PRISONER ANGER GOES THROUGH THE ROOF
RIOTING prisoners at a western Sydney correctional centre scrambled to the rooftop of the facility to allegedly recover stashed drugs and others lit fires in wings.
A source inside Parklea Prison revealed officers were forced to shoot gas cylinders at rioting prisoners on Monday afternoon before calling in a specialist task force to break up the affray as rioters spiralled out of control.
“We watched on as some prisoners jumped on to the roof of the facility, uncovered drugs and shot up there and then,” one source said. “We had to mask up and hit the rioters with gas to stop them – it was intense.”
Another corrections source said inmates were on edge over a lack of drugs being smuggled into facilities through visitation.
“Officers say it is one of the most unsafe facilities in the country,” he said. “Prisoners shouldn’t have been able to get onto the roof in the first place, so it doesn’t surprise me that we didn’t uncover the drugs there before the riot.”
The source said prisoners were going to extreme lengths – even having friends arrested and charged in an effort to bring drugs into centres like Parklea.
“The drugs are completely dried up, a single cigarette is going for more than $50 right now,” he said.
“Parklea is (also) a Remand Centre, so (some) inmates are fresh and coming down off their fix, so they get desperate and that is why the end up on the roof.”
A NSW Police spokeswoman said inmates were yet to be charged over the affray – which lasted close to four hours.
It comes as union bosses have slammed the management of the privately run Parklea Correctional Centre for not taking the concerns of officers and staff seriously.
Community Public Sector Union assistant secretary Troy Wright revealed union representatives worked to notify prison governor Paul Baker of a series of concerns about the facility.