Open prisons are portrayed as less harmful custodial institutions than closed prisons, and prison systems that rely more heavily on low security imprisonment typically considered to have a humane punitive approach punishment. However, few studies systematically compared the subjective experiences of prisoners held in open no study has yet role function across jurisdictions. Drawing survey condu...

House of Commons Debates Prisons: During an Adjournment Debate on February 6th, 1963, Mr. Leo Abse stated that "in 1961, on more than 100 occasions men and women in our prisons and borstals were placed in straitjackets. More than half of the women suffering this treatment were young women inside our borstals." He also stated that strait-jackets, the use of which had in effect been abandoned by ...

BACKGROUND Prisoners are associated with high health care needs compared with the general population. This study aims to investigate prisoners' use of health service. METHODS A cross-sectional study of 29 prisons in central and southern parts of Norway. A questionnaire was distributed to 1, 454 prisoners (90% response rate). Multilevel analyses were employed to analyse help seeking behaviour ...

BACKGROUND Mental illness is highly prevalent among prisoners. Although psychotropic medicines can ameliorate symptoms of mental illness, prescribers in prisons must balance clinical needs against risks to safety and security. Concerns have been raised at the large number of prisoners reportedly receiving psychotropic medicines in England. Nonetheless, unlike for the wider community, robust pre...

The 'health-promoting prison' has been informed by a broader settings-based philosophy to health promotion which conceptualizes health as the responsibility for all social settings. Though in its relative infancy, the notion of a health-promoting prison has gained political backing from international organizations like the World Health Organization, but the implementation of the policy rhetoric...

Background Approximately 2.2 million people are currently in US prisons and jails (DOJ 2006). Although women account for about 8% of those incarcerated (DOJ 2006), from 1990 to 2000 the number of women in prisons and jails more than doubled (DOJ 2006). Ensuring the successful community re-integration of prisoners is of concern since approximately 95% of people incarcerated in jail or prison wil...

Canadian women inmates have higher rates of HIV (0.9–4.7%) than male inmates (6). In a study of 17 Quebec prisons, the prevalence of HIV infection was 2.4% among the male participants and 8.8% among the female participants (5). Canadian statistics indicate that 75% of women serving time in federal prisons were doing so for minor offences such as shoplifting and fraud, and one third of these wer...