Episode 3: Searching the Max

Shift - Episode 3: Searching the Max

On the northeast edge of the city of Edmonton, Alberta is Edmonton Institution, a maximum security prison with an extremely challenging inmate population of just over 300.

We spend this evening following Wayne Weum on his Monday night shift.

I'm Wayne, I work here at Edmonton Institution. I am a correctional officer 2, I've been here for 24 years.

Every single person entering the institution gets their property scanned, including me. “Okay, thanks, pal.”

And up we go.

Searching the max

So, we have a briefing three times a day, the big one is in the morning. They'll recap everything that's happened over the last 24 hours, so everybody's up to speed on what has happened, so they know what to expect going forward. 

The briefing

After the recap, they usually tell us about what's going to be happening today, what's going to be expected if there are inmates going in or out of the prison for appointments or transfers in and out,(...) what the routine is if anything has changed.

So, after all that, they'll take attendance and make sure everybody's here and ready to go to their post, and then we're dismissed and off we go.

19:30 h, inmate (inaudible) reportedly appeared ALOC (altered level of consciousness). He was moved to the interview room where healthcare could assess him. Staff were advised to monitor him for 2 hours.

19:33 h, unresponsive inmate found foaming at the mouth on (inaudible). Narcan administered. They requested and dispatched an ambulance for that as well. 19:39 h, additional nurses requested to attend…

That is a little bit more busy than we usually get for a briefing. Clearly there was some sort of a load that got dropped here in the last little while. It's not super rare that we hear that much in the way of drug activity. But what we'll be doing tonight is trying to get ahead of it. We're going to try and find whatever's left and nip the problem in the bud as best we can. Hopefully our intelligence officers are on it. They do a pretty good job and maybe get to the bottom of it. 

Security patrols

First walk of the shift. 

Wayne and Jarrod take a walk on a unit for the regular cell checks. 

During the walk, some inmates ask Wayne about applying for some privileges.

Those were inmate request forms. So those ones were one to a parole officer, please come and see me about some plans. The other one, you can see the young fellow there. He was just starting a life sentence. So, he's requesting to get some extra video games brought in. And the admissions and discharge unit will review that request. And if it's within the parameters of what they're allowed, they will certainly probably approve that and there will be a waiting period. But that's the process. They sign that inmate request, give it to me, I screen it. If it's appropriate, I sign it and give them their copy of it and mail it off. 

The gym

(Speaking on phone) “Okay, perfect. Yeah, we're going to be coming in probably just a few minutes. Okay, have a good one. Thank you.”

Ready to go to the gym? Okay.

We'll just get ourselves radioed in here.

Hey, Cody. Three staff going into the gym. Okay. Thanks.

Hey, guys.

This is the recreation area.

And this is where the officers who are posted here, they post up in here and they're able to monitor the activities out here.

A lot of them (inmates) come in and they'll just spend an hour or however long their recreation period is. From here, these guys are able to gauge the vibe of the gymnasium. If something is awry or if something feels off, these guys will be able to observe from this point and they can communicate with the people in the galleries. There's catwalks in all directions around here and the response options up there are much more plentiful than they are from in here. So these guys on the floor, they're just responsible for the observation and the supervision of the recreation area.

Any inmate behavior that's out of the ordinary brings us to attention and that's of course when we'll stand up and we'll take a little bit more of a keen observation. We're always observing. We'll know when something's going wrong. It happens very quickly. And then of course, that's when we start watching every single move, right? Everything here is recorded on video as well, every angle. So, we can capture inmate behavior just about everywhere. There are very, very few blind spots in the institution, least of all in places like the gymnasium and the rec yard where the risk is a little bit higher because this is oftentimes where they settle business, if you will. 

What we look for, the early indicators of something about to go wrong in the gymnasium at the very least is first of all, the noise will start or unnatural gathering, if you will, or sometimes they just meet in the middle. They will start having a discussion and you'll start seeing the nonverbal indicators amp up a little bit more action with the arms and a little bit more expressive behavior. Even if you're in a control post watching on video with no sound, you can see the vibe amping up a little bit. So when the noise starts, when the nonverbal communication starts to amp up a little bit or if you see two groups separate, that's when we start becoming keenly aware of what's going on.

