Secret memo reveals deadly price of drugs in prison

It's no wonder a deadly bounty accrues from even a small drug debt in prison. The price of drugs and other forbidden substances, including tobacco, is skyrocketing. It means inmate-on-inmate attacks rise, both in number and violence, as convicts extract revenge for unpaid bills or to send bloody warnings to other debtors. An internal Corrections Canada memo obtained by Cancrime, written by a top official in Ontario (above) reveals that one marijuana joint now costs $50 inside a federal prison, roughly 10 times the price on the street in Kingston, Ontario, where a joint is typically $5.

The memo was written by Scott Edwards, director of operations at the Correctional Service's regional headquarters in Kingston, where the top bureaucrats pull the strings for all federal facilities in Ontario (the SIO refers to the prison's security intelligence officer). The memo was sent to other senior managers. According to Edwards' memo, a gram of marijuana is worth $100 inside a prison (each gram will typically produce two decent joints). For the same C note on the street in Kingston, you can buy a gram of cocaine. Memos were flying after the incident in January this year in which a man heaved a football packed with drugs over the wall of medium-security Collins Bay penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. Throwovers are a regular problem for the pen service, particularly because budget cuts have forced prison managers to stop staffing most of those observation towers you see ringing the perimeter of federal prisons. On the overnight shift at Collins Bay, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., the four perimeter watchtowers are empty. If someone stops a throwover, it's often by luck. In this case, staff from the adjoining minimum-security prison, Frontenac Institution, spotted the toss in progress and caught the smuggler. That also led to some internal griping. Janet de Laat, the warden of Frontenac, sent this internal memo (also obtained by Cancrime) to senior officials, noting that a federal strategy on drug smuggling cut minimum-security pens out of the budget pie:

At a number of meetings with minimum security wardens and NHQ, we expressed our willingness and ability to participate in the strategies to reduce/eliminate drug throw-overs. Notwithstanding our request for a share in the new resources, these have only been allocated to mediums or maximums.

In the past year, Frontenac staff have been involved in three attempted/actual drug throw-overs at Collins Bay Institution. Through the good work of the Frontenac staff, these criminals have been thwarted and potential institutional incidents at CBI have been avoided.

I would ask that you take note of the work that has been done by minimum institutions which are often adjacent to a medium/max institution and consider their role in this initiative.

I will also be initiating a form of commendation for the Frontenac staff involved. Not only did they observe this individual, they immediately drove to where the individual was leaving our property, asked him to come back onto the property and delivered him to CBI where he was arrested by the police. The search of CBI and location of the football (containing drugs) was done based on this information.

Of course, Corrections Canada would like the public to believe that it has a sophisticated system that roots out drugs and other contraband before it gets inside the country's 58 federal prisons. Don't believe it. Unless prisons begin strip searching every inmate every day and searching their cells every day, and searching every prison visitor, authorities will never stop the flow of illicit substances. Drug suppliers have been tossing dope-laden footballs, baseballs and tennis balls over the walls for decades. In addition, they secret narcotics inside pop cans, or baby diapers. Drugs are hidden and transported by just about every means you can imagine. Pot, hard dope like crack and heroin and all variety of pills are just too valuable to convicts and there's too much demand. It's like lemonade at a desert oasis.

And that's the biggest problem. Convicts are parched after a few days inside the joint – since many (an estimated 80%) arrive at the pen with a serious drug problem – and they're willing to do just about anything to slake that thirst, including extorting, assaulting and killing fellow cons.

Donzel (Chili) Young was stabbed through the heart and killed at Collins Bay pen in Kingston in 1995 over a crack cocaine debt worth a couple hundred bucks. Young was a drug supplier at the Bay and his killer, Michael Decoste, owed him. There was a disagreement over the size of the debt. There are many more drug assaults that are never reported and murders in prison that are never solved or clearly attributed to the drug trade. The con code dictates that those involved don't rat, unless they enjoy a shank in the back.

Drug-related violent assaults and murders are a regular occurrence at Collins Bay. In 2003, Robert Bruce was an inmate there who had amassed a $200 drug debt. He was found lying face up in his cell on October 6, in a pool of his blood. He'd been stabbed 11 times, as it turned out, because he'd been spreading some misinformation around the joint about his debt. Two fellow cons, Wayne Robson and Stewart McKenzie, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. At the trial in 2008 (snip from 2008 Whig-Standard story), Brennan Smart, Robson's lawyer, said Bruce let it be known in the prison grapevine that Robson would cover his debt:

Robson had no intention of assuming Bruce's debts and Smart told [the judge] he went to talk to Bruce in his cell about the difficulties he was creating.

[Bruce's] response, according to the defence lawyer, was to attack Robson with a piece of pipe, striking him across the head in front of other inmates.

"Mr. Robson knew he could not let the incident stand as conducted," Smart told the court. After supper that evening, he decided to return to Bruce's cell and confront him again.

Given his earlier reception, the defence lawyer said another unidentified inmate "suggested he should not go unarmed," and gave him a homemade prison knife, also known as a shiv.

Drugs are a fix for convicts who are bored, angry and addicted. It's unlikely the prison system will ever find a way to stop the flow.

Read it all