Pubdate: Sun, 15 Oct 2006
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Author: Liam McDougall, Home Affairs Editor

EXPLOSIVE REPORT REVEALS TRUE EXTENT OF PRISON DRUG ABUSE EPIDEMIC

A new 265-page report has revealed the grim extent of drug abuse 
within the Scottish prison system.

The result of two years of work by a research team led by Dr David 
Shewan at Glasgow Caledonian University, it garnered views directly 
from prison inmates and addiction staff about the scale of the drugs 
epidemic and how it should be tackled.

This week the explosive findings from the study - commissioned by the 
Scottish Prison Service to inform its policy and considered the most 
in-depth study of its kind - are made public for the first time by 
the Sunday Herald.

As part of the research, completed in June this year, inmates from 
eight penal establishments in Scotland were interviewed in focus 
groups or on a one-to-one basis. They were taken from Aberdeen, HMP 
Women's Unit, Barlinnie, Barlinnie (Remand), Cornton Vale, Polmont, 
Saughton and Shotts. A questionnaire taking the views of 60 addiction 
specialists from 12 of the country's 14 jails was also carried out to 
assess the impact of current policies.

At a time when the issues of prisoners and drug abuse are becoming 
key election battle grounds, the report's findings paint a picture of 
a jail system in the grip of a heroin crisis and a prison staff that 
feels it is powerless to curb the problem.

The researchers revealed through candid interviews with prisoners, 
particularly long-term prisoners, that drugs had become more 
prevalent in the prison system. It was also acknowledged by both 
inmates and staff that the prevalence of cannabis had been eclipsed 
by the availability of heroin.

One male prisoner said: "When I was younger it wasnae so much heroin, 
know what I mean? It was mostly valium and tems [temgesic] and hash, 
maybe the odd bit of coke. But, like, heroin wasn't as bad when I was 
a young offender, as what it is now. It's rife now."

A female inmate warned: "Heroin is getting more acceptable. I mean, 
heroin is just everywhere." The report claimed that some addiction 
staff members "seemed almost resigned to the presence" of drugs in their jail.

It also found that, while prisoners and staff tended not to discuss 
rates of heroin use, some did. Researchers were told by one prisoner 
that he was using "near enough a half-gram of kit [heroin] a day", 
while another admitted to injecting two to three times a day. At one 
prisoner group interview, three of the seven inmates present claimed 
to have smoked heroin that morning.

Controversially, researchers were told that the policy of drug 
testing had turned cannabis-using inmates into heroin addicts.

"It's the drug testing that's knocked guys from smoking cannabis on 
to heroin because cannabis is in your system for 28 days after you've 
had a smoke," one male prisoner said. "Whereas with smack, I can take 
a burn of smack now, go back to ma cell, drink three litres of water 
and it'll no' be in ma system. If I did that with cannabis I'd get done.

"So a lot of people are turning to heroin for that reason."

Another said: "I know guys that actually come in - doesnae take smack 
outside - well-respected guys, come into prison and started taking 
smack and ended up with a smack habit in prison for the simple reason 
that it's easier tae get smack out your system than it is cannabis."

In addressing the question of how the drugs were coming into the 
jails, addiction staff admitted that, given its size, heroin was 
"probably the easiest" drug to smuggle into prison. The staff as well 
as prisoners "almost always" pointed to visits as the main means of 
bringing drugs in.

"They come in and all they want to do is try and arrange to get the 
stuff in," said one staff member. Residential staff revealed that a 
prisoner who is more likely to be suspected, or getting more visits - 
such as a remand prisoner - may also be coerced into arranging to 
bring in drugs for a "main player".

Interviews with one staff group described arrangements by dealers 
within the prison for someone to be sentenced for non-payment of a 
fine so that they could bring drugs in, on the understanding that the 
fine would be paid, allowing the individual to leave the prison again.

The rush to find who had drugs and to buy them was described as 
"mayhem". The study details how this process could fill an entire day 
for prisoners, and how new arrivals to the jail would be targeted for 
the sale of drugs "almost immediately".

One prisoner said: "I think in all honesty, [the staff] know exactly 
what's going on in that hall ... but there's nothing they can really 
do to stop it."

