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Home Office;Prison Service

Answer

Mr. Madden: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the total number of drug dependent prisoners currently detained in prisons in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement. [9200] Miss Widdecombe: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given. Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Max Madden, dated 16 December 1996: The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about estimates of the number of drug dependent prisoners. Drug misuse is a covert activity which makes data on prevalence difficult to obtain and interpret. We do not have definitive information about the scale of drug misuse in prisons; but it is a significant problem. The matter has been the subject of some independent research. For example, a recent study (Maden et al 1995) of 995 males, male youths and females remanded in custody in England and Wales showed that upon psychiatric examination 26% had a harmful or dependant misuse of substances (adult males 23 %, male youths 23% and women 33%). These figures do not include alcohol or cannabis. When these subjects were questioned about their drug use prior to entering prison 32% had used cannabis, 14% had used opiates, 9% had used prescribed benzodiaezepines, 7% had used illicit benzodiazepines, 8% had used crack cocaine, 6% had used amphetamines and 2% had used cocaine. A previous study by the same researchers of 1751 sentenced male prisoners in England and Wales (1991) showed that before entering prison 43% had used cannabis, 9% had used opiates, 9% had used amphetamines and 5% had used cocaine. A major new source of information has also recently become available. Since April 1996 all English and Welsh prisons have introduced mandatory random drug testing. One important result from this development is that for the first time we are routinely assembling a database of the level and nature of drug use in our prisons. Eventually this will allow us to understand more, to follow trends, to manage and target our resources more effectively for tackling drug problems--and in time to be able to measure the impact of our policies.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

9200; 287 c452W

Session

1996-97

Subjects

Drugs Prisoners Misuse

Contains statistics

Yes