New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CRIMES (ADMINISTRATION OF SENTENCES) ACT 1999 - SECT 78

78 Use of dogs in maintaining good order and security

(1) With the approval of the general manager of a correctional centre, a correctional officer may use a dog to assist in maintaining the good order and security of the correctional centre and any correctional complex of which the correctional centre forms part.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), such an approval may be given to the use of a dog for any of the following purposes:

(a) the carrying out of searches within a correctional centre or correctional complex for any reason,

(b) the tracking of an escaped inmate,

(c) the escorting of inmates while they are being moved from one place to another,

(d) the disarming of inmates,

(e) the patrolling of correctional centres and correctional complexes,

(f) the assisting of a police officer in the execution of the police officer’s functions.

(3) At the request of the Director-General of the Department of Juvenile Justice, a correctional officer may use a dog to assist in the detection of drugs in a detention centre within the meaning of the Children (Detention Centres) Act 1987 .

(4) A correctional officer is not personally liable for injury or damage caused by the use of a dog that is under the correctional officer’s control if that use was in accordance with the general manager’s approval.

(5) Subsection (4) does not apply if injury or damage occurs as a result of anything commanded to be done by a correctional officer maliciously and without reasonable and probable cause.

(6) This section applies to a person employed as a custodian of inmates by the management company for a managed correctional centre in the same way as it applies to a correctional officer.

(7) Nothing in this section limits the power of a correctional officer to use a dog under any other Act or law.