Drug users in prison (DUP)

• Overview
• Tables
• Graphs
• Methods and definitions

This section reports on various studies of prison inmates in different EU Member States and Norway over the past decade. Results shown in the studies cover a range of drugs including opiates, cocaine, cannabis and polydrug use, and prevalence is estimated for a range of inmate sub-populations: injectors, males, females, youth. A further, more complete table is available in the supplementary table to the bulletin, indexed below.

Table DUP-105. Prevalence (percentage) of drug use among prisoners in EU Member States and Norway — full listing of studies.

The first table of the section, Table DUP-0 gives the source bibliographic references for the studies reported in Tables DUP-1 to DUP-4.

Summary points

Compared to the general community, drug use continues to be much more widespread in European prison populations. Data available from several studies carried out from 2002 onwards, mostly in western European countries, show that between a third and half of those surveyed reported regular drug use of any illicit drug prior to imprisonment (see Table DUP-105), The most damaging forms of drug use may also be concentrated among prisoners, between a fifth and a third of those surveyed reported to have ever injected drugs (see Table DUP-2).

Studies carried out between 2000 and 2007 in Europe show that 1–50 % of inmates report having used drugs while incarcerated, and that up to 27 % report regular use inside prison (see Table DUP-3). Those injecting within prison represent 1–31 % of inmates (see Table DUP-4).