Under The Skin - A People’s Case for Needle Exchange in Prison

CLEAN NEEDLES BEHIND BARS LONG OVERDUE Personal testimonies bring human dimension to addiction and drug use within Canadian prisons

In a report documenting personal stories from those most affected, people who have experienced prison are adding their voices to the growing number of experts calling for needle and syringe programs in Canada’s prisons. Often visceral reading, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network’s newest publication, Under the Skin, draws on affidavits and testimonies from people across Canada with experience using drugs or sharing needles inside a federal prison, and puts a human face to the following harsh statistics, long known to prison system administrators:

• People in prison suffer at least 10 to 20 times higher rates of HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection than the population as a whole;

• Drug use occurs regularly in prisons, including by injection, among at least 11 percent of incarcerated people, according to the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC);

• Costly efforts by CSC to prevent drug use are not effective in reducing the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV and HCV; and

• The vast majority (more than 90 percent) of people in prison eventually return to the community, facilitating the spread of diseases transmitted and exacerbated in prison