All visitors to MA prisons will be subjected to drug-sniffing dogs and possible searches.
MA - A new policy coming to state prisons that involves dogs trained to sniff out drugs could rattle some cages, and it should cause us to ask: Is Massachusetts turning down the wrong criminal justice path, aiming to fix a problem without getting at its core cause?
Most likely you aren’t spending your days or nights hanging out in prison visiting rooms. But 11,500 people who live in our Massachusetts state prisons depend on visits from their families to give them hope that, one day, they will have a second chance at a productive life. That means letters and visits can be lifelines for prisoners. “Successful family and community reunification,” is part of the mission of Corrections, according to a resolution of the American Corrections Association.
A five-minute video (above) began playing on a loop in the visiting rooms of 17 Massachusetts state prisons, demonstrating how dogs will soon sniff the visiting areas and the visitors in search of contraband. Andrea Cabral, Secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS), said in an interview that the video and a March 6 memo, which Commissioner Luis Spencer sent to the 11,500 prisoners, are attempts to prepare Massachusetts for the new normal. They’re efforts discuss such protocols as these: If the dog “alerts” to the smell of drugs on a visitor and sits, the visitor must consent to a “thorough search” by Department of Correction (DOC) staff. If not, that person will be banned from entering any DOC facility. Accommodations will be made for those who have allergies or are “dog phobic,” but there is also the possibility, if drugs are found, of arrest on the spot.
But the numbers seem surprisingly low to warrant dogs across the state, according to DOC records provided by Terrel Harris, EOPSS Communications Director. Between January 2011 and June 2013, there were 107 “incidents involving the introduction of drugs to prisons by visitors” at the state’s 17 facilities. Officials insist they have a zero-tolerance drug policy in prisons and that drug detection dogs have sniffed out drugs in letters and packages addressed to prisoners. In 2011 and 2012, the DOC says they confiscated 18 instances of drugs that came in through the mail.
Currently, visitors are sent through a scanner, much like at an airport, and they’re often asked to take off articles of clothing such as shoes, belts, and the like. It’s not uncommon for an officer to inspect the bottom of a visitor’s feet, or to ask the visitor to open his mouth or to go through her hair. But If Cabral has her way, “Just the presence of the dog will keep people from bringing in drugs,” or so she hopes. The searches will be random, she says, and will begin at two prisons—Souza Baranowski and Concord—which she indicated have the highest rates of visitor drug infractions.
Some activists and family members of prisoners are not happy with this impending policy. A recent Globe article was highly critical of the plan, and social justice activists launched a letter and call-in campaign as soon as they got word of Spencer’s memo. Longtime social justice organizer Lois Ahrens, said in an interview that she feels the policy is “demeaning, degrading, and treats the visitor as a suspect.” Ahrens, Executive Director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project, also feels drug-sniffing dogs will make visiting even more cumbersome—waits can be long. “But our calls seem to be working and the policy might be on pause,” she added. On the DOC website, the original video recently has been shortened from the one above to show only a very friendly-looking golden retriever, and a new fact sheet has been added, possibly to make the process less intimidating and to justify the rationale.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/05/10/are-drug-detection-dogs-the-new-normal/?goback=.gde_4402440_member_239914561