Centre for Social Research in Health

The annual cost of imprisonment in Australia is $100,000 per inmate. Challenges associated with release from prison and subsequent reincarceration are a major ongoing problem as the national prison population grows to unprecedented levels. People with a history of injecting drug use (PWID) are a key population to examine, given they constitute up to 58% of the prison population and report extremely high reincarceration rates. Interventions that can reduce reincarceration among PWID are therefore urgently needed.
The transition from prison to the community offers a key intervention point, yet the lack of research examining inmates’ experiences negotiating the complex post-release world in which health, social and criminogenic factors intersect, and which unpacks the trajectory of release-from-prison to return-to-prison, impedes the development of effective policies and interventions. This project uses a sophisticated qualitative research method to examine the lived experience of people released from prison who inject drugs to capture the inter-relationships between their multi-faceted needs. The results are directly applicable to understanding how in-prison and post-release health and other support programs can support people released from prison to achieve better outcomes on health, wellbeing, social and criminogenic measures, particularly recidivism. In-depth interviews examined the perceived health and social needs, informal strategies adopted and health/social services utilised by participants, and novel research dissemination tools were used to translate these findings.
Aims of the project:
Centre for Social Research in Health
Hepatitis and Harm Reduction
In response to findings from the project, researchers and community members collaborated to produce a three part series related to the overarching themes identified in the research: ego-depletion, structural competency, and trust. The results were evocative and compelling narratives that illustrate the difficulties faced, and strategies used to aid successful reintegration back into community, following the post-release period. The three pieces below align with each of these themes.
VIDEO: Support services failing to keep offenders out of prison, ABC News (online), 25 July 2023
COMMENTARY: ‘They weren’t there when I needed them’: we asked former prisoners what happens when support services fail, The Conversation (online), 25 July 2023
MEDIA: Hate This, Insider News (print) and User News (online), 5 July 2023
MEDIA: Shining a light on the hope-filled stressful journeys of people leaving jail, Insider News (print) and User News (online), 8 May 2023
MEDIA: Inherent Problems With Post-Incarceration Services for Drug Users, Filter, February 2023
MEDIA: Prison & Performance: An innovative new project is using the arts to bring research alive, The Bulletin, November 2022
SEMINAR RECORDING: Using novel research translation to change public attitudes:A difficult task for formerly incarcerated people with histories of injecting drug use, presented 20 July 2022
COMMENTARY: Using art to prevent recidivism and change attitudes towards people who inject drugs and have been in prison, Australian Human Rights Institute, November 2021
NHMRC
Burnet Institute - Mark Stoove, Paul Dietze, Peter Higgs, Sophia Schroeder
UNSW - Eileen Baldry