Public Safety Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

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

Thank you.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for your interesting testimony and evidence here this morning. I've had the opportunity to visit both of your institutions, being an Alberta MP.

Certainly with respect to the Edmonton women's facility, Warden Markowski, I think you'd agree that the physical layout is a campus-style format: it's fairly open; there's a perimeter fence and lots of green space. Would that be a fair characterization for the members who have not had the opportunity of visiting the lovely city of Edmonton?

[Andrea Markowski]

Yes, for the general population it is very much like that. The women live in houses. Ten women live there collaboratively, and they cook and clean and share the chores and move around during the day to work and programs.

The maximum security unit would look much more like the prisons that other folks might be familiar with, and for obvious reasons the women there need to be in a more structured environment.

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

There's a perimeter fence surrounding the entire facility, and I'm assuming that from time to time contraband is lofted over that fence, just given the physical layout of your institution. Would that be fair to say?

[Andrea Markowski]

That has not happened since I've been here—not that I'm aware of. But we put a lot of effort into preventing it. We have restricted movement within the yard area away from the perimeter fences, we have a lot of staff present, and we were given some additional resources that we utilize to prevent throw-overs. With the use of the other technology, we have not had an issue with throw-overs. That is not the way drugs are coming into this facility, to the best of my knowledge.

I checked with my colleagues before appearing, and at some other sites they are having challenges with throw-overs, but we are not.

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

I've also been to Drumheller. Your design is slightly more traditional, but still there is a perimeter fence, as opposed to the walls of the institution forming the perimeter.

What is your experience with respect to tennis balls or dead birds and other things that we've heard of being used to fly contraband over the fence, Intelligence Officer Thompson?

[Darcy Thompson]

Throw-overs have definitely been an issue here at Drumheller, especially in the last few years. Years back we didn't have that many throw-overs, I think because of our proximity.

I think this practice was brought in from other institutions. In other words, some thought, why don't we start trying this? They were successful at it, and it almost become commonplace that we were intercepting throw-overs. Most of the throw-overs are big packages, dark packages. We've intercepted some throw-overs with an institutional value of between $100,000 and $150,000.

We are experimenting with new technology today, specifically infrared image technology, which is essentially a radar system to detect unauthorized individuals approaching our perimeter fence. That has proven to be very successful so far. But still, we have had arrows come into our yard; the staff have found tennis balls; they have found....

As I explained during my opening remarks, we have two fences that are 16 feet high. We have had packages that haven't been able to make it over the second fence, getting caught in the wire on top of the fence, and we have gone up and retrieved those packages. But before the exercise yard is open, we have staff go into the yard and thoroughly search it to ensure that no contraband has entered our institution.

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

You mentioned contractors, Mr. Thompson, in regard to some of the volume of contraband coming into an institution. By contractors, do you mean maintenance personnel, people bringing in groceries, people bringing in clean laundry, or those types of folks?

[Darcy Thompson]

I mean contractors in the sense that we're doing a lot of construction right now, so we have different construction companies coming into our institution.

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

What kind of security clearance do the employees of those contractors have to submit themselves to?

[Darcy Thompson]

They submit a site clearance form to our department, and we run a CPIC check on them. If there are no issues, they are given a site clearance to come in. When they come in, they are escorted by a commissionaire.

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

Does either of you ever find contraband needles in your institutions?

[Darcy Thompson]

Do you mean needles, as in syringes?

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

Yes.

[Darcy Thompson]

Yes, but the majority of the syringes that we find are jail-made. They're not like the pharmaceutical syringes you would find at a hospital; they're very crude devices. I believe you have some pictures of the some jail-made syringes that were seized.

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

They're all made out of BIC pens and other material?

[Darcy Thompson]

Yes.

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

But are those homemade syringes, in your estimation, Mr. Thompson, also capable of being used as a weapon?

[Darcy Thompson]

Yes, I believe they obviously could be used as a weapon. A lot of these syringes are rented out, and inmates share them. With the concerns about HIV and hepatitis C, I definitely would not want to be stuck with one of those needles. In another sense too, it's a staff safety concern. When staff are searching an inmate's cell, they always ask them whether there is anything sharp that might poke or harm them, and the inmate normally says no. But during a routine search, there is the possibility that a staff member might be stuck by one of these needles.

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

And very quickly, Warden Markowski, do you have any incidents in which needles, homemade or otherwise, have been used as weapons inside your institution?

[Andrea Markowski]

There was one incident in which a needle was attached to another object and used as a weapon.

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

Thank you so much.

Those are my questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Valeriote for seven minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you both, Darcy, and Andrea, for presenting to us today. I have to admit that I'm only a temporary participant in this committee, as Mr. Scarpaleggia was unable to be here. And I haven't had the benefit of visiting the institutions, but I am familiar with Stonehenge in Guelph. I'm not sure to what degree either of you is familiar with that program in Guelph. There is one institution for men and one institution for women, to which people volunteer or are directed there through an alternatives program to incarceration.

My questions are first directed to Andrea. This is with respect to the effectiveness of your program for those who are substance-addicted, and the qualifications of the people in your institution to deal with people who have these addictions. Given that a full 80% of offenders are said to have some form of serious substance abuse problem and that fully half consider their abuse problems a factor in the commission of their crimes, would you think it advisable that a program that begins sooner than 50 days be developed so that people can be treated more immediately for their abuse?

[Andrea Markowski]

I'll just start with effectiveness of the program. We have some very compelling statistics from our research department showing that the likelihood of someone returning after committing a new offence is reduced by 45% if they have completed one of our substance abuse programs, and by 63% for violent offences. So the programs are very effective at helping offenders build the skill sets they need to manage their addictions or other difficulties and to live in a law-abiding way. We know, though, that anyone recovering from addiction experiences relapse and slips along the way. Those lapses are to be expected. But the effectiveness is demonstrated through the research we've done.

You ask about qualifications. There are various staff doing various things. Obviously the nurses are registered nurses, the psychologists are registered psychologists, and the program delivery officers have qualified through the competitive process. Then they have extensive training to assist them in delivering, for the most part, cognitive and behavioural types of intervention for the offenders.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do you have people who specialize in the delivery of drug treatment programs specifically?