Public Safety Committee on Oct. 20th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Norlock and then to Mr. Scarpaleggia to conclude the first round.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses.

Mr. Clarke, I have written down a couple of things you had to say.

I'll preface my remarks by saying that there is a responsibility on behalf of the state to make sure that those people who are incarcerated by the state for crimes committed against society...that the state should do as much as it can so that you leave our institutions with the tools you need in order not to return. That's what I'll preface my remarks with.

You say prison is not a good place to maintain a good level of health. One of the things I noted on visiting many prisons across this country of ours is the degree among some prisoners of possessing, I would say, a healthy body, meaning to say that they take part in exercise programs, have gym facilities available, and have an adequate diet with which to maintain health.

I wonder if you could, in a very succinct way—because I have several other issues to address—explain what you mean by its being difficult to maintain a good level of health.

[Seth Clarke]

I would generally argue that for many prisoners their ability to physically exercise is limited. Many prisoners are for many hours of the day locked inside, locked in their cell. They do not necessarily always have access to those facilities—although there is access, there's no question about that. I would also say that the available diet for prisoners is not all it could be.

In terms of my comments about its being a place where it is difficult to maintain health, I think the isolation people experience, from family and community—

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Okay, sir, I get what you're saying. You and I could have a discussion about doing sit-ups and push-ups and other things within a confined space, as many Canadians do at home. There are reasons....

The other comment was in regard to pain management. You said in one of your statements that pain management as well is associated to mental anguish—I think those would be the appropriate terms—and that prison is not a good place to be because you're confined, and you have anguish because you're confined in prison.

I'm going to leave out the mental anguish and pain suffered by the victims of the people that are the reason some men and women are in jail. But are you telling us that if you have physical pain, from an injury incurred either within the confines of prison or outside prison, there isn't an availability of proper medication such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and those types of things through the health clinics that we have in our prisons? Are you saying that there are people suffering pain because they're not getting adequately seen by a nurse or other medical practitioner?

[Seth Clarke]

I'm absolutely saying that the services available around pain management for physical pain are not what they are in a community. It is not at all unusual for prisoners to be aggressively tapered off certain drugs. Kadian would be an example of a drug that prisoners are often tapered off from when they come into the institution; then there's a new process which the prisoner, obviously with the health care people in the prison, has to go through to define exactly what their pain management needs are and then in some cases to try to get back on medication they've been on for several years.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I think what you're referring to is that some medications are habit-forming and that they try to get you onto other habit-forming....

You also mentioned that when prison officials are looking for drugs, etc., it causes mistrust. I think you said that trust levels are low on both sides.

You have to realize that this is a public hearing and that people outside are going to be asking, isn't it a natural and a needed thing that our prison officials are looking for illegal drugs being brought into our prisons? And if that causes low morale, maybe the prisoner has within himself or herself an ability to change that trust level by adhering to the programs that are in prison and appreciating the fact that we're trying to keep illegal drugs outside of our prisons.

If you use your argument to the converse, we'd have really good trust levels if they didn't look for drugs at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock. Unfortunately we're out of time, and we really are watching our time.

We'll have to move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, who will have some questions for you.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you.

Welcome to the committee.

This is kind of a basic question, maybe a bit naive, but how do needles get into prisons? One understands how a substance or a pill or marijuana can get in, but it seems to me I couldn't board a plane with a needle after going through the electronic screening device. How do needles get in? How can a family member, for example, bring a needle into a prison undetected? I just don't understand.

[Seth Clarke]

I think when you look at how needles and/or drugs get into prison, you have to look at who has access to the prisons. In terms of access, there would be people who work in the prisons, people who visit relatives and friends in the prisons, and people who come into the prisons to provide services and programs of other types. Obviously with needles, every institution would have a health care department, and obviously there will be needles there for other uses. So there’s the potential that some of those get diverted....

There are lots of ways in which different things get in our prisons. All the others suggest that has always happened.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

No, but what I'm saying is—

[Seth Clarke]

So I think that when you figure out how drugs get in, it's very similar.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Except that—

[Sandra Ka Hon Chu]

I have also spoken.... Oftentimes some of this injection equipment is fashioned from BIC pens, from different materials that are found in the prison system. We've seen numerous examples of things that prisoners have constructed out of the available material they already have access to.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Now, you mentioned something—I missed this—about drug formularies in prison. One of you mentioned...this was part of someone's comments. Could you repeat that and explain that? I missed it.

[Seth Clarke]

Sure. CSC has a drug formulary. It's basically a list of all the medications available for prescription in the institutions. So there will be certain drugs available in the community that would not be available on the drug formulary for reasons of their being potential security risks, of their being considered to be more addictive, etc.…. So the drug formulary from CSC health care lists all the medications that are available. And it is reviewed quite regularly.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay. We talked a bit about this in the last meeting, and Mr. Leef made a good point. I was wondering about prisoners suffering from withdrawal. The point was made that by the time they get to a penitentiary, they've been in a holding cell or another form of detainment, maybe awaiting trial, and therefore withdrawal is not an issue. Is that the case in federal penitentiaries? By the time a prisoner gets through the doors any immediate withdrawal symptoms have disappeared and withdrawal does not require treatment?

[Seth Clarke]

No, I would say it's not necessarily the case. Obviously most prisoners will have spent an amount of time in a provincial institution or another institution prior to coming to a federal penitentiary. It probably depends on what that other institution was prescribing for the person. In terms of street drugs, the vast majority of people would be in a situation where they haven't had the same access for as long. There are different arguments as to what availability there is of illicit drugs in the provincial system.

