00:00According to General Secretary of the Prisons Officers Association, Lester Logie,
00:05the association supports efforts to clamp down on rogue elements within the service.
00:10But he warns that some officers turn a blind eye because challenging the operations can put their own lives at
00:18risk.
00:19He says officers have lost their lives trying to disrupt inmate smuggling networks.
00:26So what you would find is that the officers who really, who intercepting the bags or attempting, who are assigned
00:36a task,
00:37is not the officer who will be working with the prisoner or supervising the prisoner in the airing yard.
00:49You have to be real and tell me, officers have been murdered for intercepting contraband.
00:56He tells the Morning Edition the scale of the trade is evident in the thousands of dollars worth of phone
01:02cards
01:03and other contraband intercepted from inmates.
01:06You will intercept a phone and you might get a SIM card.
01:09And that SIM card might have $50,000 in phone cards on it.
01:14And we have members of the public buying phone cards on the side of the road
01:19and the phone card is from a phone in the prison.
01:23You're buying credit.
01:25Logie acknowledges another uncomfortable truth.
01:28Some officers willingly participate.
01:33Some officers, they live above their means one.
01:37Some might have a gambling habit.
01:40You get yourself in debt and you, I would say, you're bonded to some of these criminal elements
01:49that you will take that risk to bringing things into the prison.
01:55It's not only about bringing things in the prison, it's also about coming out.
01:59Logie tells us in the past they have had officers coming to work with vehicles that were not their own
02:06but rather belonging to inmates.
02:09Nicole M. Romani, TV6 News.
