The Public Safety department is putting “airport-style” full-body scanners in federal prisons.. Prison cell .The government approved the full-body scanners in 2019 to be used in prisons..This decision happened 15 years after the scanners were first used in Canadian airports..“The use of body scan search technology is considerate of inmate, staff and visitor gender considerations and of individuals with a history of abuse or trauma and may address any issues related to gender, religious or cultural needs,” the department wrote in a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement..Parliament four years ago passed Bill C-83 An Act to Amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to permit full body scans of inmates and visitors at penitentiaries..“It will take some time for body scanners to be installed in every institution,” then-Liberal MP Karen McCrimmon (Kanata-Carleton, ON), parliamentary secretary for Public Safety, said at the time..“Correctional staff still need to be confident inmates are not smuggling drugs.”.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the department on Saturday, in a legal notice, said it would spend $7.8 million installing the machines..Identical full body scanners screen air passengers under a federal program first introduced at British Columbia’s Kelowna International Airport in 2008..The federal prison service complained guards are currently limited to using “frisk searches,” handheld X-ray scanners and metal detectors to intercept contraband..“Although these methods are very effective in detecting contraband on a person, they do not address the risk associated to individuals attempting to introduce contraband hidden inside a person,” said the Analysis statement..Narcotic use in prisons increased despite Parliament’s 2015 passage of Bill C-12 the Drug-Free Prisons Act that cancelled parole for inmates who failed a drug test..Prison managers, in a 2020 report, acknowledged the law was ineffective..“The number of opioid-related overdose incidents in federal custody has increased over the past six years,” said the report Overdose Incidents in Federal Custody..Don Head, then-commissioner of the Correctional Service, in 2015 testimony at the Commons Public Safety committee detailed drug smuggling methods in prisons..“We’ve seen an increase in the introduction of drugs through indirect means such as drugs being tied to arrows and being shot into the yard,” said Head..“We’ve seen tennis balls that have been hollowed out and launched through grapefruit gun kinds of things, with drugs being shot into the exercise yards. We’ve even seen dead birds whose insides have been removed and have been launched into the yard with drugs inside to make it look like a bird has fallen from the sky.”
