Ontario’s 25 jails, detention and correctional centres are going to welcome some new staff—four more dogs trained to detect all types of drugs in the smallest quantities.
“Every institution has access to a canine handler, and we’re just recently exploring an expansion of the program to add more dogs across the province,” says Michael Pernal, a senior manager with the specialized operations unit for Correctional Services.
“We have deployed our canines over 2,000 times in the last year alone to conduct operational searches across the province, and they are finding contraband on a regular basis,” Pernal explains.
The dogs currently cover regions and travel with their handlers from institution to institution; the expansion would enable them to be dedicated to fewer jails and spend more time in institutions with higher rates of drug use.
Plans for expansion have been in the works for well over a decade, but inclusion in the Protecting Ontario’s Streets and Communities Act, 2026, tabled in May, solidifies the plan if the legislation passes this fall.
Contraband has been an ongoing issue at Ontario’s jails. It has led to violence, coercion, overdoses, and hospitalization of both staff and inmates who have been exposed.
And while inmates are searched upon entry with X-rays and body scanners, staff and visitors, including deliveries, are only randomly selected for searches.
The amount of drugs these dogs can detect is impressively small — the sort of quantities that can easily evade detection through electronic or physical searches.
“You see a lot of these shows on TV like border services, and they search a suitcase, and they find a large amount of substance. We’re not looking for large amounts. We’re looking very, very minute amounts; grams, tenths of grams, that sort of thing,” explains Jason Powell, a veteran correctional officer and the handler of Chase, one of the drug-detecting dogs.
“When it comes to success, success for me is to go into a search and either come up with nothing, and I know nothing is there, so that the area is safe. Or we come across and get all those small minute amounts that the search team wasn’t able to recover, and then I can assure and tell everyone that the unit is safe and clean.”
“He finds things all the time. I hate to admit it, but he’s very, very good at his job,” Powell says, gesturing to Chase, who cleared a workshop on the grounds of Maplehurst in mere minutes—a task that would’ve taken several officers, several hours with no guarantee of finding all the narcotics.
Peter Figliola, a long-time officer and Ministry employee, says these additional dogs are welcome but long overdue.
“The inmates, knowing that there’s another protection in place for staff, with canines that can detect contraband drugs, it makes our work environment a lot safer, and it makes it safer for the inmates as well.”
It isn’t just about curbing the flow of drugs—it’s about safety. According to data obtained by CityNews through a Freedom of Information request, inmate-on-inmate violence has nearly doubled over the past four years and inmate assaults on staff have climbed by more than 27 per cent since 2023.
Much of that violence has been fueled by drugs; its use, or the pursuit of the illicit substances.
“It can lead to fights. It can be a whole multitude of issues that the officers are going to have to deal with,” explains Powell. “So not only the narcotic itself, but the social aspect of the drugs and addiction cause all sorts of other issues. Those officers then have to respond to that and potentially get hurt in the process.”
“Reducing contraband can lead to reduced violence in institutions, but we have to also reflect that our provincial inmate counts are higher than traditionally normal,” says Parnel. And violence, combined with overcrowding, has often led to reduced sentences for violent criminals.
“There’s a lot of drive to be creative and bring contraband into the institutions,” says Parnel. And that means staff have to keep thinking about different ways to prevent drugs from getting inside.
“(The inmates) would send in packages or soaked paper with drugs on it through the mail, and then we noticed that they were consuming the drugs on the unit, eating their mail. So, we, the Ministry, instituted a new policy where all the mail now is screened before it comes into the back,” Powell recalls.
He says most mail never makes it into inmates’ hands now. It is photocopied or digitized before being handed over.
Figlioa says officers are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to stopping drug use in jails but is happy there will soon be more paws on the ground to help.
“I think that there’s a lot more that needs to be done, but it is definitely a step in the right direction,” he says.
If the legislation passes, the Ministry hopes to have these additional teams in place early in the new year.
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