Register for email alerts and news feeds:
This journal | BMJ Group
rss
Tobacco Control 2007;16:291-293; doi:10.1136/tc.2007.021600
Copyright © 2007 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.

COMMENTARY

Smoking in prisons

Should smoking be banned in prisons?

T Butler1, R Richmond2, J Belcher3, K Wilhelm4, A Wodak4

1 National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
2 School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Australia
3 Centre for Health Research in Criminal Justice (Justice Health NSW), Australia
4 St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr T Butler
National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth 6845, Western Australia; tbutler2@optusnet.com.au


Consequences and effectiveness

Keywords: prisons; smoking cessation; smoking bans

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Tobacco smoking is an integral part of prison life and an established part of the prison culture. Tobacco serves a range of functions in prison: as a surrogate currency, a means of social control, as a symbol of freedom in a group with few rights and privileges, a stress reliever and as a social lubricant.

Smoking bans in prison have gained favour in recent times, particularly in North America.1–3 Fear of legal action by non-smoking prison staff and other inmates appears to be the main driver rather than public health concerns. Prisons are some of the few places in the Western world where smoking is still allowed in enclosed spaces. More recently, however, moves have been made to bring prisons in line with other public institutions through the use of partial or total smoking bans.

While tobacco control strategies have successfully reduced smoking in the general community . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Richmond, R, Butler, T, Wilhelm, K, Wodak, A, Cunningham, M, Anderson, I (2009). Tobacco in prisons: a focus group study. Tobacco Control 18: 176-182 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Kauffman, R M, Ferketich, A K, Wewers, M E (2008). Tobacco policy in American prisons, 2007. Tobacco Control 17: 357-360 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Proescholdbell, S K, Foley, K L, Johnson, J, Malek, S H (2008). Indoor air quality in prisons before and after implementation of a smoking ban law. Tobacco Control 17: 123-127 [Abstract] [Full Text]  

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Free self-help behavioral resources to help inmates quit
John R. Polito
Tobacco Control Online, 1 Oct 2007 [Full text]

This Article

Services
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Bookmark with

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.