Correctional officers in medium and maximum prisons in B.C. are fighting an uphill battle, stretched thin trying to combat daily drone deliveries of drugs, weapons and cellphones, according to their union.
John Randle, regional president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said the technology has “become a huge plague” for his members, dropping drugs in quantities he’s never seen before.
“Our biggest concern is the advancement in technology that criminals have to get contraband into the institutions,” he told Global News. “Along with the drugs and contraband comes all the other violence.”
Drones make daily deliveries to all eight B.C. medium and maximum institutions, sometimes delivering packages right to outstretched hands through prison cell windows, Randle said.
“A drone can fly up like an Amazon delivery within feet of the window,” he said.
The union president said drone-drops to prisons is not new, but in the past few years the problem has grown from a rare occurrence to a common sight. The most alarming aspect, he added, is that B.C. institutions don’t have any drone detection technology, so correctional officers have to rely on looking up in the sky to spot them.
“Our capability right now is officer presence. That is our number one deterrent, but we’re extremely short-staffed,” Randle said. “We need more officers to man more towers. We really need the technology, there is drone detection technology out there.”
Asked about the union’s concerns, Correctional Service Canada director of security operations Mistrale Meilleur said the CSC uses a “multi-layered approach” to detect drones. It includes drone detection technology, cell phone detector dogs and intelligence programs.
“We’ve seen a lot of successes across the country when it comes to those more traditional methods of detection. Some of the greatest successes that we’ve seen is by having staff be vigilant and utilizing our intelligence program,” Meilleur said.
The union, however, maintains there is no anti-drone tech in B.C. Just last week, B.C. received its first cellphone-detecting dog, which will be for the entire province, Randle said.
The union has put together a package of requests to CSC, including more funding for more officers and technology. Randle said CSC is “considering the requests.”
Randle said the contraband items can have, and are having, serious consequences inside the institutions. With more drugs and phones, violence — including serious gang conflicts — is rising, he explained.
“It’s the market on the inside … it’s the selling and collecting debt. It has gone up immensely, especially with the street gangs as well. It follows the street, the violence you see on the street is multiplied on the inside.”
Hundreds of cellphones are now seized annually, he added. Some of the most dangerous gangsters in the province, serving sentences at maximum security facilities, have widespread access to phones and can still operate from their cells, he said.
There are health issues linked to the contraband as well, including dozens of prisoner overdoses.
When an inmate overdoses, many times they are taken off-site to a local area hospital for treatment. When they arrive, the overdosed inmates skip hospital wait lines and sometimes take a bed overnight.
In November, two inmates at Mountain Institution near Agassiz died from overdoses.