On May 25, 2016, the UK Government introduced a nationwide automatic ban on substances referred to as legal highs or new psychoactive substances (NPS), which includes a wide range of already well-known substances (such as synthetic cannabis or “spice” and nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas). The new laws—that criminalise the production, distribution, sale, and supply of NPS—automatically...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of serious mental disorders in a prison population in Durban, South Africa, one of the largest prisons in the Southern hemisphere. METHOD 193 prisoners were interviewed using the Mini Neuro-psychiatric Interview, a screening questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire. RESULTS The study demonstrated that 55.4% of prisoners ha...

Since 2011, the organisational and management process of Italian Prison Administration has started to change. The Open section Dynamic supervision measures introduced into penitentiary system, requires that all prison workers participate in observation treatment prisoners’ activities, carried out within a multidisciplinary perspective. This may imply significant increase, both workload possible...

This paper reports on a two year project, undertaken between 2008 and 2010 across three male prisons, two of which were adult and one young offender institution. Principles of action research and appreciative inquiry were adopted to work with action learning groups across all three prisons to support the implementation of clinical supervision, undertake a training needs analysis, develop resear...

OBJECTIVES To assess the challenges in reducing tuberculosis (TB) in prisons in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay and propose ways to address them through communication interventions. METHODS Challenges to two central goals of TB control--early diagnosis of positive cases and successful application of the directly observed treatment, short course (DOTS) strategy--were examined. Data were gathere...

BACKGROUND The development of primary care services within prisons has been central to improvements in the provision of health care in this setting over the past decade. Despite national imperatives to involve patients in the development of services and numerous policy initiatives, there has been no systematic evaluation of changes in the delivery of primary care and little published evidence o...

In August 2012, the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) was notified of gastrointestinal illness outbreaks in two Arkansas state prisons. ADH investigated the outbreaks and conducted case-control studies to identify the source of the illnesses. This report describes the results of these investigations, which identified 528 persons with onset of diarrhea during August 2-18, 2012. Results from th...

BACKGROUND A smoking ban was implemented across all prisons in Queensland, Australia, in May 2014, with the aim of improving the health of prisoners and prison staff. However, relapse to smoking after release from prison is common. Only one previous study, conducted in the United States, has used a randomised design to evaluate an intervention to assist individuals in remaining abstinent from s...

This paper explores dying in English prisons. Whilst often conflated, death and are conceptually different. While there is increased attention given to the investigation of deaths custody, impact prison on healthcare staff custodial staff, little has been paid experience people themselves. Post-death investigations tell us about experiences dying. reviewed literature prisons highlights this cle...