Prison guard faces probe after reporting drugs on baby

[0utrider]

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimesc...a089d8&k=41751

[top]Glenda Luymes, CanWest News Service

Published: Friday, January 25, 2008
ABBOTSFORD -- Babies are being used to smuggle drugs into B.C. prisons, according to the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.
The union says that instead of following up on drug scans that showed cocaine residue on a baby stroller last fall, managers at a prison outside Vancouver have threatened disciplinary action against the guard who reported the incident to child-welfare authorities.
The guard, Terry Leger, said he contacted the Ministry of Children and Family Development after looking at visitor records at the Matsqui Institute, a medium security federal prison in Abbotsford, and noting that a visitor had tested positive for drug residues on eight different visits, while on two occasions her baby's clothing had tested positive for cocaine and meth. Police were never called to deal with the incidents.
"That was my concern -- to protect those children," Leger said at a news conference yesterday. "A baby who is in contact with these drugs is in serious danger."
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day reacted to the news conference yesterday, saying he is working to ensure that children are not used as unwitting mules to sneak illicit drugs into prisons.
Day wrote last fall to the head of the Correctional Service of Canada, asking that the drug search policy be updated so that babies and young children visiting inmates could not be used "to traffic narcotics," his aide Melissa LeClerc said.