Canberra’s only prison slammed as damning report reveals drugs, violence and mismanagement
Canberra’s “shabby”, overcrowded prison is awash with contraband and plagued with drugs and security issues, a damning report reveals.
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Canberra’s trouble-plagued prison is in a “shabby” state, is awash with contraband and is populated by increasingly bored and troublesome inmates, a damning review has found.
The report into the Alexander Maconochie Centre, released on Tuesday by ACT Inspector of Correctional Services Neil McAllister, prompted Shadow Corrections Minister Giulia Jones to brand Justice Minister Shane Rattenbury as incompetent and call for his resignation.
Mr Rattenbury told reporters on Wednesday he was committed to his role as minister.
Mr McAllister’s report gives authorities failing grades in security, rehabilitation, education and dignity and reveals the jail had nearly as many contraband seizures in 2018 as it did inmates.
Mr McAllister said having all of Canberra’s prisoners packed into one prison made managing the population “complicated”, including having to segregate “cohorts” such as rival bikie gangs.
“Overcrowding at the AMC continues to exacerbate these ‘structural’ challenges,” Mr McAllister said.
The prison was over its capacity every month from January to June this year.
“In practice the AMC routinely accommodates a detainee population in excess of the design capacity by “double-bunking” cells/rooms,” Mr McAllister’s report said.
Guards raised major concerns about the internal disciplinary system, with one telling Mr McAllister it was “too soft on the bad ones”.
Another guard said: “Detainees don’t care about getting caught with phones, drugs or other contraband because nothing happens to them”.
Searches in 2018 uncovered 49 mobile phones, 63 weapons — half of which were “shivs”, and 55 illicit or non-prescription drugs, among 461 contraband seizures.
“Former and current detainees, and some staff told the review team that drugs are readily available at the (prison) to anyone who can afford to buy them and drug debts are often the cause of ‘stand-overs’ and assaults,” Mr McAllister said.
Cigarette debts were also a major reason for assaults.
“According to detainees, drugs are routinely thrown over the perimeter fence at night, directed from detainees inside using phones.”
Random drug tests were less than half the number demanded by international standards, but nearly 20 per cent of tests came back positive, with more than a third of positive tests being for meth.
Gates, doors and cameras were “always failing”, one staff member said.
Despite the issues at the centre, Mr McAllister said relationships between most frontline staff and inmates were respectful, and that “almost all staff … appear genuinely committed to their work and to achieving rehabilitative outcomes for detainees”.