All right. See you guys. Thanks a lot.

So, we announce when we're coming out onto the floor because while we're out here, the risk is a little bit more elevated. The gallery is up here to my left and right. They're aware that we're out here. Also, the people that are watching the end here where we're exiting the gym, they're going to be watching for us so they can crack that gate the moment we get in here like this.

The brutality that we see here in this security level, it can be quite disturbing if you're not used to it. And I don't suppose a person ever does get used to it. You just have to develop coping mechanisms and have meaningful things that you look forward to outside of your workplace. So for me, I've gotten used to being able to process it while I'm here if I witness or if I'm a part of an incident and a response. I can get through it. I can compartmentalize it inside. And then I can just work it out later with the things I have in place on the outside, which I'm also thankful for.

Cell search

And now we're off to Unit 5 to do some searching.

Every cell is completely searched twice a month as well as when needed, but with all the action in the institution the night before, the team elevates to conduct an exceptional search of the cells, specifically targeting the recent influx of drugs which have resulted in several overdoses.

It looks like here they've got the inmates pulled out of their cells and they're in the recreation area to facilitate us having the time and space to carry out the search appropriately. They would have all been strip searched and placed into the area. So, let's go up on the range and see if we can get into a cell.

Where are we searching? I'll go upstairs.

So you never know what you're going to get during a cell search. My partners found a little container of, how do I say this, human waste. And they only keep it for one thing. Some unlucky recipient will be on the other end of this if we hadn't have found it. So we're going to dispose of that. I'll save you the trouble of opening the lid, but trust me, it's not pretty when you open that lid. We'll leave that right there until we clean everything out. 

And the officers in here, they've also found a brew (homemade alcohol). It smells terrible. So they let that brew for a couple days and we'll warm up. And they'll ferment and then they'll strain it and drink it. 

If you're unfamiliar with prison made brew, stay unfamiliar with it because it's the most disgusting liquid that you can imagine. Inmates will use just about anything to, as a sugar source, as a base, and then anything for fermentation. It could be a few pieces of bread or if they manage to get themselves some yeast out of the kitchen somehow, they will make brew and they don't know the alcohol content, but it'll ferment for a few days and then they drink it. And then that's a bad day for everybody, most of all the staff. 

There's a lot of stuff in here. So, I imagine my partners here are going to be busy for quite some time in this one.

Okay, so what are we looking for?

We are looking for spice, brew (homemade alcohol), drugs, weapons. 

So this is a no-no. The sprinkler is integrated. So I'm taking a bit of a risk here. I have to uncover that. They're not allowed to cover their sprinkler like that. And all this guy did was wet some toilet paper. Okay, I'm not going to get a shower today. Thank goodness. We'll inspect all that and make sure that's intact because that's a nice chunky piece of metal there. We don't want that detached because that could very, very easily come off and be made into weapons.

Again, ventilation system. This is actually pretty well designed here like this where the lathing goes horizontally and vertically. So it's very difficult to actually jam a weapon in there.

Traditionally in the older cell blocks, you can see the horizontal lathing. And if they want to put a weapon in there, they'll put it in there with a little piece of string tied on it and they'll just leave the corner of the string out. When they want to retrieve it, all they do is pull the string and out it comes. 

But come and have a look at this. This is sharpening marks right here. If you can see the detail, what we've done is we've painted over it with some spray paint. That indicates to us that these are sharpening marks that have been found already and they've been dealt with. If they get too deep, we would just have our engineering department come and replace this whole faceplate. But an inmate in here spent some time rubbing metal on there to get it sharpened. We discovered it. We painted over it so we know what it's dealt with. Anything that's metal, no matter how hard it's bolted or glued to the wall, it's got the potential to be taken off the wall and used as a weapon. 

These are traditionally kept because that's the perfect size for a window. And when they want to protest or not have us look inside, they'll just slap that to the inside of the window. And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it until we open the door and take it down ourselves if they don't want to take it down. So, this is going to come with me into a garbage bag, just like all the other garbage in here as well.

