- People in prisons do not live in isolation
- HCV and HIV are spread when inmates share needles to inject drugs, tattoo each other with homemade equipment and practise unprotected sex
- HCV is transmitted more easily than HIV
- In prison, hepatitis C is more common than HIV
- Many people come to prison already infected with HCV or HIV, and the potential for them to spread the diseases among the prison population is high
- When people are released into the community, they may have contracted infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS unknowingly during their time in the correctional facility
- Studies undertaken in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec show that approximately 10 times more prisoners have HIV than HCV compared to the general population
- Although, it's illegal for one inmate to tattoo another or to possess tattoo equipment, more than half of all inmates have at least one tattoo that they acquired in prison
- Prevention and education strategies are important to protect prisoners and, therefore, their communities from the spread of HCV and HIV from inmate to their families and friends
- Needle exchange programs are illegal in Canadian prisons, both federal and provincial
- Providing clean needles and syringes would reduce the risks to guards conducting searches and to inmates who share used drug equipment
- One federal penitentiary tried supervised tattoo programs but this initiative did not get government approval
Injection drug use in Joyceville Penitentiary in Joyceville, Ontario, has
doubled from 12 per cent in 1995 to more than 24 per cent in 1998.
A study of inmates at this Canadian prison found:
- 11.4 per cent of inmates shared injection equipment before and after incarceration; of those, 90 per cent were HCV-positive
- 6.6 per cent shared before incarceration; of those, 73.3 per cent were HCV-positive
- 7.7 per cent shared after incarceration; of those, 66.7 per cent were HCV-positive
Drugs being used by prisoners at Joyceville Penitentiary
|
DRUG |
NUMBER OF INMATES |
PER CENT HCV-POSITIVE |
|
Heroin |
80 |
77.6 per cent |
|
Cocaine |
20 |
87.0 per cent |
|
Speed |
12 |
83.3 per cent |
- It's thought that, to avoid being detected, inmates are taking harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which clear in the body in 48 to 72 hours. Drugs such as marijuana and hashish can stay in a chronic user's system up to 21 days
- Most of these harder drugs require needle usage
- Without clean equipment, many infected users spread HCV while sharing their "works" with others.
