Editorial

Morag MacDonald (Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK)
Robert Greifinger (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA)
Scott Allen (Riverside School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA)
David Kane (Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom)

International Journal of Prisoner Health

ISSN: 1744-9200

Article publication date: 21 December 2015

174

Citation

MacDonald, M., Greifinger, R., Allen, S. and Kane, D. (2015), "Editorial", International Journal of Prisoner Health, Vol. 11 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPH-09-2015-0032

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Prisoner Health, Volume 11, Issue 4.

Morag MacDonald, Robert Greifinger, Scott Allen and David Kane

Welcome to issue 11 (4) of the journal. As usual, we have assembled a selection of papers from around the world that address various aspects of the prisoner health experience.

To begin, we have a viewpoint paper that examines unanticipated harms that might occur as a result of public health interventions: in this case, the possible risks associated with tattooing in prisons resulting from Australian prison authority programmes to establish prisons as “tobacco free”.

We have two papers in this issue from the USA that examine aspects of HIV. The first explores HIV risk behaviours occurring in prison with a sample of recently released ex-offenders while the second addresses the difficulties experienced by HIV-infected prisoners on release, specifically, how they understand their condition and access health care post-release.

The theme of canvassing views from ex-prisoners is continued in our third paper, from Canada, which examines prisoners' experiences of the process of accessing health services in prison and the quality of interaction with health care professionals, comparing these experiences with official reports on health care delivery.

Our fourth paper, from the UK, is an evaluation of an Intellectual Disability (ID) screening service in a women's prison. The authors argue that such a process is necessary as women offenders with an ID are particularly vulnerable. The authors conclude that this type of preliminary screening is feasible in prison but its value is limited unless additional resources are made available to facilitate additional screening that might lead to definitive diagnosis and care planning.

Our final paper is a literature review that examines the practice of detention and compulsory treatment for people who inject drugs (PWIDs) in seven Asian countries. The authors' findings indicate that the practice lacks due legal process, fails to address drug dependency, lacks HIV prevention and treatment and is characterised by abusive conditions and high relapse rates.

Finally, we would like to take the opportunity in this, our final issue of the year, to thank our contributors, reviewers and readers for their support in 2015 and to wish you all the very best for 2016.

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