NEWS: SMH - 10/04/07 'Crackdowns failing in battle on drugs in jail'

Crackdowns failing in battle on drugs in jail
Matthew Moore Freedom of Information Editor
April 10, 2007

THE battle against drugs in NSW jails has fizzled into an uneasy truce, with about one in seven prisoners testing positive to unauthorised drug use in each of the past five years.

Figures provided by the Department of Corrective Services under freedom of information laws show repeated crackdowns on drugs in jails have had no significant effect on the number of positive tests results.

A huge random and targeted drug testing campaign each year consistently finds between 12.5 and 14.5 per cent of prisoners' urine samples test positive for "non-authorised drugs".

Last year 2459 of the 18,401 urine samples - 13.36 per cent - tested positive to a range of illegal drugs including cocaine, cannabis and methamphetamine (ice). Prisoners also tested positive to the unauthorised use of prescription drugs.

Although the Herald asked for a breakdown, the department did not reveal the positive results for each drug. Nor did it provide information on which prisons had the highest levels of unauthorised drug use. The figures do not include tests for alcohol because the department says it does not have them.

The department also said it had produced no assessments or reports of the urine testing program despite recording about 2000 positive results tests each year.

But a departmental report in 2004 comparing saliva testing with urine testing said the level of illegal drug use may be much higher than the new figures show.

It found that of 315 urine tests carried out in prisons and community institutions, 37 per cent tested positive for cannabis, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepines (such as Valium).

A University of NSW academic with an interest in prisons, Eileen Baldry, said it impossible to know what was really happening, because the department did not publish the results of its urine tests nor reports produced using the data.

"It's unconscionable to spend all that money and not make the information available," she said. "Dr Baldry said such data was published as a matter of routine in the US and it should should be the same here.

A spokeswoman for the department, Candace Sutton, said it was impossible to keep all drugs out of jail but said drug use plummeted when people entered prison.

On arriving in jail, 43 per cent of inmates tested positive for alcohol or drugs. That figure dropped to about 13 per cent, she said. "The drop in drug use from the time of reception is greatest for illicit drugs, such as heroin, amphetamines and cocaine," Ms Sutton said.

Victoria's prisons department recently released figures which showed 3.6 per cent of 4600 random urine tests were positive, but Ms Sutton warned against comparisons.

"It is not possible to compare Victoria to NSW, as Victoria did not publish its counting rules and its statistical methodology is unknown," she said.

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Drug use in prisons is of no interest to you
Posted by Matthew Moore
April 11, 2007 7:29 PM

At any time of day at least 1200 inmates of NSW jails are floating through their sentences in a drug-induced haze. We know this because every time the Department of Corrective Services tests them, one in seven comes up positive.

And yet, the department has ruled that although this information is not exempt from release, it is not in the public interest to do so.

In a determination that leaves you wondering just what material will ever qualify as being of public interest, the acting Commissioner of Corrective Services, Luke Grant, says a request for these results has failed seven out of seven public interest tests.

See if you can understand the thinking in the bureaucracy that runs the state's prisons. In the late 1980s, the Greiner government began compulsory urine testing of prisoners and released the results. Nearly twenty years later, testing is a fixed part of prison life. Each year about 18,000 tests are done on the 9000 inmates and we now know the results are consistently 12.5 to 14.5 per cent positive.

Results have not been released for years, so the Herald lodged a freedom-of-information request for figures for the past five years ,with a breakdown of which drugs had been detected. We also sought any reports on the program for the same period, to see whether the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost each year were worth spending. And we asked for the 50 per cent discount on any charges.

These turned out to be a modest $232.50, but the law says discounts are available in only cases of public interest.

Although it agreed to release the material requested, the department refused the discount. We asked for a review of that decision. As the acting departmental head, it was Mr Grant's job to explain why it was not in the public interest to grant access to these results, which used to be released by the government without charge.

In deciding where the public interest lay, Mr Grant referred to the Premier's guidelines on freedom of information. They are the ones written in 1994, before the internet arrived; the same ones which the Premier told Parliament in August were being updated and would be released last December. Those old guidelines give Mr Grant seven points to consider before granting a discount.

There is no space to list them all, but here is a summary. To what extent will the information be made public? What is the value/benefit/interest of the public in the information? Is the information otherwise available to the public? Will granting a discount foster the disclosure of information? Will the discount help extend as far as possible the right of the public to access government information?

Mr Grant found against the Herald on every count. One reason he cited was that the department already published reports on drug use by prisoners. That is true, but these contain radically different findings to the urine tests, with no explanation of why.

