*** MEDIA ALERT *** Cocaine bungle press conference Adelaide Remand Centre
PSA
WHAT: Press Conference
WHEN: 11am today
WHERE: Adelaide Remand Centre , 208 Currie St, Adelaide SA 5000
Cocaine bungle leads to call to de-privatise prison run by overseas multinational
SA Correctional Officers are calling on the major parties contesting the upcoming state election to commit to returning the Adelaide Remand Centre (ARC) to public hands after a cocaine bungle further highlighted the catastrophic breakdown of the institution.
At 11am on January 27 this year an inmate arriving at the Yatala Labour Prison was found in possession of 10 grams, or $3,000 worth, of cocaine.
The prisoner had just been transferred from the ARC, run by foreign owned multinational prison operator Serco.
But this is just the latest in a string of major problems at the ARC.
Two prisoners have died in the ARC in the last six months, and assaults on Corrections Officers and between prisoners are so common that staff morale is at rock bottom with many Officers leaving.
Things are so bad Serco is flying in Corrections Officers from New Zealand and Western Australia.
Just last week three Correctional Officers were assaulted, two were hospitalised.
In February a prisoner attempted to stab an Officer, and low staffing meant prisoners could not be let out of their cells to exercise or undergo rehabilitation, leading to widespread unrest and riot threats.
To fulfil Serco’s contract the ARC needs roughly 33 staff to run its eight accommodation units and other services such as video court facilities on dayshift, some days there are as few as 15 to 20 staff on deck.
In January a prisoner had his jaw broken, the population swelled to 308 inmates when the contracted capacity is 274, and critically low staffing was reported across shifts and units leading to excessive overtime with Officers sometimes working 19 hours in a row.
Just in December last year 10 Officers were assaulted.
Earlier in 2025 Officers resigned en masse, with 13 voting with their feet in one month.
But problems have plagued the ARC since it was handed to Serco to run.
Indeed Serco had barely begun operating the ARC when in December 2020 a prisoner escaped and went on a crime spree, it took Serco management 52 minutes to notice he was missing. At the time current Premier, Peter Malinauskis, noted the blunder in Parliament, and on his Facebook page, saying, “When the Liberals privatise a public service, the public pays the price”. He drew attention to the chronic understaffing which insiders say still plagues the prison to this day.
Since then serious assaults on Corrections Officers have been rife.
The Union which represents Corrections Officers in South Australia is calling on major parties to commit to de-privatising the ARC after the election. The current four year contract will expire in June.
Of the five Australian states that took part in the prison privatisation experiment, most have declared it a failure. Queensland has returned all their private prisons to public hands and NSW is following suit with two of three private prisons returning to public hands as their contracts expire. WA is reducing private sector involvement in their system, as is Victoria, leaving SA as an outlier.
South Australia has nine prisons. Two are privately run.
Charlotte Watson, General Secretary of the Public Service Association, which represents Corrections Officers in South Australia is calling for the failed privatisation experiment to be abandoned.
“This cocaine bungle is the tip of the iceberg, assaults on Corrections Officers and chronic understaffing has made Serco’s continuing management of the Adelaide Remand Centre untenable,” said Ms Watson.
“This is not a small amount of cocaine, this kind of weight would make Diego Maradona blush.
“In January I wrote to the Chief Executive of Correctional Services, David Brown, and told him having 10 grams of cocaine in circulation was totally unacceptable.
“It’s not rocket science, it’s a business model, every time Serco doesn’t roster the prison properly they save money on payroll and trouser more profit, but it’s Corrections Officers, prisoners and ultimately the public who pays the price.
“The public system can run prisons cheaper than any foreign multinational because they don’t have to skim off 10% in profit each year. Everyone suspected privatisation costs taxpayers more, now we know for sure.
“Peter Malinauskis said in 2020 privatisation of the Adelaide Remand Centre wasn’t working, the question is will he stand hand on heart in front of South Australian voters on the eve of an election in 2026 and commit to returning it to public hands?
“Our Correctional Officers are calling on all the major parties to commit to returning Adelaide Remand Centre to public hands ahead of the upcoming state election, they must promise to end this failed experiment.
“This is urgent, the current contract with Serco runs out in June, whoever wins the next election will have to deal with this on day one in office.”
Contact: Tim Brunero 0405 285 547