Tuesday, 15 October 2019

In reply to  Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (10 September 2019)

Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support):

Keeping contraband, including illicit drugs, out of prisons is a critical part of maintaining a safe and secure environment for staff, prisoners and visitors.

Corrections Victoria employs a range of methods to prevent contraband from entering Victorian prisons, including the use of advanced technology on entry into a prison; intelligence-led searches of prisoners, staff, visitors and vehicles by the Security and Emergency Services Group (a team of highly trained custodial officers); and the use of drug-detection dogs.

Visitors and prisoners face tough penalties if they are caught trafficking or attempting to traffic drugs and other contraband into prison. These penalties may include bans on contact visits, being charged with an offence by Victoria Police, and up to two years’ imprisonment.

In December 2017, the government made it a more serious offence to possess or use the worst types of contraband, including explosives, firearms, and electronic devices. In February 2018, government also passed new laws regarding the use of drones in the vicinity of prisons.

A range of treatment options are made available to reduce demand for illicit drugs. Corrections Victoria also operates a drug-testing regime, which informs detection and is part of the broader integrated deterrence strategy.

The annual number of random drug tests has been introduced as a new BP3 measure for the prisoner supervision and support output in 2019-20, with a target of more than 11,800. The random general drug test rate is also one of the measures against which the performance of each prison in deterring the use of illicit drugs is routinely assessed.

The 2018-19 figures are available in the publicly available June 2019 Drugs in Victorian Prisons Report. There were 10,899 random general drug tests in prisons in 2018-19. Of these, 4.67 per cent returned a positive result. This compares with a recent figure of approximately 11 per cent in the prison system in England and Wales.

While achieving a zero positive rate is desirable, the high rates of drug use in the prisoner population in the community and the new and changing ways prisoners obtain drugs whilst in prison makes achieving this a significant challenge for all prisons int the Western World. For this reason, a specific numerical target or benchmark is provided for each prison to help focus efforts on minimising drug use. Benchmarks vary according to the profile of each prison, which is based largely on the particular prisoner cohort. Individual benchmarks are reviewed at least every two years.

Drug test outcomes recorded as positive include instances of refusal to undergo the test, interference with or adulteration of the test, inability to do the test (without valid reason) and no test occurring (without valid reason).

‘Reception urinalysis’ refers to the urinalysis testing of prisoners upon arriving at a prison location. There is no requirement for all prisoners to be tested upon reception into custody, although there is a requirement that prisoners are tested upon being transferred between public and private prisons, and vice versa. or the full 2018-19 financial year, reception tests made up 8.5 per cent of overall urinalysis testing throughout the Victorian prison system.