OBJECTIVES To determine the prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis B core antigen, hepatitis C virus, and HIV in entrants to Irish prisons and to examine risk factors for infection. DESIGN Cross sectional, anonymous survey, with self completed risk factor questionnaire and oral fluid specimen for antibody testing. SETTING Five of seven committal prisons in the Republic of Ireland. PARTICIP...

PURPOSE This paper aims to explore how the TECH Model (testing for and treating infectious diseases and vaccination; environmental modification to prevent disease transmission; chronic disease identification and treatment; and health maintenance and education) can be used for assessing and achieving healthy prisons. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH This paper explores the concepts of "health in pr...

BACKGROUND Early findings from a national study of discharges from 32 National Health Service medium secure units revealed that nearly twice as many patients than expected were discharged back to prison. AIMS To compare the characteristics of those discharged back to prison with those discharged to the community, and consider the implications for ongoing care and risk. METHOD Prospective co...

BACKGROUND Peer interventions involving prisoners in delivering peer education and peer support in a prison setting can address health need and add capacity for health services operating in this setting. This paper reports on a qualitative synthesis conducted as part of a systematic review of prison-based peer interventions. One of the review questions aimed to investigate the positive and nega...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the facilities for inpatient care of mentally disordered people in prison. DESIGN Semistructured inspections conducted by doctor and nurse. Expected standards were based on healthcare quality standards published by the Prison Service or the NHS. SETTING 13 prisons with inpatient beds in England and Wales subject to the prison inspectorate's routine inspection progra...

PURPOSE This paper aims to discuss some of the obstacles to implementing policy and strategy related to health promoting prisons. It focuses on the role of prison officers and raises issues concerning their conditions of service, training and organisational culture in a situation where the prison system faces security issues, overcrowding and high levels of ill health among prisoners. DESIGN/...

U P UNTIL NOW, CINEMATIC PRISON METAPHORS HAVE BEEN NEGLECTED by both metaphor and film studies. By focusing on these ignored types of metaphor, this article fills a crucial gap in the critical understanding of metaphor. The first part of this article develops a taxonomy of prison and film metaphors. The first taxonomy (of prison metaphors) is based on the categories developed by Monika Fludern...

The study investigated the effects of time spent in prison and quality of life before prison on male, federally sentenced prisoners’ adaptations to imprisonment, controlling for sentence length and prison security level. Data consisted of responses on a self-administered survey completed by 712 prisoners. Findings tended to support the independent effects of the indigenous (deprivation) and imp...

The study design, however, does not support the conclusion of the authors that “there was no evidence of tuberculosis transmission within the institutions.” Their record review of 4,744 inmates showed that only 347(7.3 percent)had documented repeat skin tests during incarceration. The extent to which this small percentage of inmates, some ofwhom had been released from prison between skin tests,...