Menu Close

Articles on Prison health

Displaying 1 - 20 of 23 articles

Shutterstock

Direct-acting antivirals can cure hepatitis C and prisons are now leading efforts to eliminate the virus

Direct-acting antivirals can cure hepatitis C in eight to 12 weeks. But while the rate of uptake in Australia has slowed, a greater proportion of those undertaking treatment are in prison.
Trucks like this are used to convey inmates to the prison in Lagos State, Nigeria. Over 70 percent of inmates in Nigeria have not appeared in court and haven’t been sentenced. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images

Waiting for trial can be worse than facing the sentence: a study in Nigerian prisons

The proportion of prisoners awaiting trial in Nigeria is disturbing, and prolonged imprisonment can have a damaging effect on their mental functioning .
Prisons around the worlds have started to reduce their population in response to the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

Coronavirus in prisons: How and why to release inmates in a pandemic

Prison lawyers in Canada are scrambling to fill the gap left by federal inaction on inmate populations who are vulnerable to COVID-19. A recent case in Ontario could provide a legal precedent.
Calls for help at Chicago’s Cook County jail, where hundreds of inmates and staff have COVID-19, April 9, 2020. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

Prisons and jails are coronavirus epicenters – but they were once designed to prevent disease outbreaks

In the 1790s, penal reformers rebuilt America’s squalid jails as airy, hygienic places meant to keep residents – and by extension society – healthy. Now they’re hotbeds of COVID-19. What went wrong?
A tipi at a federal prison in Edmonton. Prison systems have legal options to decrease their prison populations, including ways to return Indigenous people in prison to their communities. (The Office of the Correctional Investigator)

Why some Canadian prisoners should be released during the coronavirus pandemic

Rapidly decreasing the prison population by letting people out is a public health imperative as governments for solutions to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Prison represents only a temporary disruption in tobacco use for many smokers. TeodorLazarev

Why Australian prisoners are smoking nicotine-infused tea leaves

The only quitting tool most Australian prisoners have access to is nicotine lozenges. These are being mixed with tea leaves to create a smokable product known as “teabacco”.
A prisoner looks out a window on March 26, 2015, from Zhdanivskaya prison in Ukraine, were TB is rampant. AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov

Why community and not confinement will end TB

World TB Day will be observed March 24, with the good news that deaths from tuberculosis are declining. But a trend toward confining those with TB threatens to stall advances.
Tobacco, like other substances, are likely to become part of the prison contraband trade. Image from shutterstock.com

Total smoking bans aren’t the answer to better prisoner health

From May next year, Queensland prisoners will no longer be able to smoke cigarettes. Smoking in cells was prohibited in Queensland facilities in 2008, but as of next year the prohibition will extend to…

Top contributors

More