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Table DUP-2. Prevalence of lifetime injecting drug use among prisoners, 1995-2006

Country	Year	Ref. (1)	Definition and methodological comments (2)	Drug used - (and if any: restriction on base population)		% IDU
Belgium	2003	1	People reporting injecting drug use (prior to/within prison). Comment: survey in a random sample of 10 prisons (over a total of 38) amongst on remand, convicted and social defence (psychiatric cases) prisoners (n= 886).	any illicit drug		15
Belgium	1997	3	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in one prison amongst on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 115).			22
Belgium	1993	4	People reporting having ever injected drugs. Comment: survey in one prison amongst voluntary prisoners entering prison (n= 1627).			15
Germany	1997	2	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in one prison among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 437).			33
Greece	1996	4	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use. Comment: survey in 10 prisons (n= 861).			34
Greece	1995	5	Injecting drug use prior to imprisonment (based on self-reports and serum tests). Comment: survey in 2 prisons amongst convicted voluntary prisoners (n= 544).			69
Spain	1997	6	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in one prison among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 101).			47
Spain	1995	6	Injecting drug users. Comment: survey in one prison (n= 1183).			31
France	2003	1	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use. Comment: nationwide survey in 134 prisons (out of 187) among a representative sample of on remand and convicted people entering prison (n= 6087).			7
France	1997	2	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use. Comment: nationwide survey among 86% of people entering prison (n= 8728)			12
France	1998	3	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in 4 prisons (n= 1212).			12
France	1996	3	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use. Comment: survey in one prison (n= 574).			23
France	1997	4	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in 3 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 960).			14
Ireland	1999	2	People reporting injecting drug use (injector status known). Comment: survey in 5 of the 7 Irish committal prisons (n= 593).	any illicit drug		29
Ireland	1998	3	People reporting injecting drug use (injector status known). Comment: survey in 9 prisons: all the 5 high risk prisons and a random sample of the medium risk prisons (n= 1205).	any illicit drug		43
Ireland	1996	5	Men reporting ever engaged in injecting drug use. Comment: survey in one male prison (one-fifth systematic sample) (n= 108).	males		56
Italy	1997	9	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in 3 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 678).			30
Latvia	2003	1	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in 11 (out of 15) prisons with at least 100 convicted persons (n= 2867).			20
Hungary	2004	1	People reporting injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in 11 prisons amongst a proportional random sample of adult male convicted prisoners of Hungarian citizenship (n= 609).	any illicit drug (adult males)		7
Hungary	2004	1	People reporting injecting drug use (both prior to and in prison). Comment: national survey in 11 prisons amongst a proportional random sample of adult male convicted prisoners of Hungarian citizenship (n= 609).	any illicit drug (adult males)		8
Hungary	1997	2	People reporting injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in a sample of all prisons amongst adult male prisoners of Hungarian citizenship (n= 951).	any illicit drug (adult males)		1
Austria	1999	1	Injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in a selection of representative prisons: 4 for male adults (n= 143), 2 for female adults (n= 69) and 5 for male youth (n= 51); convicted and on remand.	(male adults)		26
				(female adults)		32
				(male youth)		9
Austria	1996	2	Intravenous drug users. Comment: estimated by experts.			15
Portugal	2001	1	People reporting lifetime injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: nationwide survey (47 prisons) in a random sample of on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 2057).	any illicit drug		27
Portugal	1997	2	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in 3 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n = 535).			52
Finland	2000	2	People reporting injecting drug use (ever used). Comment: national survey among a sample of voluntary HIV tested convicted prisoners (n= 1612).	poly-drug users		39
				heroin/opiates		5
				amphetamines		56
Sweden	1997	2	People reporting injecting drug use (lifetime) prior to imprisonment. Comment: survey in 9 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 305).			65
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	2001	1	Women reporting having ever injected drugs prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey of female prisoners on remand and convicted in 10 prisons (n= 301).	any illicit drug (females)		38
				cocaine/crack (females)		5
				heroin/opiates (females)		35
				amphetamines (females)		7
				other tranquilizers (females)		1
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	1997-1998	3	People reporting having ever injected drugs (inside or outside prison). Comment: survey in 8 prisons: 6 adult male prisons (n= 2769), 1 female prison (n= 407) and 1 male young (under 21 years) offenders prison (n= 714).	(adult male)		24
				(female)		29
				(young male)		4
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	1997	5	People reporting having ever injected drugs. Comment: nationwide survey in all 131 prisons (n= 3142).		(3)	23-40
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	1996	6	Men entering prison reporting a history of injecting drug use. Comment: survey in one prison (n= n.a.).	(males)		29
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	1995	7	Men entering prison reporting a history of injecting drug use. Comment: survey in 3 prisons (n= n.a.).	(males)		15
United Kingdom (Scotland)	1991-1996	11	Men reporting a history of injecting drug use. Comment: survey in 6 male prisons (n= 2286).	(males)		32
United Kingdom (Scotland)	1991-1996	11	Women reporting a history of injecting drug use. Comment: survey in one female prison (n= 132).	(females)		46
United Kingdom (Scotland)	1991-1996	11	Young offenders reporting a history of injecting drug use. Comment: survey in 2 young offenders institutions (n= 562).	(young offenders)		18
Bulgaria	2006	1	People registered (in the judicial and medical files) as lifetime drug users prior to imprisonment (self-report). Comment: national survey in 6 prisons among on remand detainees (n= 3733)	Any illicit drug		7
Bulgaria	2006	1	People registered (in the judicial and medical files) as lifetime drug users prior to imprisonment (self-report). Comment: national survey in 17 prisons among on remand detainees (n= 7274)	cocaine		0.04
				heroin		4
				amphetamines		0.03
				ecstasy		0.01
Bulgaria	2004	5	People in contact with health services, psychologists and social workers reporting lifetime injecting drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in all prisons in Bulgaria (n= 11.521)	any illicit drug	(4)	2
				heroin	(4)	1
				other drugs than heroin	(4)	0.9

Notes:

(1) For sources and bibliographic references, the numbering refers to Table DUP-0.

(2) Caution should be applied when considering that a survey is said to be 'national' as this refers to its intended geographical coverage, but does not mean it is necessarily representative of the national situation, which would depend on any sampling procedures adopted. Note that the size of the prison population surveyed is not available for most of the studies displayed in this table, and sample sizes reflect different proportions of the population in different countries.

(3) Results are provided for 4 different sub-groups of population: male remanded, male sentenced, female remanded, female sentenced. Women and men on remand represent a small proportion of the prison population, and thus these groups were over-sampled. Ranges reported here represent the minimum and maximum values obtained across the 4 sub-groups.

(4) Bulgaria: due to fear of sanction it is likely that drug use is under-reported.

Sources:

For access to sources and bibliographic references, refer to Table DUP-0.