Smokefree prisons

Smoking has a major adverse impact on a smoker’s health, contributing to, amongst other things, an increased risk of developing cardiovascular / respiratory disease, diabetes, and a variety of cancers³. For this reason cigarette smoking is the single biggest cause of preventable illness and premature death in the UK⁴. Evidence suggests that the risk of dying or having a tobacco related illness is dramatically reduced within a year of stopping smoking and hence by preventing prison inmates and officers from smoking through a ban would serve to significantly improve their health, as well as reduce the longer term costs of treating smoking related illnesses.

Prisons are places where people live and work. Inmates and staff have as much right as the general population to be protected from toxic tobacco smoke in their home and workplace. Exposure to SHS has a major adverse impact on the health of non-smoking bystanders, increasing the risk of developing lung cancer and coronary heart disease. This is the case for both short-term and long-term exposure to SHS. It has been estimated that domestic exposure to SHS in the UK causes around 2,700 deaths in people aged 20-63 and a further 8,000 deaths a year among people aged 65 years and older⁵.

The fact prisoners will have far fewer opportunities to smoke in a prison that has a smoking ban in enclosed and substantially enclosed places may serve to enhance the willingness/ability of a prisoner to give up smoking. Nearly three quarters of all quitters who relapse do so in the presence of people who are smoking⁶. If prisons become a smokefree environment this temptation would cease to exist.

In addition to the reasons cited above, making enclosed places in prisons smokefree will also serve to minimise the risk of legal challenges by non-smoking prisoners or prison staff who are exposed to secondhand smoke, as well as reduce the risk of fires within prisons caused by discarded cigarettes/cigarette butts.

The presence of nicotine, a powerful and addictive drug, within cigarettes means it is not always possible for smokers to quit smoking straight away. Most smokers take several attempts to quit before they finally succeed^7,8,9.

Like any scenario where you force a person to do something they do not want to do / are not comfortable with the possibility exists of a backlash. There have been reports, for instance, of a riot breaking out at a maximum security prison in Melbourne, Australia, in June 2015 following the imposition of a smoking ban at the facility¹⁰. Speaking on behalf of the UK Prison Governors Association, Andrea Albutt said the organisation agreed with a smoking ban in prisons but warned of “stability issues”, claiming the ban had to be introduced in a managed and gradual way to avoid unrest¹¹.

One of the main withdrawal symptoms experienced by those quitting smoking includes depression and increased irritability/aggression. This is something that needs to be carefully managed at all times, especially within the prison environment which has a population more susceptible to mental illness than the general population. More than 70% of the prison population has two or more mental health disorders. Male prisoners are 14 times more likely to have two or more disorders than men in general, and female prisoners are 35 times more likely than women in general¹². The suicide rate in prisons is almost 15 times higher than in the general population: in 2002 the rate was 143 per 100,000 compared to 9 per 100,000 in the general population¹³. Hence, prison inmates who smoke may be more vulnerable to the side-effects of giving up smoking relative to the average smoker, and these side-effects may be exacerbated.