|
The Canadian Press AGASSIZ, B.C. - The federal government will spend $120 million over the next five years to try and keep drugs out of Canadian prisons, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced Friday.
Day said the crackdown on the drug problem in Canadian prisons is much needed. Eighty per cent of inmates come into prison with drug problems and there were 800 drug seizures in federal institutions last year, which Day said is a fraction of the problem. "Our citizens across the country may think that in fact there are no drugs in prison. Sadly, that is not the case," the federal minister said during the announcement at Kent maximum security prison in Agassiz, B.C., east of Vancouver. Day said drugs in prisons endanger the safety of guards, undermine rehabilitation programs and lead convicts to become repeat offenders. "Over the next five years funds up to an amount of $120 million will go towards maintaining and putting in place a zero-tolerance policy on drugs," he told reporters. He said the money will be used to provide more high-tech scanners, X-Ray machines and dogs to detect drugs. Day said there will be a zero-tolerance drug-searching policy at prisons, a visit schedule will be implemented and children will be protected from being used to smuggle drugs into the facilities. He said security around prisons will be improved and justice agencies will boost intelligence gathering capability both inside the jails and in surrounding communities. Day said the government has already budgeted more money for programs to help inmates kick their drug habits. Gord Robertson, Pacific regional president of the Canadian Correctional Officers' Union, said the union has been consulting with Day's bureaucrats since January on the government's plan. "We have brought up several of our concerns, which we see incorporated in this," he said. "It's good to see that they are actually taking the zero-tolerance stance very seriously." Day said there have been rare instances where guards have been threatened or bribed into smuggling drugs into prison. Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society, which lobbies for prisoners' rights, said the government has failed to make the connection between their inability to deal with drugs outside prison and the environment inside prisons. He said the majority of drug users in prison are addicted when they enter. "We're going to have a drug problem in prisons for as long as we persist in pursuing an unworkable drug control strategy outside prisons," Jones said. "It's a fallacy to think that we can successfully make prisons drug-free when 100 years of drug prohibition has not made Canadian society drug-free." Jones said corrections officers will never be able to screen every person who comes in and out of prison. And harassing visitors will only make it harder for inmates to stay in touch with families, increasing the level of tension inside prisons, Jones said. "The solution to the issue of prisoners and drugs lies outside the prison," he said.
|
