Correctional staff limited to prevent drugs in jail

There is a constant pull between balancing inmate rights and security inside the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre, an inquest into eight drug-related deaths at the jail heard Thursday.

“It’s very frustrating for officers working the front lines,” said jail Staff Sgt. Michael DuCheneau.

He was responding to testimony from correctional officers that their “hands are tied” when they know or suspect there are drugs on a unit because they can’t force an inmate to hand over the contraband.

Inmates have the right to refuse searches and correctional officers cannot use force to move anyone, except to go to segregation, DuCheneau said.

The large-scale inquest is examining the drug-related deaths of Louis Unelli, William Acheson, Trevor Burke, Marty Tykoliz, Stephen Neeson, David Gillan, Julien Walton and Peter McNelis.

They all died while they were inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre between 2012 and 2016.

In many of the cases, evidence has shown flagrant drug trafficking and use by inmates with impunity shortly before a death.

Since these deaths, there have been some security upgrades, including a fullbody scanner at the Barton Street jail that shows items hidden in body cavities.

The scanner is deployed on admission and if an inmate is suspected of hiding drugs.

Drugs still manage to get in, but DuCheneau said he believes that’s not because of a flaw in technology, but rather human error.

“What’s lacking is officers’ ability to read (the screen properly),” he said.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is looking at other technology, he said, but did not offer details.

Even when they know someone is hiding drugs, there are limits, he noted. Correctional staff cannot do body cavity searches. Instead, their only option is to put someone in segregation until the drugs are gone.

The inquest has shown this doesn’t always happen.

Complacency is “a big battle for us to fight,” DuCheneau said.

The inquest heard the fight to catch drugs and intervene when someone is overdosing has only become more complicated as the deadly fentanyl and carfentanil have emerged inside the Barton Street jail.

In the 2012 to 2014 deaths, there isn’t a mention of fentanyl. From witness accounts, those men were often heard loudly snoring or behaving strangely as they slowly overdosed.

But in 2015, that changed.

In the Oct. 2, 2015, death of Julien Walton, who was just 20, he was found slumped over, still clutching Monopoly money mid-game.

In his death, he still had a faint pulse when a correctional officer found him. But without access to naloxone, he was VSA (vital signs absent) by the time paramedics arrived.

Since Walton’s death, sergeants are now equipped with the nasal spray version of the opioid antidote and there is a nurse scheduled overnight.

Hamilton police Sgt. Ben Licop, who was a detective involved in three of the jail deaths — including Walton’s — lamented fentanyl’s impact and spoke on a personal level what it’s like having to tell family their loved one has died.

It’s “a sign of the times,” that as the powerful opioids are killing people outside the jail, that we’re also seeing those deaths in the jail, he said.

While the scope of this inquest only covers the eight deaths, ending in 2016, that’s not the end of the problem. Overdose deaths inside the Hamilton jail continue at a more frequent rate — the Spectator is aware of at least five possible overdose deaths in more recent years.

Before fentanyl and carfentanil, the drugs ending up in the jail were not as deadly, Licop said.

Now just “a small scoop of it, literally can cause the death of many.”

The inquest continues Monday.