Introduction: drug addiction is considered a public health problem and is associated with delinquency and violent behavior. Objective: to determine the relation between early maladaptive schemas, depression and drug use in persons deprived of liberty in intrapenitentiary treatment with the therapeutic community modality. Method: non-experimental and cross-sectional research in a population conformed by 114 male users deprived of liberty. The instruments used were the Beck Depression Inventory and early maladaptive schemas and drug use questionnaires. Results: the schemas that correlated with drug use in persons deprived of liberty were failure, subjugation, sacrifice, insufficient discipline and grandiosity, and those that increased the risk of drug use were dependence/incompetence (RR = 3.375, I = .418, S = 27.227), vulnerability (RR = 3.375, I = .418, S = 27.227), failure (RR = 2.500, I = .306, S = 20.453) and unattainable standards (RR = 2.294, I = .279, S = 18.860). Discussion and conclusions: it was found that early maladaptive schemas in the prison population are related to and increase the risk of drug use, therefore these results have applications for the prevention and treatment of drug use in persons deprived of liberty.