Page 4350 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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The introduction of very draconian measures would be required to keep drug paraphernalia out completely. It would involve such things as banning contact visits altogether. It would involve intrusive searching, including body searches, of all visitors, staff and authorised personnel visiting the facility. You can only imagine how the community, the Human Rights Commission and the ACT Ombudsman, not to mention organisations such as the United Nations, would react to such a policy shift.
This government takes on a threefold approach to addressing drugs at the AMC. These are supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction. The objective of supply reduction is to disrupt, discourage and prevent the production, supply and uptake of illicit drugs, and to control and regulate the supply of licit substances. Demand reduction aims to discourage the uptake of harmful drug use, including abstinence oriented strategies, treatment and support to reduce drug use through education. Finally, the objective of harm reduction acknowledges that illicit drug use occurs. It simply acknowledges that reality and provides a set of actions that aim to reduce the harm that arises as a consequence of this residual drug use.
As part of supply reduction, detection of illicit drugs at the AMC is achieved from a variety of sources, including electronic and physical surveillance and monitoring; intelligence-based interruption of supply through various methods, such as targeted monitoring of prisoner telephone conversations and interception of suspect mail; searching prisoners, staff, cells, common areas and visitors through the use of ion scan equipment and passive alert drug detection dogs; liaison and intelligence exchange with the AFP; banning of visitors who attempt to introduce drugs into the facilities; visitor signage warning of penalties for introducing drugs into the AMC; clear plastic valises for staff and official and other visitors’ effects on entry into the AMC; bulk breaking of goods and supplies outside the AMC secure perimeter; drug testing of all prisoners on admission; and targeted and random drug testing.
In addition to these measures, the government has increased its capacity to detect and prevent drugs at the AMC. Firstly, in February 2010—that is, early this year—two additional passive alert drug detection dogs and two additional dog handlers were recruited, meaning that Corrective Services now uses a total of four drug detection dogs.
Secondly, an X-ray scanner has been introduced to scan prisoners for contraband. The X-ray scanner is used on prisoners only and provides an alternative and less invasive method to strip searching. I should note that the ACT is the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce such a device which plays an important role in not only detecting contraband but also deterring prisoners from introducing illicit drugs and other prohibited items into the AMC.
Corrective Services also has a urinalysis testing regime whereby all prisoners are tested on admission to the prison. Targeted drug testing based on intelligence is also conducted, as is random drug testing, with penalties for positive results. There is also a continuous searching regime of the prison on a planned and random basis where officers utilise all search mechanisms to locate contraband. The number of occasions on which they find contraband items is an indication of the extent to which people
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