Behind the bars: Inside contraband crackdown at Shortland Correctional Centre

A pre-Christmas crackdown inside the state’s jails has unearthed a sinister present for authorities with a haul of drugs, crude weapons and mobile phones discovered. Find out how specialist officers locate the contraband.

A pre-Christmas crackdown inside the state’s jails has unearthed a sinister present for authorities with a haul of drugs, crude weapons and mobile phones discovered.

In one jail in the Hunter region, specialist officers intercepted and confiscated a haul of heroin substitute buprenorphine, with similar amounts found in complexes across the state, as the ‘‘jail price’’ of the drug skyrockets.

Buprenorphine, or “bupe’’, one of the main medications used to treat opioid addiction, sells for about $20 a strip when bought with a prescription in your typical Sydney pharmacy, often under the Suboxone brand name.

Inside corrective centres across NSW, however, it will set prisoners back between $1500 and $2000 a strip, making it the contraband of choice and the target of crackdowns.

“Suboxone strips are the most current contraband of choice,” Corrective Services Assistant Supt Luke Haines said.

156 strips of bupe found inside a package thrown over the fence at Shortland Correctional Centre. Picture: Supplied

A bupe strip hidden between an inmates' buttocks at Shortland Correctional Centre on December 12. Picture: Supplied

“Once they get inside a correctional centre, their market price skyrockets. We have evidence to suggest they go for $1500 to $2000 a strip.”

Other than their physical effects, they’re the new go-to contraband due to their size and concealment ability.

“The reason they are so popular is they are easy to conceal in postal packages, behind stamps and within letters, a single strip can also be cut up into smaller hits and sold off,” Supt Haine said.

The inmate price has skyrocketed with their demand and the drug is the most-confiscated piece of contraband across the state’s prison system, with officers from CSNSW’s Security Operations Group (SOG) tasked with snuffing the drug out.

Last week, at Shortland Correctional Centre in Cessnock, a raid identified a strip ‘‘internally concealed’’ in one inmate, while officers also recently intercepted 156 strips found inside a parcel thrown over the complex’s fence.

Across NSW, at Wellington Correctional Centre, 80 strips of Suboxone were found on an inmate’s visitor while $200,000 worth of strips — in prison value — were found by officers at Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre in western Sydney.

Superintendent Southern said mobile phones give inmates access to the outside world, to co-ordinate drugs and money transfers. Picture: Peter Lorimer

A bong is intercepted and confiscated from a visitor's car by SOG officers at Shortland Correctional Centre. Picture: Supplied

Mobile phones are the kingmaker, and inmates’ path to the drug, which is another target for officers.

“The other biggest thing at the moment are mobile phones,” senior assistant Superintendent Ken Southern, SOG’s commander for northern NSW, said.

“Inmates can co-ordinate with the outside on a mobile, that’s what makes them valuable to inmates and harder for us to track intel.’’

Supt Southern said there were cases of people using tennis ball throwers to catapult contraband over the fence at Shortland Correctional Centre, which was then hurriedly picked up and hidden by an inmate.

During the raid at Shortland officers also confiscated a makeshift shiv while recent raids and intercepts have discovered a Valium, a jail-made knife and a tattoo gun.