 minutes, Mr. Sapers, so could you very quickly work your way through it, please.

[Howard Sapers]

I'll go right through it, Mr. Chairman.

The CSC's transformation agenda has set a very ambitious goal to eliminate illicit drugs from its institutions, but drugs are still getting through the front gate and over the wall. The office’s analysis suggests that CSC's current anti-drug strategy appears to lack three key elements: an integrated and cohesive link between interdiction and suppression activities and prevention, treatment, and harm reduction measures; a comprehensive public reporting mechanism; and a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the overall effectiveness of its investments.

In my view, the elements of a coherent and comprehensive anti-drug strategy would reasonably include the following set of performance indicators and public reporting measures: decreased gang activity; a reduction in the number of major security incidents; a decrease in the transmission rate of communicable diseases; increased use of dynamic security practices; an increase in the number of offenders enrolled and completing substance abuse programs; reduced demand for illicit drugs through effective and innovative treatment; and increased investment in substance abuse, prevention, and harm reduction programs.

We encourage the Correctional Service to pursue all of these areas. We're concerned that there might be some backsliding. For example, according to CSC's own corporate reporting system, there has actually been a net $2 million reduction in expenditures on substance abuse programs in federal corrections over the last two fiscal years.

Substance abuse and drug addiction can be managed through the right combination of treatment, supportive interventions, and supply reduction. Suppression alone can only go so far in addressing addiction issues, including the spread of infectious diseases. Of note is the fact inmates are 7 to 10 times more likely than the general Canadian population to be living with HIV/AIDS, and 30 times more likely to have hepatitis C.

A range and balance of supply and demand measures are needed to tackle the prison drug problem. Detection, enforcement, and suppression efforts must be balanced against an equally robust series of interventions, such as substance abuse programming and relapse and harm reduction measures, including opiate substitution. Other cessation, prevention, counselling, and support services should be used in balance with the efforts that target the supply side of this issue.

Again, thank you very much for inviting me. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Rathgeber, please, five minutes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Sapers, and Mr. Zinger. It's good to see both of you again.

Mr. Sapers, you are the correctional investigator, the correctional ombudsman. Your job is to investigate complaints filed by inmates of the Correctional Service of Canada. Is that correct?

[Howard Sapers]

Yes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

We heard some interesting and, I would submit, troubling testimony on Tuesday concerning strip searches. How many complaints does your office handle on an annual basis generally, of any kind or any nature?

[Howard Sapers]

We'll get about 20,000 contacts. We'll receive another 1,000 to 1,200 use-of-force reviews. We'll conduct a few thousand of what we call “investigations”. The number one area of concern in these investigations usually pertains to access to, and quality of, health care.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

By these 20,000 contacts I'm assuming that you mean a prisoner either phoning you or writing you with some grievance that he or she wants you to investigate. Is that what you mean by a contact?

[Howard Sapers]

Those 20,000 contacts are through our toll-free number. We also receive a number of letters, and have open visits in institutions where my staff will spend days interviewing inmates. So our actual involvement with or responses to calls for service exceeds 20,000.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

How many of those contacts involve some sort of allegation of mistreatment as a result of a so-called strip search?

[Howard Sapers]

I don't have that number with me. The number is relatively few. But the complaints that do come in fall into two categories: complaints brought to us by the inmates about inappropriate searches of them, and complaints brought to us about inappropriate searches of family members or others coming in for visits.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Sure.

By relatively few, would you mean less than 100?

[Howard Sapers]

I can go back and get the numbers, and I'll make sure to inform the committee.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

From those contacts or inquiries or grievances, whatever you call them, do some ultimately get investigated?

[Howard Sapers]

Yes. Sometimes they're investigated in terms of their being harassment or inappropriate staff conduct. So they're not always captured as search issues simply. Sometimes they are complaints about a pattern of behaviour, where an inmate or an inmate's family member may feel harassed by correctional staff.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Have you ever found any of those grievances to be valid, and by valid I mean that there was a violation of the correctional services act?