CALL FOR SNIFFER DOGS IN JAILS

SNIFFER dogs should be permanently stationed at WA prisons and the
proportion of non-contact visits increased to stem the influx of illegal
drugs, the State Opposition says.

Opposition justice spokeswoman Sue Walker said there was anecdotal evidence
that visitors who brought drugs into prisons would immediately leave on
seeing a sniffer dog.

She said the proportion of non-contact visits, where prisoners and their
visitors are prevented from making physical contact, should be increased in
maximum security prisons.

A 1997 report on drug trafficking signed by Attorney-General Jim McGinty
acknowledged that more "barrier controls" like sniffer dogs were needed to
stop drugs getting into prisons. Mr McGinty said one squad of about a dozen
sniffer dogs operated in the WA prison system.

He told The West Australian it was better to have a centralised dog squad,
able to focus on problem areas as they arose, rather than permanently
stationing dogs at a particular prison.

Mr McGinty told a Budget estimates committee yesterday there had been an
unacceptably high number of positive drug tests at Acacia Prison but, to
his knowledge, no officers had been stood down.

Taxpayers were saving tens of millions of dollars as more minor offenders
were sentenced to community work rather than custodial sentences, according
to Mr McGinty.

"Instead of a forecast prison population of over 3800 within the next four
years, we are now looking at less than 3000," he said. "The turnaround has
slashed $109 million off the projected cost of running our prisons over the
six years to 2005-06."

This week's prison population was less than 2800, compared with 3121 a year
ago, he said.

He said it cost about $174 a day to house a prisoner, compared with $12 a
day to have an offender do community work as punishment.

WA had one of the highest imprisonment rates in the western world, with
about 220 people imprisoned per 100,000 population, compared with the
Australia-wide average of 144.

The committee also heard that $25 million in assets had been frozen through
the Criminal Property Confiscation Act, of which about $1.1 million was
already in Government coffers.