Prevalence of illicit drug use before imprisonment in Europe: results from a comprehensive literature review

Current data on the prevalence of prior illicit drug use among the prison population in Europe isscarce. The aim of this study is to identify the prevalence of illicit drug use prior to incarceration, asreported by studies conducted in 30 European countries. A comprehensive literature review was conductedfrom the 5–31 of March 2018 using the databases Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE,PsychINFO and PubMed. After the deletion of duplications, 2607 articles meeting the eligibility criteriafor review were identified. In total, 26 studies from 12 different countries have been included in thisreview. The review found that the lifetime prevalence of illicit drug use before imprisonment rangedfrom 30 to 93%; last year prevalence from 51 to 69%; last 6months prevalence from 13 to 75% andlast month prevalence from 58 to 62%. The prevalence of illicit drug use was especially high amongwomen. The rates varied across the 26 studies although high prevalence values are reported in moststudies and variations are partly related to methodological differences in the reviewed studies. Thehigh levels of prior involvement with drugs, necessitates prisons to develop clear strategies to dealwith illicit drug use