The director of the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre believes its new body scanner will help block drugs from entering the jail, but admitted not a lot of potential smugglers know about it — yet.

“Having this tool buried deep in our facility does little to deter people on the street knowing that they shouldn’t be packing stuff when they come to our facility,” Julien Hulet said shortly before a show-and-tell for the media at the jail.

By offering media a chance to photograph the scanner up close at Monday’s news conference, Hulet hopes to get the word out to anyone thinking about smuggling drugs into the jail.

The body scanner began operating at the jail on the city’s outskirts on Oct. 9. The total cost was $175,301, according to documents acquired through a Postmedia access to information request. Three other scanners are scheduled to be installed at provincial jails by 2022.

A standing offer agreement with the scanner’s manufacturer, Visiontec Systems, lists the total cost of its contract with the province at $722,795. The province was unable to confirm how much has already been paid. A spokesman did indicate the government had budgeted $1.05 million this fiscal year for “contraband reduction,” including the drug toilet, scanners in Regina and Saskatoon jails, as well as training and administration costs.

It’s the price of grappling with a long-standing problem known as “suitcasing” — hiding drugs inside body cavities to smuggle them into Saskatchewan’s jails. One popular method involves putting drugs inside plastic Kinder Surprise egg containers, and wrapping them in tape and a condom, according to corrections officials.

Marosia Donald, right, Admitting Supervisor at the Regina Correctional Centre, is scanned by the facility’s electronic body scanner, which is able to locate contraband hidden within the body. BRANDON HARDER / Regina Leader-Post

To use the scanner, a person stands on a platform that moves between two towers. A skeletal image of a subject’s entire body is sent to a computer screen. Anything hidden inside clothing or the body itself will show up.

Both the body scanner and a drug toilet, capable of cleansing and separating drugs evacuated from an inmate, are new tools in the fight against smuggling. It’s a lucrative trade run by gangs inside the jail, Hulet said, with a pouch of tobacco that normally sells for $50 fetching $500 on the inside.

A key challenge for correctional facilities, drugs circulating in the jail are detrimental to inmate rehabilitation programs, Hulet noted. They can also prove deadly. In 2017, a Regina inmate died from a fatal fentanyl overdose.

The presence of fentanyl is considered dangerous for the inmates as well as guards.

“Being contaminated poses a severe or a serious risk for our staff that work in this facility, so this piece of equipment will help minimize that,” said Hulet.

Since it became operational, the body scanner has detected contraband three times — leading to seizures of tobacco, marijuana and heroin.

Depending on the weight of the individual, higher doses of X-ray scans are needed. But Hulet said a scan is compliant with Health Canada rules and falls within safe amounts of radiation exposure, equivalent to the exposure that comes from consuming the potassium in a single banana.

Julien Hulet, Director of the Regina Correctional Centre, speaks to media at the centre regarding the installation of a body scanning machine and specialized contraband retrieval toilet. BRANDON HARDER / Regina Leader-Post

Visiontec does not extract or store any X-ray data recorded on the scanner; that data remains within the correctional centre. As an added privacy protection, the screen that shows the body scan is shielded by panels so the image cannot be viewed from the sides.

The jail also offers an amnesty program in which incoming inmates can surrender drugs without fear of further legal punishment. That program has yielded surrendered drugs three times.

“No questions asked, we just don’t want it in our building,” said Hulet.

Inmates can be scanned when entering the facility, or during random and routine searches. Guards at the facility are not scanned because, as Hulet explained, “Typically guards don’t smuggle contraband into jail.”

When asked if guards were considered to be above suspicion when it comes to drug smuggling, Hulet confirmed that they indeed were. But it’s not unheard of.

The specialized toilet for catching contraband at the Regina Correctional Centre. BRANDON HARDER / Regina Leader-Post

In 2012, a former guard was sentenced to five years in prison after he was convicted at trial of smuggling drugs into the Regina jail. Another Regina guard, caught in the same 2009 investigation, also pleaded guilty to smuggling.

During the trial, the judge remarked how “easy” it was for guards to take drugs into the jail because they were trusted to act in a manner “fitting their occupation.”

While the province is taking steps to prevent drugs from entering jails, advocates have also called for more support programs for addicted inmate. Hulet estimated 75 per cent of men who come into Saskatchewan’s correctional system have a drug issue.

The Regina jail does offer addictions programming through the Designated Substance Abuse Treatment unit. It has received high praise from researchers, but only 20 spots are available for each five-week program intake. Though the province is looking to expand the program to other jails, Hulet had no news on more beds being added in the Regina jail.

“At this point we haven’t entertained that idea,” he said.