Drug-related mortality among newly released offenders 1998 to 2000

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy). ii Acknowledgements The statistical analysis and commentary for this report were produced Valuable advice and assistance were provided throughout the study by staff in the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate and Prison Service Drug Strategy Unit, in particular Chris May and Martin Lee. Special thanks are due to Prison Governors for their cooperation in arranging prison visits and to the Drug Strategy Coordinators , Prison Health Care and CARAT services staff who took part in interviews. Thanks are also due to staff of the Office for National Statistics for their assistance: to Louise Bailey (NHSCR, Registration Division) for assistance with the matching of prisoners to the NHSCR, to Clare Griffiths Baker (Mortality, Health and Care Division) for the provision of the national mortality data and advice on the Drug Poisoning Database and coding of deaths, and to Elaine Tower (Vital events and Morbidity Processing) for the provision of coroners' texts.