Mandatory drug tests in prisons.

Abstract

EDITOR,—The recent report on Styal prison by the Inspectorate of Prisons highlights the problem of women who start to inject drugs during incarceration, calls for quantitative research on illicit drug taking, and recommends a “clinical model” of drug reduction.1 The Home Office's response is in stark contrast: it is to introduce mandatory drug tests at the prison.2 Prisoners from whom a urine sample is required need not be chosen randomly, refusal to provide a sample breaches prison rules and is punishable, and samples are attributable. Mandatory testing, also dubbed a “war on drugs,”3 has been publicised on television and radio …