If They Can’t Manage Prisons - How Can They Manage Hotel Quarantine?
The latest report into illicit drug use in Victoria’s prisons has revealed that over one in ten inmates at Barwon Prison are failing random drug tests, the worst result in the state.
Barwon Prison is one of Victoria’s 11 publicly operated prisons run by Corrections Victoria, of the state’s total of 14.
Corrections Victoria have now been tasked with operating the hotel quarantine program, relieving some of the responsibility from private security firms. But if they can’t manage prisons, are they fit to manage hotel quarantine?
Western Victoria MP Bev McArthur said, “How on earth is it possible in this day and age, with all the advanced technology and available surveillance equipment, that enough drugs could be smuggled into a prison to fail more than one in ten inmates in random drug tests?”
“Either Corrections Victoria are completely incompetent, they’ve been provided with sub-standard and out-of-date surveillance technology, there’s corruption, or we’ve locked up the smartest and brightest in the State.”
“I seriously hope it’s not the former, because Corrections Victoria will now be running the hotel quarantine program, taking over and working with the scandal-ridden private security firms who jeopardised our public health efforts under this disaster-ridden Labor Government’s watch.”
"I thought incarceration was meant to encompass rehabilitation but instead we learn a drug habit can be maintained in one of our major prison premises. It could even be possible for an offender to leave Barwon prison with a drug habit, even if one wasn’t evident on entry."
“Victorian taxpayers should not have to feed and house criminals in our state prisons, while they are also allowed to enjoy a free flow of opiates into their cells, all because this Government is either asleep at the wheel or turning a blind eye to what’s occurring under their very noses.
“Sadly, unaccountability, irresponsibility and little or no transparency has become a hallmark of this Government which causes me to question whether we’ll ever get to the bottom of so many Government and Ministerial disasters. Barwon Prison’s drug operations are just one of many.”
10 July 2020