Meet the duo who hunt out drugs in prisons
Ashley Hartstone and Ranger have sniffed out all sorts of hiding places and culprits as they work to keep drugs out of Waikato prisons.
The drug detection duo are based at Waikeria Prison, but at times travel to Springhill and Tongariro for operational requirements.
Ranger, a three and a half year old English Springer Spaniel, can detect meth, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and fubinaca which is a synthetic powder. Of those drugs, Ranger’s trained on samples ranging from 1-10g.
“We search a wide variety of that and at times we will search larger odours as well because we do sometimes assist police and customs with their jobs. So we make sure the dogs are trained on a wide variety of odours.”
A nose like Ranger’s can prove pivotal. In the past 12 months nearly 300 unauthorised items have been discovered across the three sites.
A good example of what shows up is a corrections officer is awaiting sentencing after being subjected to a random search at a Waikato prison. It resulted in finding a container with three “sausages” containing 1.75g of meth, 21.1g of cannabis, 15.8g of synthetic cannabis and 163.5g of tobacco.
Hartstone wouldn’t say what their biggest find had been.
“I will say over the past 12 months the central region has found over 270 unauthorised items over the three sites. That ranges from illicit drugs, to cell phones, tobacco, and other items as well.”
And it doesn’t matter what capacity you are entering the prison in if Hartstone and Ranger are doing a checkpoint.
“I check anyone who comes in from staff to contractors all up and down the chain. I don't discriminate - what the dog tells me he tells me.”
Hartstone wouldn’t say if he’d found drugs on a staff member.
The drug busting duo have found items in car glove boxes, middle consoles, door jams, under seats, in pockets or bra straps.
Prison cells, too, Hartstone said - anywhere is an opportunity.
“They dig a hole behind the pin boards, anywhere you can think of they will try it.”
There’s also postal mail checks for the pair three times a week. They go into cells one to three times a week and at Waikeria visitors are only allowed at the weekends so they can work a Saturday or Sunday.
They also peruse the boundaries of the prisons in case people had attempted to throw items over the fence.
The consequences of finding drugs at a checkpoint depends on how much they find.
“If it’s a significant amount of class A substance we will arrest and the police will come out and we pass it on to them.
“Smaller amounts of things we will just exclude them from the site and they probably won’t be able to visit for a day to two years.”
If drugs are found in connection to a prisoner then it’s normally dealt with internally and not added to their sentence. Hartstone couldn’t say if attempts to smuggle drugs into prisons were increasing.
“Certain things increase and certain things decrease over time, it’s just swings and roundabouts.”
Hartstone said he and Ranger are best friends. After a day’s work, they both head back to the family home.