As we're searching, if we don't find any weapons or drugs, we're able to clear the cell. 

I have yet to discover a power outlet that has not been scorched. As you can see right here, this has been scorched. What the inmates will do is they'll fashion a couple of copper wires together with some nail clippers or any other tiny little hunk of metal they can and plug it in here and they have themselves either something to power a tattoo gun with or to heat up their water. If they have just a silicone cup of water and no hot water available, the live current out of the electrical outlet will provide the heat on the other end of the metal to heat their water. And of course the result is the electrical outlet gets all scorched up. 

We did talk about it being a bad batch and I did say that there's really no such thing as a good batch anymore with the amount of fentanyl that's out there.

Here's something to look at. So as we're searching, I've come across this piece of clothing and it's got a little hole. It's very, very subtle.

It's in the collar of this coat, which otherwise, just as you look at the coat, it might go otherwise undetected.

That is a perfect little place to slip contraband and it can blend in very, very nicely with the rest of the clothes. So a weapon, a long skinny weapon will fit perfect in there or along there. And when the inmate wears it, it'll sit naturally or he might pop the collar up like this and it'll sit naturally. So, I'm just going to take extra time and I'm going to run my fingers through there and see if there's anything rigid or abnormal about that. It doesn't appear that there is.

But then this whole search, this enhanced search, we're looking for drugs. So the intensity of it, we have to really, really amp it up because it can be hidden pretty much anywhere, even in that little knot in the sheet.

Oh yeah, specialty mattress. Yeah, so this is a medical mattress. So even inmates with extra privileges aren't immune to breaking the rules. You can see that's all damaged in there. So of course, we take extra care, looking for stuff there.

So any given cell, this one for example, this, by our search plan, for us to be in compliance, we have to search this cell twice per month, no matter what.

Today, it's an exceptional search. So the circumstances dictate that we, in addition to our search plan, we have to do this as well. And the parameters of this search are very specific, whereas our search plan that we have, it's a general search for contraband. This is exceptional in that we're looking for drugs, namely spice and what else, Toby? Fentanyl. Fentanyl, yeah. So this one's going to take a little bit longer than our monthly cell searches that we do.

This cell's been cleared, despite there being an abnormally large amount of property in here, we were able to get through it.

Nothing out of the ordinary in here.

Search results

So the officers that searched that cell, they took a sample of the brew we found earlier, disposed of the rest of it, and I've got all the containers in here, and that container of fecal matter, that's going to make its way out of here too.

This is all out of the same cell. That's a Nintendo Switch docking station, and I imagine the rest of that either got broken or lost or otherwise damaged. That's what's left of it, and I imagine this guy was keeping it, because that's excellent weapons-grade material with all the rigid edges in there. That can be very, very easily broken up and sharpened, and I've shown you sharpening marks where inmates have rubbed against the metal of the brick. That would be very easily made into a weapon.

So, this broken electronic components, that looks like maybe a motherboard or a hard drive of something off a piece of electronic equipment. I'm going to guess that's from a Switch. Yeah, there it is. Game Boy, there's the directional pad right there, and stuff was harvested out of that.

This, I'm not sure what that is. Something inventive. A tongue depressor with a little nut and bolt through it. I've not seen that before.

So here we've got a whole bunch of different wires.

This one here, that is the top of a brew distill, so you can see the remnants right there in the cap. And that's just a regular cap from dish soap or barbecue sauce or something, joined together by a pen barrel, and they've got the venting system and the power system here. This looks like the dunker, where those prongs go in and keep the substance warm. That speeds up the fermentation process.

Okay, and of course, the end that plugs in. These are a dime a dozen. They can be found anywhere. Every stereo, TV, Nintendo Switch, alarm clock, they all have the same thing. So we find these all the time.

A little piece of rubber hose for the venting on the distillery.

And the information that I've got was all this stuff was taken out of the same cell, and this guy's going to run what's called a shop. He's the shopkeeper, and he is the guy that makes the best brew, which we're getting to in a second.

