BACKGROUND Common mental health problems are prevalent in prison and the quality of prison health care provision for prisoners with mental health problems has been a focus of critical scrutiny. Currently, health policy aims to align and integrate prison health services and practices with those of the National Health Service (NHS). Medication management is a key aspect of treatment for patients ...

BACKGROUND An industrial dispute between prison doctors and the Irish Prison Service (IPS) took place in 2004. Part of the resolution of that dispute was that an independent review of prison medical and support services be carried out by a University Department of Primary Care. The review took place in 2008 and we report here on the principal findings of that review. METHODS This study utilis...

OBJECTIVE To identify predictors of and groups vulnerable to cocaine use in prison. METHODS We selected 376 inmates with history of cocaine use in prison (cases) and 938 inmates with no history of drug use (controls) serving sentences in the Rio de Janeiro State prison system in 1998. The analysis included exposure variables divided into three hierarchical levels: distal, intermediate, and pr...

Spending time in prison has become an increasingly common life event for low-skill minority men in the U.S. The Bureau of Justice Statistics now estimates that one in three Black men can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. A growing body of work implicates the prison system in contemporary accounts of racial inequality across a host of social, health, economic, and political dom...

More than 9.25 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world at the moment, with rapidly increasing numbers. Strengthening the competence of mental health care services for prison inmates is an issue of major concern. However, this field is widely neglected by health services research internationally. Research activities are scarce even for the most basic indicators (psychi...

PURPOSE This research aimed to investigate the impacts of the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble Prison Project (QSEPP) on the health and wellbeing of participants, specifically with regard to social support. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Semi-structured interviews were conducted with prisoners participating in the project to gain insight into perceived sense of support within the QSEPP and across...

This article discusses the present state of access to books and other reading materials for inmates in Japan’s correctional facilities. While no professionally managed libraries are provided at these facilities— which explains why the term Prison Libraries in the title of this article is placed in quotation marks—incarcerated persons have the opportunity to obtain personal books, magazines, and...

The 'health-promoting prison' has been informed by a broader settings-based philosophy to health promotion which conceptualizes health as the responsibility for all social settings. Though in its relative infancy, the notion of a health-promoting prison has gained political backing from international organizations like the World Health Organization, but the implementation of the policy rhetoric...

The author's interest in the issue of mourning in prison is twofold. As an active hospice volunteer, she became involved with bereavement work, which sensitized her to the issues of loss encountered upon joining the staff at the Maine State Prison. More often than not, the inmates with whom she met had unresolved issues of loss. The impetus for a grief support group came from an inmate who had ...

The global prison population has grown exponentially in all five continents and consistent analysis shows that many diseases, illnesses and long-term conditions are over-represented in the prison population. Despite the myriad of health challenges in the population, the concept and practice of health promotion is both contested and underdeveloped with significant variation in its application in...