The latest report, dated 2005,nts was based on interviews with prisoners. Itnte said 63 per cent of male prisoners used illegal drugs in jails. And that figure did not include the unauthorised prescription drugs that were caught in the urine tests.

How widespread that problem is we do not know, because the department did not release those figures in its breakdown of the urine results. It says it provided a breakdown, but it was a breakdown minus the numbers. Most would call it a list.

More proof of insufficient public interest was the Herald's handling of documents received from an earlier freedom-of-information request for the results of a new program of drug-testing prison officers.

Mr Grant was concerned that a Herald report detailing these results appeared under the headline ``Prison system skilled at delaying release of facts''. The headline, on this column in December, ``would not have captured the attention of members of the public who are interested in the drug testing of staff ...''.

Therefore, he argued, the information would not have flowed to the public at large.

Let us hope Mr Grant was more pleased with the headline this week on our story summarising the department's urine-test results, ``Crackdowns failing in battle on drugs in jail''. Maybe that meets the public interest test.

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Unit targets drugs in jails
SAM RICHES, POLICE REPORTER
April 17, 2007 02:15am

DRUG trafficking in prisons is about to get even harder, with a specialised police branch targeting the state's nine prisons to be fully operational by June.

The Police Corrections Section is aimed at targeting crime - particularly drug-related offences - inside prisons and will work directly with the DCS's Operations Security and Intelligence and Investigation Units. Lobbing drug-filled tennis balls over razorwire fences remains a common, but unsuccessful, method of attempting to smuggle banned items inside state prisons.

Mailing items to prisons also rates highly, along with trading via hugging and kissing or hiding quantities in clothing.

"Visitations are the most common method of attempting to introduce contraband into a prison," a Department for Correctional Services spokesman said. "Throwing contraband over the walls, while still common, can be less successful because a regular part of a Correctional Services officer's shift involves routine checking of prison grounds for contraband that's been thrown over walls or fences."

Detection methods also include visitor screening, metal detectors and searches, intelligence-driven investigations and the increasing use of Passive Alert Detection dogs. In 2006, 50 visitors were charged with attempting to smuggle drugs inside prisons and 650 drug-related incidents were reported.

DCS figures show that for the 2005-06 financial year, police reported or charged 24 visitors for drug-related offences and the DCS banned 36 people on suspicion of drug offences while 193 people were banned in total for various reasons.

Five people attempted to use fake identification to enter state prisons. In 2004-05, 51 visitors were reported or charged by police, 73 were banned by DCS officers on suspicion of drug offences and 275 in total were banned from visiting prisons.

As well as drugs, contraband includes weapons, pornographic material, cameras, mobile phones, SIM cards, two-way radios, money and books, and any materials that give instructions on how to escape or make explosives and weapons.

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Jails awash with drugs, says Opposition
Wednesday, May 2, 2007. 5:44pm (AEST)

The Queensland Opposition says random drug testing in the state's prisons is a shambles.

Corrective Services spokesman Rob Messenger says his research shows no testing has been done for six months.

He says Queensland prisons are becoming awash with illicit drugs.

"Parliamentary research that I commissioned shows that they haven't been drug testing since November last year, so we've had six months where we've had no decent drug testing," he said.

"What hope do we have if in a controlled environment like a prison that if we can't have it drug free or a very small amount of drugs, what hopes do we then have for our schools."

Police Minister Judy Spence has yet to respond to the claims.

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Spence denies problems with drug testing in jails
May 2, 2007. 8:50pm (AEST)

Queensland Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence has rejected claims from the Opposition that random drug testing in the state's prisons is a shambles.

Opposition corrective services spokesman Rob Messenger says his research shows no testing has been done for six months and says Queensland prisons are becoming awash with illicit drugs.

Ms Spence has issued a statement saying drug use in Queensland jails has dropped from 17.9 per cent of inmates in 1996-97 to around 5.1 per cent in 2004-05.

"An average of 184 prisoners is tested for drugs in Queensland prisons every week," the statement said.

"In addition to this target testing the random testing of 10 per cent of the prison population takes place every three months."

Ms Spence says there are 50 intelligence and investigation officers, including 21 police officers, whose job is to determine which prisoners should be searched and tested for drugs.

"Since July 1 2006 there have been 63 prisoners charged with being in possession of illicit drugs in Queensland prisons," she said.

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Plan to divert drug addicts away from prison
Tuesday, May 8, 2007. 2:12pm (AEST)

Tasmanian magistrates will soon have the option of sending drug addicted offenders into rehabilitation programs instead of prison.

