You are, you really are, but so friendly that it's good.
In 2015 and 2016 MOMS initiated a petition calling on the Correctional Service of Canada to review its use of the ion mobility spectrometer, better known as the ion scanner, as a drug-detecting tool to screen visitors entering federal institutions. We started this because of our own personal experience with the distressing and harmful impacts of CSC's reliance on this device.
CSC introduced the use of the ion scanner in 1995 as the primary tool in a system intended to help stop the entry of drugs into federal prisons, but there is now a clear disconnect between CSC policy, which recognizes the importance of building and maintaining family ties and community support for prisoners, and the continued reliance on an unreliable tool that fails to keep drugs out of prisons but does a very good job of deterring families from visiting. It also has negative consequences for our loved ones, regardless of the veracity of the test results.
For anybody who doesn't know, visitors, when processed through this system, are asked to give a possession, such as a key or a watch or eyeglasses or an article of clothing, to be swabbed. The swab is then placed in the ionizer to be analyzed for drugs. If there is a positive hit, staff conduct what they call a “threat risk assessment”, whereby a supervisor is called in to conduct an interview with the visitor and pronounce a decision.
The visitor may be granted a visit, or restricted to a closed visit, or ordered to leave the property immediately. If a visitor has travelled a long distance or has not seen their loved one for a long time, this humiliating interview can be quite devastating. The effects on children of being denied a visit to a parent are also deeply distressing; this happened to my own grandson.
CSC policy says that the results from the ion scanner are only one factor in their decision-making regarding what sanctions they're going to impose because of the positive hit, but this statement by CSC is uninformed and inaccurate. The information gathered by the ion scanner really only indicates that an individual such as me has been in contact with an illicit drug or a substance that gives a false positive ion scanner reading for an illicit drug, all of which may be the result of nothing more than having been in contact with contaminated objects or surfaces. There are no further efforts to confirm the presence or absence of contraband. You cannot ask for a search, because they will not do it. Results from the ion scanner are virtually useless in assessing whether or not a visitor is in fact trying to smuggle contraband into the institution. They just cannot tell.
The details of the visitor's encounter with the ion scanner are entered into the prisoner's file. Repeated positive tests affect the severity of sanctions imposed on the visitor in future; there's an escalating level of severity of sanctions. This record also has a negative impact for the prisoner's journey through the correctional system.
Now, CSC openly admits that the ion scanner frequently indicates false positives. These false readings occur in part because the ion scanner is extremely sensitive, searching for the presence of drugs down to the nanogram, and a nanogram is such a small particle of residue on clothing that many people do not realize they may pick up these trace amounts of prohibited substances when they touch everyday items such as money or credit cards or even use certain household cleaners, such as Clorox wipes or cosmetic products containing perfume, all of which can trigger the ion scanner.
The unreliability and ineffectiveness of ion scanners has been observed beyond the Canadian context.
In the U.S., the New York Civil Liberties Union noted in 2004 that they had received numerous complaints from “individuals mystified by the results of the scan and distraught by their powerlessness to prove their innocence”. That's what you have to do: prove your innocence. They noted that the ion scanner system was “unfairly, improperly, and unnecessarily resulting in innocent people being denied visitation”.
The consequences of the ion scanner's unreliability are profound not only for prisoners but also for families. For us, the threat of a false positive and its associated consequences adds an additional layer of stress when visiting our loved ones. Many of us resort to extraordinary measures, such as washing coins, getting gas for the journey the previous day, not touching door handles, and not stopping on our journey between when we leave home and when we get to the institution, in order to minimize the risk of testing positive on the ion scanner. Many other friends and family members are deterred from visiting altogether.
The scanner acts as a barrier to prisoners' access to the family support that is such an important part of their getting their lives back on track and coming home one day. It can also work against them because the hits from visitors go in their files and that can work against them in their applications for transfer, a reduced security level, or parole.
The adverse effects of the ion scanner are not offset by its benefits. Even a cursory review of recent media studies by organizations such as the Canadian Drug Coalition and reports from the OCI reveal that drugs remain rampant in our prisons, where rates of HIV and hepatitis C infection resulting largely from shared needles are much higher than those of the general population.
As a method of keeping drugs out of prisons, the ion scanner model is also flawed because visitors to inmates are the only people subjected to this discriminatory drug screening process. A much larger percentage of those entering these institutions, including CSC staff, construction contractors, and maintenance workers, are not tested.
We would like to express our appreciation to the committee members for allowing us to testify on this very important issue. As I said, it's a momentous occasion for us. We welcome your questions.