ARENA TELLS WHY SHE SANK DRUG REFORM

By Mark Riley

Mrs Franca Arena has revealed she would have supported the Carr
Government's marijuana reforms last week if the exemptions from jail for
personal use and possession of the drug had applied only to first offenders.

The startling admission means the Carr Government could have salvaged a
substantial victory in its pursuit of "socially responsible" drug reform.

Instead, the Independent Upper House MP used her casting vote to dump the
Government's proposed laws, which would have seen the threat of jail
removed for all people charged with the use or possession of small amounts
of cannabis, irrespective of how many times they had committed the offence.

Mrs Arena said yesterday that she would have supported an amendment to
restrict the provisions of the laws to first offenders, but that no such
amendment had been put.

"I do believe that people are entitled to make a small mistake," she said.
"I don't believe that people caught for the first time with marijuana
should go to jail, and that discretion is there for the magistrates to use.

"But this legislation would have said that you can get caught 200 times
with a small quantities of marijuana and still not be sent to jail."

The revelation came as academic research surfaced suggesting that one in
four young men sent to jail in NSW were sexually abused.

The research, conducted on 300 inmates aged 18 to 25 between 1993 and 1995,
found that almost half the respondents had been threatened with sexual
assault and more than twothirds said they feared being sexually assaulted
while in jail.

The research was conducted by Mr David Heilpern, a law lecturer at Southern
Cross University at Lismore.

Mr Heilpern said yesterday that the best programs to reduce the risk of
sexual assault were those in the Netherlands, which segregated young
offenders from the general prison population and housed them in individual
cells.

However, he conceded that the introduction of such reforms in NSW jails
would require the building of new prisons at considerable cost.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Corrective Services, Mr Debus, said
yesterday that the rate of sexual assault among young male prisoners was
declining.

Significant reforms had been put in place to protect young prisoners, such
as the establishment of young offenders units at Parklea and Oberon jails,
she said. There also were processes at place at all jails to separate young
and firsttime offenders from "hard core" prisoners.

As well, the prison system had introduced recommendations of the Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody Royal Commission, which placed vulnerable young offenders
in the company of elder "mentors" to reduce the risk of suicide.