The Importance Of Drug Use In U. K Prisons

It is important that the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), NHS England and Public Health England understand the level of the mental health need nationally and within individual prisons, so that they can plan services to meet prisoners’ needs. A national data on mental health needs to help plan spending on mental healthcare; and an understanding of mental health needs at each individual prison to know which services to provide. NOMS expects prisons to provide an environment that is safe, secure and decent. Enabling prisoners to maintain a good state of mental well-being supports this aim but is challenging to achieve. The NHS has stated that connecting with people, being active and learning new skills can benefit mental well-being

Taking drugs in prison can provide sanctuary and be a means of self-medication and self-help. Drugs can help mask the harsh realities of penal regimes and ease the consequences of being exposed to low levels of mental and physical stimulation. Prisoners often take drugs to relieve physical or emotional pain. Spice, which is a synthetic version of cannabis, and other synthetic drugs are spreading through U.K prisons. Drugs, especially cannabis, can be a means of controlling unstructured time by inducing sleep, thus making time consciousness much less evident. Psychoactive drugs, such as Spice, alter perception, mood and can even induce unconsciousness. That psychoactive drugs, including Spice, cause serious damage to health and impact negatively upon behaviour is weighed against the ways in which they ease the pains of confinement for the prisoner (Open University,

There are 47% of men and 31% of women have been reported that it was simple to get their drugs delivered into prison. In 2016 and estimated 225kg of drugs were confiscated from within prisons and it is reported that a further 104kg were found up to June 2017. The government have trained dogs to detect psychoactive substances in prisons and as of September 2017, there have been 821 incidents where psychoactive drugs have been found following an indication from the trained dogs (Prison Reform Trust, 2017).

A recent challenge to the prison service was the use of drones to deliver drugs to prisoners in the U.K. There are remote controlled drones that are equipped with a fishing line and hooks, that were flown to cell windows where inmates, in contact with the pilot, would use broom handles to smuggle the items (The Guardian,