Mental disorders detected in an Irish prison sample

Substance abuse and dependence in prisoners: a systematic review

“…Two surveys (1220 prisoners) [18,69] were published before 1990. Prisoners in the included studies were primarily from the United States (6635 prisoners; 88%) [18,19,21,22,69–73], with the remainder being from the United Kingdom (548 prisoners; 7%) [4], Ireland (280 prisoners) [20,74] and New Zealand (100 prisoners) [75].…”

“…There were a number of different sampling techniques used. Some studies used simple random sampling (2310 prisoners) [19,20,70,71,74], some used stratified random sampling (2000 prisoners) [21,22] and others used the inclusion of all consecutive new receptions into prison (2448 prisoners) [4,18,69,72,73,75]. One study used a combination of these techniques (805 prisoners) [19].…”

“…In two surveys, diagnoses of alcohol or drug abuse/dependence were made entirely using clinical interviews (783 prisoners) [4,74]. However, the majority featured trained interviewers using validated, structured instruments.…”

Institutions and services in forensic psychiatry

“…(1997b) expressed their concern that a high proportion of those women dependent on illicit drugs reoffended and a previous treatment history seemed irrelevant in this regard. Smith et al (1996) asserted that the size of the problem of alcohol and drug misuse in prisoners in their study demanded a major treatment programme in prisons. From their research Mason et al (1997) estimated that among newly remanded prisoners the lifetime prevalence of substance misuse was 70% and that 57% had misused in the previous year.…”

“…Smith et al (1996) interviewed 235 prisoners (126 of whom were sentenced) randomly selected from the resident population of the prison. Although the rate of 'major mental illness' was raised above the level expected in the general population there was no significant difference between the pretrial and sentenced samples.…”