Author Description

Prisons today contain large proportions of drug users. Drug Use and Prisons provides the first comprehensive account of patterns of drug use and risk behaviours in prisons, and of the different responses to this feature of prison life. Experts from Europe, North and South America, Africa and Australia, from a variety of professional backgrounds, provide an international perspective on this ongoing problem. In the past, prisoners were one of the 'hidden populations' of drug users. But with increasing recognition of the potential for the prison setting to act as a conduit for HIV and transmission within the prisoner population and thence into the community, failure to face this prospect is no longer an option for public health researchers or policymakers, nor for those working in the prison system.