Pubdate: Sat, 12 Aug 2000
Source: Irish Times, The (Ireland)
Copyright: 2000 The Irish Times
Contact:  11-15 D'Olier St, Dublin 2, Ireland
Fax: + 353 1 671 9407
Website: http://www.ireland.com/
Author: Jean Long, M.Sc., Shane Allwright, Ph.D., Joseph Barry, MD

DRUG ABUSE IN PRISONS

Sir - It is unfortunate that your Health and Children Correspondent, 
Padraig O'Morain, relied almost exclusively on the press release of the 
Irish Prisons Service when reporting on our survey of hepatitis B and C and 
HIV in Irish prisoners (The Irish Times, July 27th). Prison management is 
sceptical of our finding that approximately one fifth of prisoners who 
inject began doing so in prison. The reason for this scepticism is the 
known propensity of prisoners to blame their health troubles on the 
authorities rather than themselves.

Having carried out two surveys in Irish prisons, the results of one of 
which has just been published in the British Medical Journal, we believe 
that those with authority to introduce change in the Irish Prisons Services 
should look at their own practices rather than seek to spin their way out 
of accepting responsibility for what has been acknowledged for some time as 
a seriously deficient system.

Yours, etc.,

Jean Long, M.Sc., Shane Allwright, Ph.D., Joseph Barry, MD, Department of 
Community Health and General Practice, Trinity College, Dublin 2
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