Weed crop found in privately run prison in Victoria

GREEN-thumbed inmates have grown dozens of cannabis plants in the nursery of a privately run prison in Victoria.

A marijuana crop was found in a privately run prison in Sale. Picture: AFP

GREEN-thumbed inmates have grown dozens of cannabis plants in the nursery of a privately run prison in Victoria.

Victoria’s corrections commissioner has ordered an investigation into how inmates were able to sprout a crop of 28 immature plants at Sale’s Fulham Correctional Centre.

The medium-security prison was also in the news in April when two inmates escaped, while last year a prisoner was found keeping a brown snake as a pet.

Four cannabis plants were found concealed in the nursery on Tuesday before drug-detection dogs sniffed out a further 24 plants during a thorough search on Wednesday.

Corrections Commissioner Jan Shuard says the incident is “embarrassing” and she expects charges will be laid.

Questions will also be asked of prison operator GEO Group.

“I’ll await the reports and will have to be satisfied they are running a safe environment for prisoners and maintaining the security of the prison,” Ms Shuard told 3AW on Thursday.

“That’s the fundamental basis of the contracts.”

A GEO Group spokesman told AAP its own internal investigation would see prisoners and staff questioned, along with a vocational education operator providing horticultural lessons.

The nursery grows plants and vegetables for the prison, the local area’s parks and local charities.

In April two inmates escaped and spent a night outside the prison walls before being captured by police.

A venomous baby brown snake was found inside a container in another prisoner’s cell in December.