JAILS 'AWASH' WITH DRUGS, GROUP SAYS

One in four prisoners in government-run jails injects drugs. One in 20 of
them injects daily, according to new research.

And, with no access to new needles in jail, four in five of the injecting
prisoners reported sharing syringes - double the proportion of injecting
drug users in the community who share needles.

Almost half the prisoners who had used illicit drugs outside jail said they
had stopped doing so in jail. Those who used illicit drugs in jail reported
doing so only a quarter as often as they had in the community.

The figures were revealed to a recent conference by Colin McLachlan,
manager of the offender services program at the Public Correctional Enterprise.

Dr McLachlan said the State Government was arguably meeting its duty of
care to prisoners in relation to blood-borne virus transmission.

There were fewer incidents of sharing needles in jail than in the community
because, while prisoners were more likely to share, they were less likely
to inject at all, Dr McLachlan said.

"I think it's important to remember that it's actually almost impossible to
keep drugs out of prison," he said.

"There are human rights issues about keeping people physically from their
families."

The study was based on surveys completed by 620 prisoners - more than a
third of all prisoners in government-run jails. The survey was not
conducted in the state's private jails. Substantial efforts were made to
ensure the inmates felt free to fill out the survey honestly, Dr McLachlan
said.

But Mark Housing, a spokesman for the Prisoners Action Group, queried the
accuracy of the data. The figures for drug use in prisons seemed low, he said.

Mr Housing estimated that about three-quarters of prisoners used drugs,
including prescription drugs, which prison authorities effectively used as
a control mechanism.

"The place is awash with them," he said. "It's called making your time easy."

For the government to claim that it was meeting a duty of care to prisoners
was "obscene", given the high rates of blood-borne diseases in jail,
compared with the community.

Prisoners needed access to more treatment and counselling throughout their
sentence rather than just before their release, he said.