The recent statistics monitoring prison inmates show a steady rise in the number of hepatitis C cases, making it all too clear that drug use, as in all jails, is a fact of life.

This again brings to the foreground the argument for a needle exchange program.

Hepatitis C is a virus that causes liver inflammation and disease. There is no vaccination against it, and it is estimated that 170million people worldwide are infected.

In Australia, between 50 to 80per cent of hep C infections have resulted from unsafe injecting drug use, depending on which research one encounters.

It is a serious health issue. Outside the prison system, needle exchange programs are an accepted method of combating the spread of disease.

Governments have distributed some 30million needles and syringes every year in Australia over the past decade. These programs have averted 97,000 hepatitis C infections and $1.28billion has been saved in health care costs.

We have needle exchange programs in our community, why not in our jails?

The experiences in prisons in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece with syringe exchange programs have been positive and free of major problems.

But reservations in Australia stem from prison staff safety following the death of a prison officer stabbed with a syringe full of HIV-infected blood in the 1990s.

The point in this case is that the officer was stabbed with a syringe despite the fact that needles are banned in jails.

Would it not be safer for officers to work in an environment where needles are uncontaminated and clearly monitored, as opposed to hidden, illegal and a possibly carrying lethal disease?

The Alexander Maconochie Centre is a progressive prison the first of its kind in Australia designed specifically in accordance with ACT Human Rights Standards.

It's philosophy is akin to its namesake, Alexander Maconochie, a great penal reformer of the 1800s who believed prisoners ought to be rehabilitated and returned to society rather than merely punished. The AMC is designed around the concept of replicating life on the outside, with education, work and recreation programs.

It is also only the second jurisdiction in Australia to allow conjugal visits, including same-sex partners, to eligible prisoners as a reward for good behaviour.

Such progressiveness is not always popular in the community many people argue that no punishment is too severe for those found guilty of breaking the law.

But prisoners do return to the community. Should we not do our utmost to ensure they do not reoffend? Should we not also prevent the spread of disease both within and outside the prison walls?

The ACT Government set a benchmark with the AMC. A trial needle exchange program, in consultation with prison staff, would continue that spirit of reform.