Brad Hazzard med rel: CRACKDOWN ON CONTRABAND AT SILVERWATER

The NSW Government is continuing to crack down on prison contraband Attorney General and Minister for Justice Brad Hazzard said.

“I saw first-hand the excellent work of the Corrective Services NSW Security Operations Group (SOG) at a recent operation at Silverwater’s Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre” Mr Hazzard said.

“This highly specialised group – which includes drug and mobile phone sniffer dogs – conducted a targeted, intelligence driven, search operation which involved searching 16 inmates and cells along with 12 common areas.”

Contraband seized:
· One gaol made weapon

· One mobile phone and charger

· 0.2 grams of Buprenorphine

“NSW inmates are being made aware, through the incredible work of the SOG, that when the doors on their cells close they may open again instantly at any time with a dog and professional officers from the SOG ready and able to search and find anything that shouldn’t be in the cell.

“The NSW Government takes a zero tolerance approach to contraband and the public can rest assured that specialist officers are constantly on the job to seize contraband and remove it from the prison system,” Mr Hazzard said.

As of the end of last month SOG officers conducted more than 71,000 – these searches resulted in 29 inmates being charged by NSW Police and another 141 being charged with internal offences.”

“This year the SOG is on target to reach a record number – over 100,000 – of visitor searches to combat the smuggling of contraband into our prisons

Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter Severin said each prison conducts its own searches in addition to the SOG searches.

“Contraband is one of the most significant threats to the safety and security of correctional centres and our officers work hard to combat this with daily cell searches in every prison across the state,” Mr Severin said.