Drinking on parole

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 16

Drinking on parole

PA Wellington The Justice Department is tightening up on prisoners who breach their parole conditions by drinking alcohol on leave. Inmates suspected of drinking would be tested and charged if necessary, said a spokesman. The move follows an incident investigated by the Ombudsman’s Office, where a minimum security unit inmate returned from leave, apparently intoxicated. The Ombudsman’s report said that prison officers assumed that the man had been drinking because of his physical condition — slurred speech, poor co-ordination, and vomiting. It was a condition of home leave that the inmate was not allowed to drink alcohol. The Secretary for Justice.

Mr John Robertson, revoked any further home leave for ' the man, who then claimed that he had been the victim of a severe migraine attack. There was a lack of cogent evidence that the man had been drinking, said the report. Prison staff did not administer a breathalyser test to the inmate, it said. A Justice Department spokesman said that breath test equipment was available in prisons. He said that the inmate had admitted to two officers that he had been drinking, but when the Ombudsman investigated, the staff had no evidence other than what the man had told them. The proposed test need not be by breath test, he said. It could be a simple technique such as walking a straight line, said the spokesman.