Prison to the community in one, totally unprepared, step

For those involved in the management of patients released from prison there are many well known problems and hazards. The sudden deaths from drug overdose shortly after release from prison are well publicised.1 There have also been recent reports about the poor preparations for release into the community of many drug misusers whose dependence on illicit drugs had apparently been unacknowledged during their custody.2

Seriously overshadowing these dangerous shortcomings of the prison and rehabilitation services have been recent experiences of release of prisoners after long periods in solitary confinement with no preparation and the seeming absence of any rehabilitative attempts. Our most recent experience of a prisoner released after 12 years of a 15 year sentence, most of the last years of …