Again, thank you very much for inviting me to participate. I feel honoured to be here. I hope what I have to say will give you some insight and some help with this issue.
I'm probably not as deferential as the previous speakers here. I worked in the system for six years as a parole officer. As a teacher, I was the principal of a school there. I can take questions about that later.
I've done a lot of research on this. I've read a lot of what Stacey wrote, what Anne wrote, and what other people in Canada and the United States have written. To me, this issue to me is very close to a breach of the charter, and it needs to be addressed.
I'm requesting that an immediate moratorium be placed on the use of the IMS device in all federal penitentiaries in the screening of inmate visitors, pending the completion of an independent study, done either by Parliament or by an outside body, to confirm the effectiveness of this device as a screening tool for drugs in the institutions.
I request that Parliament order the commissioner of Correctional Services to curtail this use immediately, that Parliament study this issue, and also that the visiting status of any visitors who have been unjustly, without evidence, deprived of visiting rights be reinstated until it's found that they deserve to have their visiting status taken away.
I speak for thousands of Canadians who have loved ones or friends incarcerated in federal institutions across this country. On any given day, up to about 12,000 people, plus or minus, are serving time in a federal prison. The visitors, the families, and the supporters of these inmates are law-abiding people. We have been legally vetted and we have been approved to be visitors to institutions. We know what the CSC policy is related to inmate visitors. We're insulted by the patronizing and dismissive attitude given to us by CSC when we voice our outrage regarding the abuse of this device in our presence.
I have letters both from the minister and from Correctional Services that merely restate what it says in the policy rather than addressing the issues that we present to them. As I've said, I worked in the system for six years, and I witnessed the effects of the ion scanner on innocent family members who were either turned away or who had visits restricted, despite having asked for a search to prove their innocence. I witnessed the devastating impact it had on inmates who were deprived of a long-awaited visit from their mother, wife, or child, and all of this in the face of no wrongdoing at all on the part of the visitor other than a hit—one hit—on the ion scanner.
I speak for many people who have rebutted the unfair decisions following the ion scanner results and have come away disillusioned about the seriousness of the government and agencies in terms of upholding and appearing to uphold the law in this regard. They face retributive action when they protest; this is documented in the experience of those who dare to complain. Such behaviour under the very nose of those charged with safeguarding the integrity of our correctional and criminal justice system must not continue if Canadians are to have confidence in the administration of justice in this country.
Now, as for where we agree with Corrections, there are many things we agree with. Drugs and other contraband have no place in our federal institutions. These things cause untold damage in our prisons among inmates, staff, and visitors. We must keep drugs out of our prisons. Everyone who enters a penitentiary is a potential importer of contraband. Every one of us comes into inadvertent contact at some time or other with threshold amounts of drugs through handling money and gas pumps and things, as we've heard here. We can pick it up anywhere. If you reached into your pocket right now and felt the change in your pocket, you probably would have enough cocaine on your hands that you would ring positive on an ion scanner.
Many illegal substances share the same ionic properties as illegal substances. This was discussed already by Stacey Hannem. The ion scanner authorized by Commissioner's Directive 566-8-1 is a flawed device, as admitted by CSC, in that it yields an excessive number of false positives.
Ion scanners are poorly maintained, as we've already said. Quite often, they're not calibrated properly. They're not operated correctly by the staff; they often don't clean them, which results in subsequent hits. For example, if someone who went it before me got a hit, I might get a hit. I fortunately have never had hit, by the way, but if they don't clean it right, I have every chance of hitting.
Drugs continue to enter our prisons at very alarming rates, despite these procedures being in place. The scanners are not used on staff, contractors, guests, and other people. There needs to be more focus by CSC on these people as possible importers of drugs into our institutions.
It is a privilege, not a right, to be allowed entry into a prison. Visitors are acknowledged by CSC legislation and policy to be playing a vital role in the rehabilitation and successful reintegration of offenders. This is documented in studies that I have here. They say that inmates who have visitation do a lot better on release and are more likely to get parole. The ones who sit there until a statutory release often don't have visitors. Visitation is deemed by CSC to be a major component in the rehabilitation of offenders, yet, the policies and practices they have in place fly directly in the face of what they say on paper.
What CSC does not address is another area I'd like to go into.
As we've said, only the visitors are subject to the ion scanner. The research I did on in Canada and the United States shows that about 10%—maybe less, maybe a little more—of all the people going into a prison on any given day are scanned, so 90% are not scanned, and drugs keep coming in at an alarming rate.
I'm going to have to skip a lot, because I'm running out of time, so maybe I'll skip to the end.
To me, ion scanners do not find drugs on people. Ion scanners simply tell you whether you came in contact with drugs—maybe. Maybe you did or maybe you didn't. It could be a false positive. There's no search done. They're required to search you, but they don't, so there's a cloud of suspicion over the person. You could go in a hundred times and never hit and they'll be friendly and treat you very well and everything, but the minute you hit, the whole dynamic between you and the staff changes. You're under a cloud of suspicion, then, even though they never searched you to find anything and there's no evidence that you are bringing in contraband.
What they need to do is use a full body scanner instead of an ion scanner to find contraband. If this whole drug interdiction process is about contraband and not about abuse of authority, perhaps, they need to use something that's going to find contraband. Drug interdiction is about intercepting contraband, and the ion scanner does none of that.
I'd like to conclude by saying that right now, as we speak today, there are countless innocent law-abiding visitors to penitentiaries across this country who will face being impugned in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing. Many will have travelled great distances at great expense to spend time with their loved ones and will face sanctions based on only one ion scanner reading. The inmates affected will be set back in their reintegration efforts, and some will endure severe emotional upheaval after being deprived of an opportunity to visit with their loved ones. There's documented evidence that inmates have committed suicide because they couldn't see their mother.
Anyway, I guess I'm done.