The New South Wales Opposition has accused the State Government of turning jailed heroin users into Methadone addicts."But it is a lot worse than that" a spokesperson from Justice Action, Mr Rehabilitation said, "if prisoners just get bored they can get Methadone."
"The prison system doesn't mind because it slows prisoners' down and makes it easy to control them. Just like with the psych drugs, another form of control. Never mind about what happens when they get out." he said.
[You got to remember that at all material times prison is hell, so why wouldn't a prisoner seek to escape? Remissions can be attained in a number of ways, one is by pardon, another is by sleep, another is by drugs, so the harder prison is the more people want to escape. Fact!]
Shadow Corrective Services Minister Michael Richardson says the proportion of methadone addicts in the State's prison system is higher than anywhere else in the world, with one in seven prisoners on the drug.
Head of Corrections Health Service Richard Mathews has defended the treatment, saying prisoners' doses are maintained for health reasons. [?]
But Mr Richardson says the figures show more inmates are coming out of jail dependent on methadone. "Jail offers an opportunity to shake addiction instead of which Government is using to feed addiction," he said.
"How on earth Dr Mathews can say that when he's got a substantial number of people who are getting methadone for the first time in incarceration ...I don't know ... plainly there is an opportunity in jail to get these people off methadone... the Government has rejected."
General purpose Standing Committee No 3 Examination of expenditure for the portfolio areas Correctional Services, examined Methadone.
Richard Amery: "The issue about inmates in prison, those who are serving community, you will not get the Discovery Award to say that drugs are a major component of crime and the reason why people are in prison.
We have got a large population of that part of the community which are committing crimes, a big percentage of those are drug related crimes with numerous reports to identify with that. Its quite obvious that when these people are coming into our prison system, they are bringing with them, drug problems that they have lived with and have probably committed crimes to feed, whilst they have been in the general community."
The Hon Charlie Lynn: "You sustain their drug habit, or else some of them are assessed while they are in there, you put them on drugs, and then you put them back out with the habit."
By Gregory Kable 18 Nov 2002
Related:
Murder charge first for DNA data bank link, but not the same as solving the murder Mass DNA testing of prisoners has [allegedly] led to the first NSW case of a person being charged with a previously unsolved murder as a result of a controversial gene-matching data bank.
Alex Mitchell's lost world
Perhaps we can get your medical report and spew it around publicly so you can see how it feels. But surely we do not have to go that far. And of course we are law-abiding citizens and I should think it would be enough to remind you of your ethics to report at all.
Civil libertarians condemn planned changes to prisoners' privacy rights The New South Wales Government is using a recent case involving [framed] serial killer Ivan Milat to justify its decision to remove the privacy rights of prisoners. But really just another attack on Ivan Milat from Parliament House.
NSW prisons - primary industry bailed up!
In many quiet regional centres around NSW there is a new primary industry shaping up. It has something to do with Bail but not with bales. The minister for Agriculture Richard Amery who also has the prisons portfolio is now committed to farming prisoners.
NSW Parliament Bitter Pills To Swallow?
One delusion pill: So people who investigate their own mistakes make sure there was no mistake or someone else made the mistake. Perhaps you're not biased and you will be honest about it.
The Government is likely to abolish the Inspector General of Corrective Services position The Mulawa inspection report recommendations below strictly illustrate how important he is.
Black Nexus
The Separation of Powers Doctrine is nowcontaminated witharangeofcolours, now leaving us with a black shirt on a once blue bridge that crossed that thin blue line. The 'Amery and Woodham show'.
Prison Mind Games-Do they exist?
Directives are given inside the prison system that are not consistent with the law in NSW. And not in the good interests of the health and well being of the prisoners.
Chronology - A History of Australian Prisons
[Allegedly:] The events that have shaped NSW prisons - from convict days through royal commissions, to the Supermax of today. [I say allegedly because no one should trust Four Corners [Walls], why? Because they spill out the propaganda of the day for the Government, whether it be wrong or right. A government that lies and has no remorse about it.]
