DRUGS GO INTO JAIL 'BY THE TRUCKLOAD'

STANDOVER merchants in the country's largest women's jail forced
weaker prisoners to vomit up their doses of prescribed methadone so
they could feed their own addictions, a state parliamentary committee
has been told.Prisoners were also forced to place tampons in their
mouths to absorb the drug for others.

The committee inquiring into the increase in the prison population in
NSW was told drugs "come in truckloads" to Mulawa women's prison in
western Sydney.

Some warders were involved in the distribution of narcotics, the
committee heard in evidence given in camera at the jail last week, and
nearly half the weekend visits to the prison involved drug smuggling.

Inmates complained they could not get off the drug carousel because
there were not enough counsellors - only two to look after 281 women.
Group sessions promised by authorities had not been held for six
months because of staff shortages, one of the counsellors told the
committee.

Counsellor Ute Geissler said about 90 per cent of the 281 women in
Mulawa had a drug problem, about 10 per cent more than the figure
acknowledged by authorities.

An inmate told the committee that many women at Mulawa would not go to
pick up their methadone medication because they would be set upon by
other prisoners.

She said when she first went to jail she was asked for a bowl and
handkerchief and couldn't understand why.

"Because they had cracked down on the methadone taking, the girls had
to swallow it in front of the staff and they (the tough inmates) made
the girls go around the corner and put their fingers down their
throat, and they vomited up and strained it through the hanky and into
the bowl and then they drank it, the methadone," the inmate said.

Another inmate told the committee some women were forced to put
tampons in their mouths so it soaked up the methadone, which the
tougher prisoners later collected for their own use.

They described a "nightmare scenario" on visiting days because "half
the visits each weekend are related to obtaining drugs".

Ms Geissler complained that "we do not have enough
staff".

"Some (inmates) only want to see us because the court told them to do
that, or it would look good for parole or something like that, but
others are genuinely interested and we do not even have the time to
sort that out," she said.

NSW Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski said the statements showed
"the drug problem was effectively out of control in the state's prison
system".

The NSW Department of Corrective Services said sniffer dogs were used
on all visitors and all staff had bags searched before beginning work,
a spokesperson said. There was a shortage of counsellors because of
funding restrictions.