CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer
April 4, 2004
 
Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell is evaluating the accuracy of prison drug testing, prompted in part by a flood of prisoner complaints about flawed results.

"There's definitely a need to determine whether or not this system is effective because of the number of complaints I'm getting," Campbell said.

UAB forensic science professor Fred Smith, who specializes in drug testing, said he has found one potential problem in the system - the screens used to test prisoners produce a small percentage of false positives. Errors occur because the second tests don't use a different method for confirmation, he said.

"That's why the government requires labs testing employees to jump through another hoop before they accuse people of using drugs," Smith said.

Alabama prisons impose a more rigid drug testing policy on prisoners than is allowed by the federal government on employees. Prison policies also are stricter than those followed by the Alabama Department of Pardons and Paroles in testing parolees.

Cold medicines, prescription drugs and other substances can cause false positives in urine tests. While other agencies allow for possibility of errors, and re-test using a different method, DOC does not. Also, some labs and employers require a medical review of test results. DOC does not.

Some of the protests are coming from the Birmingham Work Release Center, where lawyers representing Alabama's female inmates have raised concerns about the accuracy and reliability of DOC drug tests.

Damaging results:

A positive result can hurt an inmate's shot at parole, force an inmate to lose a work-release job, cost him or her good time and possibly result in return to a more secure prison. The prison system also makes prisoners pay fees after a positive test.

"To me, it's unconscionable not to stop the program, identify the problem and figure out a way to fix it," said Tamara Serwer Caldas, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which represents female prisoners in a class action lawsuit against the state. Since the Atlanta-based center has been looking into the drug-testing issue, she has heard from former inmates who raised these issues years ago, but were ignored.

Besides costing the state, the errors are demoralizing to prisoners, many of whom have completed drug rehabilitation and are trying to follow the rules, Serwer Caldas said.

"Prisoners have no recourse to refute these potentially erroneous results," said UAB's Smith. "When a person is wrongly accused of drug use, it destroys their confidence in the system."

Scientific study:

Smith reviewed a description of DOC's procedures as described by Officer Willie Lee, who tests inmates at several prisons including Donaldson and Birmingham Work Release. "A published scientific study has shown that the test in use at Donaldson Correctional Facility wrongly identified urine specimens as positive one out of a hundred times," said Smith, a forensic analytical toxicologist in UAB's graduate program in forensic science.

The study, published in the July 1995 Journal of Forensic Sciences, found that the Microgenics CEDIA assay screening test, which is used by DOC, had a 98.9 percent sensitivity, meaning 1.1 percent of results are false positives.

Prison officials said they did not always use that particular screen anymore. They also use other tests, too.

Other similar screens also create false positives, Smith said.

The parole board also uses a drug test that's known to create a small percentage of false positives, said Ann Cargo, field services director for the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. She estimates the rate is about 1 percent to 3 percent.

With that in mind, parole officers give parolees several chances before sending them back to prison.

A parole officer confronts and counsels a parolee and possibly refers him to more intense drug counseling after the first two positive tests. A third dirty test is a parole violation, Cargo said.

Outside tests:

Parole also allows outside tests, but the prison system does not.

"Anytime we have an offender that's adamant they're not positive, they can have their own test done at their own expense, and we will accept the results of that test," Cargo said. "We will give them the benefit of the doubt and let their results stand, knowing if they're doing it, we'll catch them sooner or later."

Numerous Alabama inmates have requested re-tests, or outside lab tests and been denied, said Serwer Caldas.

Campbell said his evaluation will look at drug testing throughout the system. With Alabama's budget crisis and bulging prisons, he said he doesn't want anyone to stay in prison longer than the law requires.

"There's not a lot of flexibility right now," he said. "I want to look at it to see if we've been effective in what we've done, and could we lend any more discretion to what were doing."

DOC's 1.8 percent positive test rate was one of the lowest in the country, said DOC spokesman Brian Corbett.

Last fiscal year, the prison system performed 121,066 drug tests on prisoners and staff. Of those, 2,141 tested positive for illegal drugs or alcohol.

That's down from 3,769 positives last year, according to figures provided by Corbett. He cited an "aggressive drug treatment program" for the drop.

When a prison employee tests positive, DOC sends the sample to an outside lab for confirmation. Alabama prisoners don't get another test.

Part of his evaluation would be whether that is appropriate, Campbell said.

"In most states, I would think a field test is conducted, and the results would be sent out for confirmation," he said.

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