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Aim ‐ To describe prescription drug use in a nationwide prison population and compare it with contemporary drug use in other relevant populations as well as in a prison population 25 years ago. Method ‐ Detailed medication sheets from 37 prisons, covering 90% of the Norwegian prison population, were collected. All drugs were transcribed into the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system, and Defined Daily Doses/100 inmates were calculated. Data enabling relevant comparisons were gathered from reliable sources. Results ‐ Among the 2,617 inmates investigated, 48% used no medication. Sixteen percent used both psychotropic and somatic drugs, 17% psychotropic drugs only, and 19% somatic drugs only. Strong correlations between drug use and gender, age, and prison characteristics were demonstrated. Psychotropic drug use was higher than in the general population but lower than in a psychiatric hospital unit. Somatic drug use was lower than in the general population, except non‐steroid antiinflammatory agents, antihistamines, and drugs to alleviate obstructive airway diseases. Psychotropic drug use, particularly antidepressant use, was higher than in prisons 25 years ago. Conclusion ‐ High levels of use of all psychotropic and a number of somatic drugs were demonstrated in this nationwide prison population. Treatment studies are needed in order to ascertain whether the high levels of use of particularly psychotropic medications are indeed improving the mental health of prisoners.

Police officers’ attitudes toward criminals are critical to the justice system’s response to crime. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes toward offenders (ATOs) among police officers.

To assess police officers ATOs, the authors adapted the Attitudes Toward Prisoner scale to produce the ATO scale. The scale was completed by 431 male police officers in a Portuguese police institution.

The results revealed that police officers hold more negative ATOs than correctional officers and graduate students. Moreover, the results revealed significant differences in average ATO scores according to police officers’ age, years of service, marital status and education; namely, police officers who were older, married, less educated, and with more years of police service had more positive ATOs. However, the results revealed that these demographic factors had a limited value in predicting attitudes, as none of them emerged as a predictor of ATOs.

Nonetheless, considering the relevance of attitudes in law enforcement procedures, the implications for training police officers are provided, specifically using critical incident technique strategies.

The relationship between the women’s reform movement and scientific management has been neglected because secondary literature has focussed primarily on class relations rather than on gender. Moreover, the neutral‐sounding formulations of scientific management discourse and the diversification of the women’s activism after suffrage has obscured linkages between both movements. Through the case study of the International Institute of Industrial Relations, through which many women reformers of different stripes found each other, the author argues that scientific management had a special appeal for women reformers and should prompt a reconsideration of the connections between gender and the scientific management movement.

Studies have reported increased psychiatric morbidity among young detainees, with as many as three‐quarters reported to have one or more psychiatric disorders. Despite this, however, there is a dearth of published work among young inmates of prisons, remand homes or borstal institutions in Nigeria. The aim of this study was to assess possible psychiatric morbidity among young inmates of a borstal institution in Nigeria and to determine the factors that may be associated with this morbidity. Fifty‐three inmates of one of the two existing borstal institution in Nigeria were assessed for psychiatric morbidity using the 12‐item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ‐12). The GHQ‐12 scores were compared with the socio‐demographic factors of the respondents. Twenty‐eight (52.8%) of the inmates were over 18 years old, 35.8% were in the middle position within the family, 62.3% were of Christian faith, and 64.2% had their parents still living together. Seventeen (32.1%) of the inmates were from Hausa ethnic extraction, 58.5% stayed for more than 6 months at the borstal institution, and 81.1% were brought to the institution by their parents. The mean age of the inmates was 17.3 years (range, 14‐23 years) and 26 (49.1%) of them were GHQ‐positive. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean age of GHQ‐positive and GHQ‐negative inmates (F=1.73, p=0.19), and none of the socio‐demographic variables were significantly associated with psychiatric morbidity (i.e. GHQ‐12 positivity). The study observed a high prevalence of undetected psychiatric morbidity among inmates at the borstal institution. Efforts should be intensified by the authority responsible for managing the Nigerian prison services (including the borstal institutions) to improve mental health services.

This preliminary small-scale research aims to achieve an insight into drug use offenders’ rehabilitation experiences both in and out of prison, as well as considering how perceptions of the public may inhibit their successful reintegration into society.

A mixed-methods approach was used, with five semi-structured interviews conducted alongside the distribution of the Attitude towards prisoners questionnaire among the general public (n = 106) in the North-West region of England.

Participants recalled a mixture of experiences, highlighting the presence of contraband in prisons to be an inhibiting factor of successful rehabilitation. Additionally, participants expressed the need for more support when preparing for release such as confirmation of accommodation and possible employment. Questionnaires also indicated the public to perceive offenders negatively (M = 76, SD = 16.99), thus presenting a further challenge in the resettlement of drug use offenders.

Findings highlight that improving practices to decrease the presence of contraband in prisons, monitoring an individual’s use of methadone, preparing an individual for their release from prison and educating the public would reduce some of the obstacles experienced by drug use offenders.

This study outlines some of the obstacles that drug use offenders experience when attempting to end their drug use activity and criminal engagement.

Interprofessional collaboration is necessary for handling the complex psychosocial needs of prisoners. This collaboration must be addressed to avoid high recidivism rates and the human and societal costs linked to them. Challenges are exacerbated by a linear approach to handling prisoners’ problems, silo working between welfare agencies and professional boundaries between frontline workers. There are few adequate theoretical frameworks and tools to address these challenges in the prison context. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions that frontline staff working in Norwegian prison facilities have regarding interprofessional collaboration in providing mental health services for prisoners.

