Mobile phones the size of your thumb are being smuggled into Canberra's jail, as ACT Corrective Services grapple with tight restrictions on who and how they can search.
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Corrections staff did more than 7000 searches at the Alexander Maconochie Centre in 2016-17, with about one in 10 searches yielding some kind of contraband.
Among the items uncovered were 33 mobile phones and chargers.
AMC intel supervisor Peter Robertson said phones were considered one of the most dangerous items smuggled into the prison, because they could be used to bring in more contraband, harass witnesses or victims or even coordinate hits from the inside.
"What we are seeing is a change in technology with mobile phones, [they] are easier to get in and easier to hide," Mr Robertson said.
Corrections minister Shane Rattenbury said this new breed of mobile phones were advertised as difficult to detect, making them ideal for prisoners.
"They contain limited metal so in terms of getting them in through the metal detectors the opportunity of doing that is maximised and it presents a challenge for corrections staff," Mr Rattenbury said.
About three in 10 items uncovered related to drugs: whether it was a syringe secreted in a coffee sachet; a bong made of an empty roll-on deodorant bottle, blue-tack and a hose; or wafers of buprenorphine.
"At the moment the drug of choice is buprenorphine, that's shown through our search results and also our urine analysis," Mr Robertson said.
"In the community I think it's around $5 for a pack and each of those wafers when they come into the centre, each wafer can bring up to $300 in value so the mark-up and profit margin is astronomical."
More than 50 blades crafted from anything from toothbrush cases to snapped chair legs were confiscated, although acting general manager Paul Rushton said no inmates had been stabbed in his four years' at the prison.
"To be honest 99 per cent of our weapons found have never been used," Mr Rushton said.
"We're dealing with kids with addictions and they're used to protecting themselves so it's about breaking that cycle and trying to break that culture so kids don't have to have weapons to protect themselves."
ACT Corrective Services executive director Jon Peach said they tried to balance the risk with the prisoner's rights.
"You can actually create a weapon out of most things so do you become so draconian that you remove everything off people? You've just got to try and manage that risk better and that's what we do," Mr Peach said.
Mr Rushton said the amount of contraband being thrown over the fence in tennis balls or black plastic packages had been cut significantly in the past four years with the addition of extra fencing.
Greater powers to search staff are being discussed but Mr Rattenbury quickly quashed talk of enhanced search powers for visitors.
"We're talking about people coming to visit with children, we're talking about grandparents coming to visit and we've got to get that balance right," Mr Rattenbury said.
"So many prisoners say to me their family outside is a really motivating influence and whether we want to be authorising physical body inspections of children, grandparents, loved ones, that is a really tricky question. We could clamp down significantly but then we'd be clamping down on that social contact."