It's hoped a new drug diversion program will be operating in the State's magistrates courts by next month.

The Tasmanian pilot scheme will give magistrates the option of supervising drug dependent offenders through a treatment program.

Up to a third of people accused of crimes blame a drug or alcohol addiction for their behaviour.

It's something Deputy Chief Magistrate Michael Hill sees daily.

"Their lifestyles are chaotic and completely out of control and very often they simply come back and forth into the criminal justice system," he said.

Similar programs have cut reoffending rates in other states by up to 20 per cent.

Attorney General Steve Kons is hoping for the same results here.

"It's a matter of breaking the cycle of crime and drugs," he said.

The program has received more than $2 million in Federal Government funding.

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Schwarten denies prison drug tests halted
Tony Moore
May 13, 2007 - 7:40AM

Software problems stopped the Corrective Services Department providing Queensland's parliamentary library with the results of random drug tests, according to Acting Corrective Services Minister Rob Schwarten.

Opposition Corrective Services spokesman Rob Messenger has questioned if the random drug testing had been halted, because he could not get information past August 2006.

"Let me make it clear that random drug testing in prisons has not stopped," he said.

"Testing has continued and internal reporting has continued."

"I am advised by Queensland Corrective Services that the reports have not been sent to the parliamentary library since August 2006 because the software used to process the information on urinalysis drug testing developed a problem and a new application had to be developed."

Mr Schwarten said the new software is expected to be installed before the end of May and information will then become available.

"Contrary to Mr Messenger's conspiracy theories there is no cover up.

The Government and other stakeholders need this information and the public is entitled to it."

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Many jail detainees are 'drug users'
June 18, 2007 - 4:46PM

More than 50 per cent of detainees held in police custody across Australia tested positive to cannabis use over the past year, a new report has found.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has released two comprehensive reports focusing on drug use and intimate relationship violence among Australian prison detainees.

The data was collected from more than 4,500 people in police custody at nine sites across the nation.

The data was taken from voluntary questionnaires filled out by the police detainees, 70 per cent of whom also provided urine tests.

The report showed that drug use and intimate relationship violence was high among detainees.

More than 50 per cent tested positive for cannabis, nearly a quarter tested positive to methamphetamines, and around eight per cent to heroin.

Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology Toni Makkai said the figures showed that methamphetamine use among detainees had grown since data was first collected in 1999.

"What we have seen is that heroin use has gone down ... however, we did see methamphetamine going up from 1999 through to 2003 however it has remained relatively stable at this level."

Of the people that took part in the questionnaire, half had been arrested in the past 12 months and 18 per cent had been in prison in the past 12 months.

More than two thirds were receiving government benefits and the majority, 84 per cent were male.

Justice Minister David Johnston said the statistics showed that there is a strong correlation between crime and substance abuse.

"This is a first for Australia to be able to look at ... what they've (people in police custody) been taking and what they say about drug abuse," he said.

"The government's policies, with respect to drug and substance abuse, have to some large extent ... been vindicated when looking at this hard data."

The report also found that the level of inmate partner violence was almost 50 per cent higher than the general population.

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Plan to release prison drug use figures
By Gabrielle Dunlevy
July 11, 2007 06:01pm

THE Queensland Government plans to publicly release the results of drug testing in prisons.

Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence today told a state parliamentary estimates committee hearing that statistics would be released “in the very near future”.

The Government has changed its testing program so prisoners who test positive to random drug tests are identified and dealt with.peIt has also increased the number of tests and introduced tests for more types of drugs.

Opposition police spokesman Rob Messenger, who has been calling for the release of more details, said he believed there was a large drug problem in jails.

“As part of an open, transparent system, I think it imperative that you see (the figures) and also other members of parliament see them,” he said.

Ms Spence said more than 70 per cent of prisoners had committed a drug-related crime.

“So don't be surprised if we have some drugs in our prisons,” she said.

“I agree ... that we should all monitor the drug usage in our prisons. We should all be concerned about it, and we should all be trying to push it down.”

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Govt claims success in prison drugs fight

The State Government is using a recent drug smuggling arrest as proof that it is cracking down on illegal substances in South Australian jails.

A woman has been charged for allegedly using her seven-year-old granddaughter to take a banned medication into Mobilong prison at Murray Bridge.

Correctional Services Minister Carmel Zollo says the case shows that a new police and intelligence unit is working.

"We do have a range of intelligence and security measures in place to prevent and detect contraband entering the system," she said.

"With this newly-formed section, it is proving successful in foiling attempts by people to introduce drugs into our prisons."

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