The seizure of contraband drugs, mobile phones and SIM cards inside Canberra's jail hit a three-year high last year, with the long-awaited full body scanners yet to be commissioned to help curb the problem.
Two Rapiscan X-ray scanners costing $600,000 were purchased and installed in June last year but are still not in use.
Corrections said that before the scanners can be used, "they must be registered under the relevant Radiation Protection Act and all staff who will operate the scanners must be licensed".
"The application and associated paperwork have been submitted and ACT Corrective Services is working with the Radiation Safety section of the ACT Health Directorate to finalise the licensing and registration process ... before they can become part of routine operations".
The Justice and Community Services directorate reported there were 745 contraband seizures within the jail in 2021-22, up from 587 the previous year, and 644 the year before that. Of the seizures last year, 263 were drugs and 57 were phones or phone-related.
This was across a prison population of just over 400.
Amendments to Corrections legislation presented to the ACT Assembly late last year but not yet discussed include provisions for body scanning both detainees (as they return from interactions with visitors) and corrections officers.
Contraband commonly comes into the jail over the perimeter fence - sometimes via drone delivery but usually simply catapulted or thrown in - or smuggled by visitors.
The full body scanning of visitors - in much the way passengers are scanned in airports across the country - is seen as a vital tool against contraband.
Sniffer dogs are have been working at the jail for over five years but the dogs can only be used periodically before they need to be taken away and their sniffing skills refocused. The dogs detect drugs like methamphetamine, but not mobile phones and SIM cards.
"Mobile phones in the AMC remain a significant problem," the independent Inspector of Correctional Services (OICS) Neil McAllister wrote in his most recent Healthy Prisons report late last year.
"And [smuggled phones] are no doubt used to arrange contraband deliveries/drops.
"Corrective Services NSW has been trialing mobile phone jammers at various prisons since 2015. OICS is unaware as to whether [ACT Corrective Services] has considered this technology for the AMC."
The Blueprint for Change report, which came out in March last year, reported that the "introduction of contraband is also a perpetual issue that compromises the safety of staff and detainees alike".
"Staff repeatedly reported concerns about the security of the physical environment," the report said.
"The accessibility of the perimeter fencing to introduce contraband and poor camera placement or limited visibility was raised repeatedly.
"Records show that between 2020 and 2021 there was a significant increase in the incidence of contraband being introduce into the AMC over the fence. This correlates with reduced contraband being introduced via visitors for the same time period."
As recently as October last year, 42-year-old Slobodan Novakovic was arrested and charged with six offences after he allegedly tried to smuggle drugs and a chisel into Canberra's jail. Police chased and caught him lurking around the fence perimeter.
Two years ago, a hole was cut in the outermost chain link fence, the perimeter alarm sounded, but no further action was taken so the unknown visitor returned four hours later, cut a hole in an inner fence, and threw a bag of contraband into the yard.
In a subsequent search of the nearest cell block, corrections officers turned up a range of contraband including mobile phones, hand tools, a hacksaw blade, drugs and drug paraphernalia, along with a slingshot and tape. It was conceded by corrections that it was likely much of this contraband was already inside the jail before the incident.
Drones have been used to deliver contraband into the jail because curiously, the ACT's prison falls just outside the civil aviation exclusion zone which wraps around Canberra airport and sensitive areas such as the ADF offices at Russell, headquarters of the Joint Operations Command near Bungendore and even the Tidbinbilla Deep Space tracking centre.
The Justice and Community Safety directorate would not comment on the specific measures it has to counter drones dropping contraband inside the prison wire.
It said it has "security and intelligence systems and processes ... designed to mitigate the introduction of contraband into the AMC by various methods, including potential delivery through drones".
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