Correctional officers say they know drugs are inside Barton jail but don’t have power to seize them

Correctional officers say their hands are tied, telling an inquest they know there are drugs inside the Barton Street jail but they don’t have much power to seize them.

The ratio is two correctional officers to 72 inmates and security cameras aren’t monitored, so there’s lots of times where there are no eyes on the inmates.

The perfect example is Paul Lutraan. The inquest heard he intentionally got arrested to smuggle drugs inside. A correctional officer caught him with them, but he hid them up his rectum. Body cavity searches are not allowed. The only time officers are able to use force is when they are moving them to segregation.

Correctional officers have said they often smell marijuana and crack cocaine being smoked. They know it’s in there but they can’t find it and often there’s not enough staff to conduct searches.

When asked what would help, correctional staff say they need to focus on stopping the drugs from coming in the back door because once they are upstairs in the units there’s not much they can do.

We’ve learned every inmate who enters the jail goes through security, including a full body scanner introduced by the ministry in 2016 to catch contraband hidden inside inmates. But drugs are still getting inside and inmates continue to overdose.  Since then there have been at least five other deaths.