Troubled jail gets dog, scanners to tackle drug issue
Minister says inmates will benefit from additional health care staff
London’s provincial jail will get a drug-sniffing dog, ion scanners and other new security tools to stem the influx of deadly opioid drugs, Ontario’s corrections minister said.
Inmates battling addiction also will get more help from additional health care staff and a pilot project aimed at getting them to hospital faster, Community and Correctional Services Minister Michael Tibollo said.
But the divisive symbol of drugs and death at the entrance to Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) — homemade crosses erected for the 13 inmates who died over the past nine years — remains a tougher issue to tackle, the new Progressive Conservative cabinet minister acknowledged. “I would like to see them removed from there, but something permanent to remember their (inmates’) lives because, a life does matter, … but at the same time allow the officers here to move on,” Tibollo said at news conference inside EMDC’s regional intermittent centre, last week. “From my standpoint, it’s time that we start to heal.”
Some family members want to meet with provincial officials to resolve the issue, but the province can’t simply sit down with people who are suing the government over the deaths, Tibollo said. Families of the inmates erected the crosses in June, in part to push for change. Correctional officers have told Postmedia News the crosses can trigger their own trauma from the constant fight to keep inmates safe and alive.
“When you have ongoing litigation it makes it very difficult to meet,” he said.
That’s not true, countered London lawyer Kevin Egan, who represents many of the families involved in litigation, and has been trying at the same time to solve the divide over the crosses.
“I don’t think that’s fair and accurate at all. We could meet through legal counsel, if that is what the minister wants,” Egan said. “Putting up a memorial to people who died in custody in no way is an admission of liability or anything other than respect.” Drugs, or improper addiction treatment, have been a factor or suspected factor in eight of the 13
What is the purpose of a corrections facility? … We’re looking to rehabilitate and reintegrate individuals back into the community.
deaths since 2009.
In August alone, correctional staff helped save the lives of inmates 12 times, according to the province.
EMDC will be one of the first provincial institutions to test the ion scanners, officially called Ion Mobility Spectrometry devices. The hand-held scanners can be used in mail rooms, and on staff, visitors and inmates to detect minute particles of drugs. Other measures to tackle the drug problem announced by Tibollo Friday include:
More random cell checks.
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Enhanced training for staff to ■ recognize signs of a drug overdose. Additional correctional staff,
■ especially at the admitting unit, to enhance security. Enhanced training for staff on
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X-ray body scanners, which were expected to do a better job of stopping drug smuggling. “We’re going to ensure they (correctional officers) have the tools to do their job better and we’re going to restore the confidence and trust in them and in the community,” Tibollo said.
Tibollo shared the story of a correctional officer at EMDC who, on her first shift, recently saved an inmate overdosing on fentanyl. “This is the story that I wish would get out, the story that we have people here that are putting their lives in harm’s way. These are the people we should be celebrating, not criticizing.”
At the same time, EMDC and other correctional facilities have to do a better job rehabilitating inmates, Tibollo said. “What is the purpose of a corrections facility?” Tibollo said.
“Is it to shelf an individual and give him a couple of years or six months or three months or whatever on the shelf ? Or is it to help that person rehabilitate? We’re looking to rehabilitate and reintegrate individuals back into the community.”
Egan has been battling for improvements to EMDC for years, through several different Liberal corrections ministers.
“I’ve sat with too many families who have lost a loved one to say, ‘OK, everything is fine now because of his (Tibollo’s) words,’ but hope springs eternal,” Egan said. “When there was a change in government, I thought, ‘this is an opportunity to fix things.’”