Page 4352 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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The back in control program is an 18-session, high-intensity relapse program designed to assist participants to expand upon and consolidate skills learnt previously in the first steps relapse prevention program. The intention of the program is to improve participants’ mental and physical health, increase lifestyle opportunities and enhance quality of life.
As you can see, Corrective Services has multiple diverse supply, demand and reduction strategies in place at the AMC. Rather than focus on the small amount of drug-related contraband that finds its way into the AMC, we should be commending the achievements and successes of the rehabilitation programs and supply reduction technology we have in place at the AMC.
Just to repeat—and I think this goes to the demand which Mr Hanson makes on the government to explain today—the steps that we take to seek to prevent contraband: we have electronic and physical surveillance and monitoring and we have intelligence-based interruption of supply through various methods, such as targeted monitoring of prisoner telephone conversations and interception of suspect mail. We do those things.
We search prisoners, we search staff, we search cells, we search common areas and we search visitors through the use of ion scan equipment and passive alert drug detection dogs. We liaise and receive intelligence and exchange intelligence with the AFP. We ban visitors who attempt to introduce drugs into the facilities and who are detected.
We have visitor signage in the facility warning of the penalties. We have clear plastic valises for staff and official and other visitors’ effects when they enter the AMC. We bulk break goods outside the perimeter. We drug test all prisoners on admission. We have targeted and random drug testing throughout the year which involves all of those within Alexander Maconochie.
These are the things we do. Despite all of that—despite the technology, despite the drug dogs, despite the random tests, despite the constant searches—contraband continues to find its way into the Alexander Maconochie Centre, as it does in every other corrections facility in Australia and almost certainly in the world. At one level, of course, it is a signal of human ingenuity, the steps which people will take and the extent to which people are prepared to break the law.
We do all of those things. Some contraband, most particularly drugs and drug paraphernalia, finds its way into this prison. We would wish it did not, but it does. It is reflective of every corrections facility in the nation and the world. We could respond to that by turning a blind eye and adopting the sorts of attitudes that have been expressed by the Liberal Party today—an “all care but no responsibility; leave it up to them” sort of attitude—or we could seek to explore appropriate responses to the reality and seek to better understand the implications of that.
We confirm our commitment to the eradication of drug use at the AMC and the rehabilitation of prisoners suffering substance abuse and addiction. However, that
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