There's been a dramatic drop in the number of prisoners receiving help for drug addiction, despite the Department of Corrections spending millions on more treatment programmes.
Around 1700 prisoners nationwide are now in the system for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, down from 6000 just five years earlier, according to data released to 1 NEWS under the Official Information Act.
Corrections argues they're focusing on what tools have been effective for addiction recovery by reducing the number of short term, less effective programmes.
"If you look over the last five years to our most intensive programmes, we've had around 500 more people go through our intensive drug treatment units," deputy chief executive Juanita Ryan told 1 NEWS.
That's despite funding for rehabilitation being boosted up from $5.6 million to over $12 million annually.
With three out of five inmates having some for of mental health or substance issue, the Drug Foundation is worried about the thousands of prisoners who are missing out on help.
Spokesperson Sarah Helm says they're wanting a properly resourced plan in place for prisoners to provide a suite of different options available.
"The brief intervention, early intervention stuff, that was being done. We do understand that it was probably less effective but it will have been effective for some people."
Department of Corrections says their long-term approach to drug and alcohol rehabilitation is most effective at helping people to stop, which requires that additional funding.
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