Drugs treatment in prisons is poor
Treatment in prison bears little relation to need. Prison doctors are not uniformly trained to deal with drug misuse, and there is a heavy reliance on a few charismatic individuals to drive treatment programmes.
In Scotland, for example, the Scottish Executive has funded the Royal College of General Practitioners to train prison doctors but the scheme does not extend to those employed by private medical providers, with the result that it excludes, for example, doctors in Glasgow’s Barlinnie, the largest prison in Scotland where a high proportion of prisoners use drugs. Information from Dr Uday Mukherji, 16 May 2006