NCJ Number
207580
Journal
Corrections Compendium Volume: 29 Issue: 5 Dated: September/October 2004 Pages: 32-34
Editor(s)
Susan L. Clayton M.S.
Date Published
September 2004
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article provides an international overview of the controversial prison-based syringe exchange programs.
Abstract
The world’s first distribution of injection material inside a prison occurred as an act of medical disobedience in a Swiss prison for men in the early 1990's. In 1994, a second Swiss program was established in a women’s prison. An evaluation was conducted on the women’s prison in Hindelbank after 1 year with more than 5,000 syringes having been distributed. The program was seen as a success. When the pilot program began, the exchange was one provided (packages of condoms, syringes, and needles) for one returned in order to avoid increased numbers of needles and syringes in the prison. In Spain, the first prison needle exchange program began in 1996 at the Bilbao prison. In the first two and a half years of the program, 16,500 needles were exchanged for more than 600 drug users. In 2001, the Spanish Government decreed that all prisons in Spain are required to provide drug users with sterile injection equipment. In 2004, a human rights commission recommended that Correctional Service Canada implement a pilot needle exchange program. In 2003, it was reported that syringe exchange programs had been introduced in 46 European prisons with 43 programs still operating. In evaluations conducted in 11 prisons to assess feasibility and efficacy, results did not support fears that commonly arise in the implementation process of these programs. However, there still remains a great deal of resistance to them.