Treatment of drug-addicted detainees

Any attempt to determine the number of detainees who are also drug users is hampered by the fact that there is no official, national source of information in this area. Studies in individual institutions have shown that about 30% of detainees meet drug-dependence criteria. If a broader definition of the problem (substance abuse in general) is used, then this percentage rises to 44%. It is generally assumed that about one third to half of all detainees have some form of addiction problem. On an annual basis, this amounts to 15,000 to 23,000 individuals (excluding Youth Custody Centres and placement under a hospital order), which involves allowing for counting the same individual several times, since given individuals may be detained several times in one year. In two thirds of those inmates of standard penal institutions who have addiction problems (about 10,000 to 15,000 individuals per annum) these problems can be defined as ‘serious’. Such individuals have often been addicted for many years.