Millions of dollars in body scanners for provincial jails ‘not even plugged in’
Posted January 26, 2017 4:19 pm.
Last Updated January 27, 2017 11:05 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
They were announced to big fanfare last May — full-body scanners to be installed in all 26 provincial jails and correctional institutions.
Then-minister of Correctional Service Canada Yasir Naqvi told reporters the scanners would “further improve staff and inmate safety, reduce contraband and build safer communities for everyone.”
The province’s largest jails were to have them in place by year’s end at a cost of $9.5 million — and they are there. But at some jails, they haven’t even been plugged in.
“Right now, it’s sitting idle,” OPSEU Local 369 president Richard Dionne, told CityNews.
“It’s a massive waste of money., I feel they should’ve had things lined up,” he says of the state-of-the-art scanner gathering dust at the Central North Correctional Centre (CNCC) in Penetanguishene.
It’s of particular concern at the mega-jail because over the past week, there have been five inmate overdoses, including a fatal one on Monday. Glen Kristofferson, 32, of Barrie is believed to have died of a fentanyl overdose.
Before entering the jail, inmates are strip searched, go through a metal detector and sit on a metal-detecting chair. But Correctional Officers are not allowed to conduct cavity searches, which means non-metallic contraband often sneaks in.
The body scanners were intended to capture this type of contraband, like drugs and ceramic knives. In a six-month pilot project at Toronto South Detention Centre in Mimico, 86 inmates were caught with pills, ceramic knives and marijuana.
But they only work if they are plugged in, something that hasn’t happened at CNCC since the machine was brought in in November.
“There’s a lot of red tape around getting these things live,” Dionne said. “The ministry has some stipulations about how many staff have to be trained before it can be used.”
So far, no correctional officers at CNCC have been trained.
“We’re not the only ones. There are a number of institutions in the same boat,” Dionne said. “They have the machines but they aren’t being operated”
NDP corrections critic Taras Natyschak called the situation “ridiculous.”
“Another clear example of the failure of the Liberals to enact the policies and procedures and deliver the resources needed for our correctional institutions,” he said.
“I don’t think the general population has a problem with the expense of bringing in the body scanners, but what they think and what is egregious is that they are being brought in without the right resources to use them.”
The body scanners have been delivered to the Toronto East Detention Centre and South West Detention Centre in Windsor but are simply gathering dust in those locations as well. Sources from Toronto East said they’ve found four ceramic knives in inmate living areas in the past five days.
“Training for the body scanner at CNCC is now operational and full staff training is expected to be completed in the coming weeks,” Ministry of Correctional Services spokesperson Andrew Morrison says. He did not give an expected date or a timeline for when training at other jails housing unused scanners will begin.
Dionne said staff at CNCC is dealing with the largest cluster of overdoses in recent history largely because the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services didn’t have “everything lined up.”
“I’m not going to say that the machine would make everything perfect, but it’s definitely a machine that will aid in the stopping of contraband, be it weapons or opiates, from coming into our institution.”