Behind Bars: The Truth about Drugs in Prisons

Abstract

The consumption and dealing of drugs has long been a criminal offence, so how are drugs finding their way into prisons that are meant to be secure places of law enforcement? To be able to confront the problem, an in-depth understanding is needed on the current situation of drugs within prisons. This review focuses on three aspects, firstly looking at the main ways drugs are trafficked into prisons, secondly looking at the issues linked to the use of drugs within prisons and finally evaluating what is being done to try to tackle the problem. Drugs find their way into prisons in numerous ways, which causes problems for the prison system. Prison officials need to be able to keep up with the creative and inventive ways inmates are developing to traffic drugs into prisons. A third of prisoners in England and Wales claimed it was easier to get hold of drugs in prison than it was outside. This undermines prison security and creates problems with violence together being linked with reoffending. Two in five prisoners in England and Wales are known to commit offences in order to get funds to purchase drugs. Health risks are created by inmates sharing syringes, leading to the transmission of infectious diseases. This in turn causes the costs of treatments and detection methods to spiral out of control. Governments are constantly trying to proactively find ways to tackle drugs in prison; these include the use of sniffer dogs and employing more thorough searches by staff. But more needs to be done to eradicate drugs completely.