An officer added: "We do our best just to try and stop all the 
avenues we can, but as soon as we stop one avenue then another one 
opens, so we have to be constantly on the alert for drugs. Also, 
prisoners are now beginning to smuggle mobile phones into prison, 
which also helps the drug dealers and makes our job even more difficult."

The researchers were told that staff shortages were hindering the 
fight to tackle the problem effectively and that, in any case, some 
officers "turned a blind eye" to drug use. Prisoners from a number of 
jails claimed they had had experiences where staff had seen them 
using drugs but allowed them to do so.

The report states that while prisoners did not feel that staff 
willingly condoned drug use, drugs were viewed by the officers as a 
"necessity" to control levels of disruption in the jail.

Staff and prisoners in some prisons linked the perceived rise in drug 
use with the end of the policy of taking remission as a punishment. 
It was argued that punishments now in force - such as losing 
recreation for seven days or losing wages - did not deter prisoners 
from taking drugs.

The fear of violence and disturbance was another reason prisoners 
felt that staff failed to act on their knowledge of drug abuse. 
"There'd be trouble. There'd be stabbings. Officers would get 
stabbed, 'cause there's two of them in the hall. There are probably 
about 280 prisoners."

In a damning indictment of current efforts to tackle drugs and their 
health consequences in jails, one addictions co-ordinator said: "The 
main problems are simply a matter of resources. It's a public health 
issue and it's a massive health problem. I estimate there are 2500 
problematic drug misusers who pass through here every year. A lot of 
these guys will use needles. Those who use needles, generally 
speaking, tend to be HIV-positive or have hepatitis C, or some other 
blood-borne virus, so there's a huge healthcare issue which I don't 
think it being adequately addressed."

Another specialist said: "I think they have to admit at some point 
that there is a strong problem within prisons and we're compounding 
the problem by taking away, for instance, syringes, because then 
they're really sharing with people whose backgrounds they don't know. 
So we're actually encouraging the spread of some of the things that 
we're trying to reduce."

The research also examined drug programmes offered in the prisons and 
found that, at best, only limited data was available. Just three 
prisons could provide figures, but the actual number of referrals for 
each was unknown.

In the absence of data, the researchers used the prison with the most 
complete figures to estimate how long it look prisoners to enter 
programmes. It was found that the average waiting time for 
intervention was 111 days, or almost four months.

The survey of addiction teams revealed that 43% agreed or strongly 
agreed that most prisoners with drug problems are not in contact with 
drug interventions. A further 49% agreed or strongly agreed that 
mandatory drug testing (MDT) had led prisoners to change their drug 
use to heroin. A further 22% said they did not know. A large minority 
of staff - 40% - believed MDT "no longer served any purpose".

Stewart Stevenson, the SNP's deputy justice spokesman, described the 
report' s findings as a "wake-up call". He added: "It must be a clear 
signal that we must make more efforts to get people out of their drug 
addiction. Prisons are the place where it should be more difficult to 
get drugs, not easier."

Margaret Mitchell, the Scottish Tory justice spokeswoman, said: "If 
it takes a glass partition at visiting times to stop drugs getting 
into prisons, then that's what will have to happen. We'll do what we 
have to do to make our prisons drug-free because that's the least 
that people should expect."

A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: "We are doing all that is 
possible, given the resources that we have. We have drug dogs, we 
tackle prisoners inside ... but there needs to be a balance so that 
what you do with the minority doesn't detract from the opportunities 
for the majority."

l Sixty addiction specialists from 12 of the country's 14 prisons 
were surveyed.

l Some 65% felt that visit regulations should be made stricter to 
make a difference to drug problems in prison.

l A third felt drug assessments did not effectively identify drug 
users at admission.

l 87% believed that different treatment programmes should be 
available for different types of users.

l 88% admitted that drugs were present both in prisons' designated 
drug free areas and drug support units.

l 49% of addiction staff said they believed that mandatory drug tests 
had caused prisoners to change their drug use to opiates, such as heroin.

l Most addictions staff interviewed by researchers, 69%, said they 
disagreed or strongly disagreed that mandatory drug testing had 
caused an overall decrease in the amount of drugs used by inmates.

l A sizeable minority - 40% - supported the statement that mandatory 
drug tests "no longer served any purpose".

l 54% of addictions staff felt that medical and nursing teams are 
adequately staffed to deal with prisoners' health needs. 80% said 
that inmates' mental health problems were often unrecognised.
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