But as you said, oftentimes we see prisoners coming into the federal system and then having medication changed—often pain management such as Kadian, as I mentioned, being tapered. So we get many phone calls from prisoners who are struggling at times like that, and in some cases they talk to us about how they say they haven't really used drugs in a long time. All of our clients are HIV positive, some are co-infected with—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Are they getting the help they need?

[Seth Clarke]

They talk about being withdrawn from drugs and feeling that they might go to the underground drug system in the institutions, obviously again raising the risk of—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

But are they getting the help they need at that crucial pivotal point when they're going through withdrawal and starting to look at the underground drug market in the prison? Are they getting the interventions they need at that very pivotal point?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

Go ahead and answer.

[Seth Clarke]

I think it's uneven, as far as the support they're getting at that time. Many prisoners report to us they're not getting support at the time. Sometimes prisoners try to transfer to methadone and other drugs while in the institution, but it's often not seamless. In some cases people have withdrawn from the drug and are not given an alternative. So I would say it's uneven.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank both Mr. Clarke and Ms. Chu for being with us today. I apologize again for cutting back on some of the time because of the votes we had in the Commons this morning. But thank you for your points.

Something new that you have brought out that we haven't heard from others is pain management. Maybe that's something we'll be able to explore a little more. There were a few questions on that.

I invite our new guests to the table.

In our second hour today we have, from Corrections Services Canada, Mr. Don Head, the Commissioner of CSC; and Mr. Christer McLauchlan, security intelligence officer at the Stony Mountain Institution.

You obviously heard in the first hour what our study is on, so I won't go through all that again. We thank you for coming back on this study that we're doing. We appreciate your assisting us by ensuring that we have your testimony and testimony from your staff, including Mr. McLauchlan.

Commissioner Head, please proceed. Thank you again.

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thanks for having me back to discuss how the Correctional Service of Canada manages the issue of drugs within our penitentiaries.

As you have already indicated, I am joined this afternoon by one of my security intelligence officers, Chris McLauchlan, who works out of Stony Mountain Institution, a medium-security institution near Winnipeg. I will point out as well that Mr. McLauchlan has also been a drug detector dog team handler and a correctional officer, so he has tremendous experience on the front line. He will be able to speak to his personal experiences in relation to detecting and interdicting drugs in the federal correctional system.

Mr. Chair, in managing the issue of drugs in our federal penitentiaries, as I've pointed out previously, CSC takes a three-pronged approach: prevention, treatment, and interdiction. This approach is employed to addresses the significant challenges we face every day in dealing with a complex and diverse offender population, many of whom present with significant substance abuse problems.

We are also challenged by motivated individuals on the outside who utilize a myriad of innovative ways to get drugs inside institutional walls. In the recent past we have intercepted drug delivery mechanisms such as dead birds, bows and arrows, and tennis balls.

In fact, just three days ago staff at Matsqui Institution in the Pacific region recovered a package of drugs and paraphernalia that had been lobbed inside the prison. We are investigating the exact nature by which the drugs were projected this significant distance, but we suspect that a potato gun was used. The package contained marijuana, heroin, and a digital scale, all of which have an institutional value of approximately $21,000.

As well, staff intercepted drugs at Leclerc Institution, in Quebec, the other day, with an institutional value of $28,900. They were able to intercept this before it made its way into the hands of the offender population.

I continue to be extremely proud of the great work that my staff do on a daily basis to keep our institutions safe.

CSC is also facing an increase in the number of offenders who have a gang affiliation. Currently there are approximately 2,200 offenders who have gang affiliations, and there are over 50 different gangs inside our institutions across the country. The majority of members had gang affiliations prior to their incarceration, and most of these came from street gangs. These now outnumber those associated with outlaw motorcycle groups or traditional organized crime groups that we've come to know.

Mr. Chair, I know this committee is specifically interested in the link between gangs and drugs, and I can tell you that approximately one-quarter of incarcerated offenders who have a gang affiliation are serving time for drug-related offences. This includes possession, importing, and trafficking of drugs, among others.

I will share with the committee a typical schematic that shows how gangs try to introduce drugs into a penitentiary. I believe members of the committee have that in front of them.

CSC has a wide range of tools at our disposal to detect and interdict any attempts to introduce drugs into our institutions. Our complement of security intelligence officers, like Mr. McLauchlan, has increased over the last couple of years and it will continue to do so. We expect that by the fiscal year 2012-13, we will have 250 dedicated officers across the country to enhance our capacity to detect a possible drug delivery into our institutions. This will also increase our knowledge of the drug problem and allow Chris and his colleagues to better share information across the regions.

Furthermore, we are now delivering new training to our security intelligence officers as well as our correctional officers that will focus more attention on dynamic security and gang management.

As I mentioned at my last appearance, we are also increasing our complement of drug detector dog teams, enhancing perimeter security, and making better use of technology to keep drugs out.

These are just a few examples, and they barely scratch the surface of what is a complex, integrated approach to drug interdiction within the federal institutions.

Mr. Chair, every day CSC employees across the country are working to ensure safe, drug-free institutions that will promote offender rehabilitation and create safer communities for Canadians. I am proud of my dedicated staff, like Chris, who exemplify the best of our mission, our mandate, our values, and our ethics.

At this point, Mr. Chair and members, I would welcome any questions you might have for me or Mr. McLauchlan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you again, Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. McLauchlan, for coming.

Although he didn't have a presentation, Mr. McLauchlan is willing and able to answer any questions you may have in relation to his position and to his responsibilities in prison.

We'll move to the first round, and we'll start with Mr. Leef, please.