Prison-based Addiction Treatment Pathways Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Rupa Huq
Main Page: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)Department Debates - View all Rupa Huq's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Prison-based Addiction Treatment Pathways
Rupa Huq Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
I call Dan Carden to move the motion. The Minister will respond, but there is no right for the mover to respond at the end, as is the norm in 30-minute debates.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered prison-based addiction treatment pathways.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Too many people with drug dependency
“are cycling in and out of prison. Rarely are prison sentences a restorative experience. Our prisons are overcrowded, with limited meaningful activity, drugs easily available, and insufficient treatment. Discharge brings little hope of an alternative…life. Diversions from prison, and meaningful aftercare, have both been severely diminished and this trend must be reversed to break the costly cycle of addiction and offending.”
Those are the words of Dame Carol Black in her groundbreaking independent review of drugs—a damning observation.
The treatment system and effective recovery pathways from addiction in prisons are in desperate need of repair, yet the effectiveness of evidence-based, well-delivered treatment for drug and alcohol dependence is well established. When it is properly funded, it works: it cuts the level of drug use, reoffending, overdose risk and the spread of blood-borne viruses.
Analysis of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons data from 2019 reveals that 48% of men surveyed by the inspectorate who reported having a drug problem said that it was easy to get drugs. The proportion of prisoners who said that they developed a drug problem while in custody more than doubled between 2015 and 2020.