Page 4358 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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Overall, prisons with NSPs have not resulted in increased drug use, have not caused security or safety concerns, and have reduced the risk of needle-stick injuries to prison staff. Evaluations have shown that NSPs actually make prisons safer. NSPs also result in people accessing drug treatment.
I would like to emphasis again that last point because this is actually from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. They are not necessarily known as a group who would come out with that sort of statement if they did not have the evidence to back it up.
What the international experience has also shown—and this is something I learnt from my meetings in Lisbon on this matter—is that creating an environment where drug use, particularly through the use of needles, and its related health impacts can be discussed in an open way has a far greater educative and direct impact on the level of drug use. With the experience in Portugal, it was noted, in my meetings, that one of the main achievements of having NSPs was that they were able to provide training sessions with health staff, corrections officers and prisoners in regard to health, harm reduction and infections, and almost 100 per cent of prison staff were reached with these programs.
The steps we should be taking from here on are: to engage in a constructive conversation with corrections and health staff, community organisations involved in the provision of health services in the AMC and the community in general about the next steps of implementation. Also, when we are dealing with highly emotive and, unfortunately in this instance, politicised debates, it is imperative that we look to the evidence base.
It is notable that Mr Hanson has chosen not to outline any specific additional measures in his motion that the corrections minister should take to eradicate illicit drugs at the AMC. That is because, as I highlighted in my supplementary question without notice yesterday, to eradicate or, closer to the point, merely reduce drugs in prison, the types of measures that corrections would have to implement would be incredibly draconian, such as complete solitary confinement, no contact visits, extensive and invasive searches of all prisoners, visitors and staff, including health staff and corrections officers, and would create substantial difficulties in maintaining prisoner cooperation as well as the goals of a human rights compliant prison.
Once again, even in maximum security prisons where such measures exist in part or in full, drug use has not been eradicated. Human ingenuity has shown that prisoners have always been able to evade even the most stringent detection regimes. The question then is: given that drugs are present, what is the most effective course of action that we should take?
The Greens are constantly accused, in particular by the Canberra Liberals, of ignoring the reality of the situation. Here is a perfect example of where the Canberra Liberals are completely ignoring the reality of the situation and looking to policies and measures which have been proven not to work and have been dismissed by governments and prisons around the world.
Mr Hanson: But not in Australia.
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