Page 4690 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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Staff also highlight the contradiction of being asked to rigidly police drug use in jail and being asked to issue drug-taking implements. In fact, expert opinions found that a needle exchange would lead to the quasi-legalisation of drugs. I quote from the recent Hamburger report commissioned by the government, an expert that was commissioned by the government. That report said:
Stopping the spread of blood-borne disease would not, essentially, be difficult if it were not for the fact that it cannot happen without a quasi-legalisation of drug use within the correctional centre environment …
That is from the Hamburger report, 12.1. The Canberra Liberals do not support the quasi-legalisation of drugs but quite clearly Katy Gallagher and the Labor Party and Amanda Bresnan and the Greens do support the quasi-legalisation of drugs, as found by Mr Hamburger. It cannot be credibly argued that a needle exchange is a health measure alone that can somehow be separated from custodial operations at the prison.
The Australian Nursing Federation have also stated publicly that the jail’s nurses do not support the models that are being put forward for a needle exchange at the jail by the government-commissioned report by Michael Moore. And nurses, who would be at the front line of administering such a program, are justifiably worried about a range of issues associated with those proposals.
What of the prisoners who are not addicts, who want to leave drug-taking behind? Prisons are dangerous enough places for prisoners, and a flood of needles and syringes will only worsen an already dangerous environment. Anecdotal evidence I have received from prisoners is that “90 per cent of the prisoners don’t want the needle exchange either”.
A submission to Katy Gallagher’s inquiry into how to implement an NSP was advised by an expert, who worked on a daily basis with prisoners, that 100 per cent of prisoners he asked rejected plans for an NSP. He also cast doubts on the bias of previous surveys conducted at the jail. The submission to the inquiry was made by Mr Bill Aldcroft OAM JP who has worked with prisons and prisoners for over 20 years as both an official visitor to ACT detention centres and for at least 12 years as a prisoners aid counsellor. In his submission he outlined his personal experience and independence and referred to over 150 prisoners who visited his office in 2010-11, all of whom had served at least six months. I will quote:
I have consistently to ask the following question without elaboration: What is your opinion of the proposal to open a needle exchange in the AMC. I can inform you, without exception, that the replies have been expressed firmly in the negative from every single person I have interviewed.
Mr Aldcroft went further in his submission to question the bias of previous surveys on an NSP conducted at the jail, suggesting that they may have been conducted in a way “that preordained the results of the surveys”.
We also saw comments recently in the Canberra Times of a prisoner who was recently released from the AMC that he was opposed to a needle and syringe program.
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