PORT PHILLIP PRISON HIT WITH $270,000 RIOT FINE

Port Phillip Prison was fined about $270,000 for a riot at the private
prison in 1998, the Corrections Minister Andre Haermeyer revealed yesterday.

Mr Haermeyer said the fine was for a disturbance at the prison's
Scarborough south unit.

The fine was issued against the Laverton prison's operators, Group 4,
by the Kennett Government but the amount was never disclosed.

Mr Haermeyer told the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee
yesterday all prison service agreements made between the government
and private operators would be retendered when they came up for
renewal, and the government's public prison operator, CORE, would be
allowed to tender.

He also said the government would test a methadone program within
prisons this year to help stop the number of prisoners overdosing
within days of being released.

Mr Haermeyer told the committee that 90 prisoners died from overdoses
within days of their release last year. But his spokesman later said
that number referred to the number of women prisoners who died over
the past 10 years.

Mr Haermeyer said only prisoners on a program before they were
committed were allowed to continue on methadone in jail at the moment.

As the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Haermeyer told
the committee an extra 175 police officers had been added to the force
in the past financial year.