Women prisoners’ views about health and healthcare in prison 

Not surprisingly, many negative impacts were reported both on mental and on physical health. Mental health impacts were associated with disempowerment and having to rely on others, removal from family, exposure to intimidation and bullying, boredom, and witnessing of distressing incidents. Physical health was felt by many women to be adversely affected because of lack of opportunities for exercise (even where these existed, a choice had to be made between this and doing some paid prison work), unhygienic conditions (including vermin infestations), overeating and smoking due to boredom.

Despite these negatives, a different response was seen in women who had been drug abusers or subject to violence and abuse before coming to prison. These women saw prison as an opportunity to improve their health and gain access to health and social services which they would ordinarily find hard to access in the community.

The authors make an additional point that prison health services are often trying to play ‘catch up’ to compensate for long-term chronic unmet need and self-neglect often seen in women who enter prison.  They conclude that

‘It should not be beyond the abilities of prison administrators to design prison regimes that respect the dignity of inmates, provide sufficient employment, activity and exercise for those women able to engage with it and a diet of nutritional value.’