That's a glass bottle, and I don't know where that would have come from. That's not anything that we issue here. It's made out of glass, and inside it's just got another metal component from a piece of electronics. I'll keep that in there because it's a little bit sharp. But I imagine that got snuck in with a pen pack folded in amongst the clothes. It's very hard to detect with a metal detector because it's made out of glass, and it would look rather nondescript through the X-ray machine.

And where's that little shank? Okay, even something that little. So, what that is, that looks like a nail that was recovered somehow. And then the end right here, that plastic, was once a garbage bag. So all that equipment can be used to melt down a garbage bag to that size. That'll fit nicely into somebody's hand.

And, there we go. That can be super dangerous.

That's enough to take a life. And very, very easy to conceal, like my partner just said. That can go in a waistband or into a crotch or a rear end crack. And that would virtually always go undetected there.

Good finds, everybody. And sandpaper. So, we've got sandpaper. If you have a piece of metal and some time on your hands, they could spend some time on the sandpaper and sharpen that to a really, really fine point.

So all this stuff came out of one cell.

The find here was the grand finale in that cell of the distiller. That's nearly pure alcohol. So we see brews almost every day of the week. And they're mushy and they're full of ketchup and bread and they look terrible. They smell even worse. And just popping the lid off, I can smell the alcohol on that. It's nearly pure and it's making my eyes water. So I'm going to go ahead and just close that back up. I'm going to put it back here. 

That's going to get evidenced and taken up front. And the inmate responsible for that is going to have a seizure tag that long with all the items that came out of his cell. 

So good work on the officers there, especially with that alcohol and that glass bottle. And that weapon that was found, that's safely out of the cells now.

Good work.

This is our evidence locker right here. So every time we find something, any kind of contraband at all, we'll come in and we'll log it in this little book.

And this is how we keep track of everything that comes in. So, we got here evidence seizure tags. These are also on every cell block.

Once we find something that doesn't belong or any kind of contraband, we issue this. One of them is for our report. The next one goes on the inmate's case file. And then of course the inmate gets a copy of one of these two to let them know what we've seized. These show up in court when we testify in the court system all the time, if there's criminal charges that stem from anything that we found. So every locker is empty like this. I'll give you some light.

Every locker is empty, so when we find something, we put it in here. The locks are ready to go. And then once we have it in, we just secure it up like this and record evidence locker, in this case 17, and our security intelligence officers know where to find the evidence that we've reported.

Inmate subculture

I have an inmate who's due to be transferred to a medium security institution.

And I have to go give him a quick chat and ask him about what his plans are. And his parole officer has asked me to do this so I can report back to her and see if he's got things straightened out and ready to go.

Do you want to go to the server or right here?

Okay, so I just had a case conference with one of my offenders over on the cell block and it was regarding a transfer to medium security. And he does have that security classification, so the idea is to get him out of here as quick as possible so that he can settle in and do the rest of his time at a more appropriate institution.

So, something as simple as him coming off the range to have a chat with me, him being pulled off in front of all of his peers, that's going to make all their ears perk up. And his chief concern with our conversation was, "You know, I got pulled off the range in front of all my peers, how am I going to explain this?" "This looks bad for me." And I said, "Well, understood." "And we certainly don't want to put you in a bad spot." But at the same time, these conversations need to take place and hopefully there's not too much trouble because he's put in a situation where he has to navigate the prying eyes and ears and the inmate subculture, which can be quite brutal if a person's not careful.

As far as choosing this career, I remember a college professor said as I was getting to the end of my degree, he was making a speech at our graduation ceremony and as he was introducing each of us, what he said about me is, "This guy, Wayne is the only guy I've ever met that's come through this criminology program that said right from the start, he wanted to be a CO (correctional officer)." And that's true, I knew right off the bat in college, I wanted to be a correctional officer. Here I am, it's everything I wanted it to be, it's a good living, it's a rewarding career. So, if I could go back and do it all over again, maybe I would do just the same thing as I did. 

Hey buddy, we're heading out. Thanks.

It's one thing I'll never get used to is the noise. Even now going home, I have a quiet home, but if the TV's too loud, I'll notice it right away after coming from a shift where all I hear is banging and crashing and yelling. It's nice to go home to a quiet place.