This study had a non-experimental, cross-sectional design to explore perceptions of interprofessional collaboration in a prison context. Descriptive and multifactorial analyses (exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis) were used to explore the data.

The analysis showed that three factors, communication, organizational culture and domain, explained 95% of the variance. Results are discussed using relational coordination, as well as the conceptual PINCOM model, as a theoretical framework.

Few studies explicitly explore collaboration between professionals in mental health and prison services despite its being a prerequisite to achieving sufficient services for prisoners. To our knowledge, this current study is one of the first in Norway to explore collaboration in a prison context by analysing quantitative data and focusing on frontline workers perception of the phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence of mental health disorder symptoms in a sample of prisoners in Trinidadian prisons who volunteered to attend anger management groups.

A survey was conducted using the 90-item Symptom Check-List revised (SCL-90-R) which was administered to prisoners in groups within the prison system. In total 132 prisoners (about 9 per cent of the prison population) completed the measure. The effect sizes of prisoners’ similarities to a psychiatric inpatient group and their differences from a non-patient group were used to identify symptoms most indicative of pathology in these prisoners.

The results on the SCL-90-R indicate that this group of prisoners (77.3 per cent male) had scores of psychiatric symptomatology that were much closer to a psychiatric inpatient population rather than to a general community population.

These results suggest there may be unmet psychiatric need among the population served by the prison services in Trinidad. It is not known how this sample differs from the general prison population. However, the unmet psychiatric need in this specific population suggests that a greater mental health focus in health services within prisons is to be considered to meet these needs.

These data suggest that there are significant mental health issues for some prisoners in Trinidad and possibly more generally in similar prison systems within the Caribbean and this may have significant implications for the treatment of prisoners and the delivery of mental health services in these prisons.

The place of rehabilitation programmes in the reformation and transformation of prison inmates has continued to be on the front burner of professionals such as educators, counsellors, social workers, psychologists and medical doctors. Analysis has taken something of a top-down approach, and consideration has been placed on how the organizational context of individual prisoners interact with those rehabilitation programmes has been neglected. Drawing on interview data, this study aims to add to our understanding how rehabilitation programme affects inmates’ skills and attitudes in Sri Lankan prisons.

This study used an inductive qualitative case study approach as it requires a deep understanding of the effect of rehabilitation programme on inmates’ skills and attitudes and how inmates view rehabilitation programmes.

The study identified seven views of inmates regarding rehabilitation programmes conducted and understood that rehabilitation programme facilitates inmates to acquire strong self-assurance of future career options and deal with potentially destructive feeling such as anger, frustration and loneliness. However, inmates who showed a strong propensity to suffer injustice and internalized blame have found no substantial impact on their skills and attitude through the programme.

It is arguable that operation of meaningful prison-based rehabilitation programme is influenced by comprehensive picture of the profile of the prison population, shortages in resources, the attitudes of prison staffs, inability to meet real world settings and network building with a wide range of private, public or voluntary providers.

This study represents the first prison-based study to understand the inmates view on the rehabilitation programmes in Sri Lanka.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes of staff members in secure hospitals and the general population towards pornography use and their decision-making regarding access to pornography.

A between participants design was used whereby 324 participants, including 162 staff members and 162 people of general population, answered an online questionnaire. Vignettes were presented of six hypothetical patients in a secure hospital, based on gender (male/female) and offence type (sexual/violent/non-offender). Participants were required to decide whether the individual depicted in the vignette should have access to pornography. Finally, participants were given a psychometric assessment of their own attitudes towards pornography.

Participants were less likely to decide that the sex offender should have access to pornography than the violent or non-offender, thus the offence type of the patient was a significant predictor. There was a significant relationship between attitudes to pornography and whether the individual in the vignette should be given access to pornography. There was no significant difference between attitudes towards pornography of the general public and staff members or for male and female participants. Gender of the patient described in the vignette was not a significant predictor.

The research highlights the importance of our own attitudes towards pornography, our possible beliefs about sexual offenders and the effects these may have on decision-making.

The research determines attitudes towards pornography and explores how attitudes influence decision-making.

To consider the power of psychological well-being, empathy and coping style in predicting staff attitudes towards young people in looked after accommodation, involved in or at risk of offending behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to understand more about staff attitudes which have a significant role in the care and rehabilitation of this client group.

Psychological well-being, empathy and coping style are discussed in terms of their impact on attitudes towards young people. The predictive power of each factor is considered using multiple regression analysis of participants’ responses on an adapted version of the Attitudes to Prisoners (ATP) scale, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ).

Multiple regression analyses showed that empathic concern (affective empathy) was the only factor predictive of attitudes towards young people. The paper discusses the applied implications for employers, including the possibility of empathy training for staff members and highlights the need for further consideration of the factors impacting on staff attitudes.

The outcome suggests that empathy may serve as a protective factor against the development of negative attitudes. This highlights the importance of fostering staff empathy and the possible use of empathy training.

The research findings question the robustness of the relationships between staff psychological well-being, empathy, coping styles and attitudes towards their client group. The outcome suggests that empathy may serve as a protective factor against the development of negative attitudes.