Paper on drugs in prison named Highly Commended Paper of 2014

June 2015

NDARC’s Professor Kate Dolan’s paper “Detection of drugs in Australian prisons: supply reduction strategies” published in International Journal of Prisoner Health has been selected by the journal’s editorial team as a Highly Commended Paper of 2014.

The International Journal of Prisoner Health Editorial Team said it was one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has seen throughout 2014.

The paper examined the range of supply reduction measures in Australian prisons and found that the two main strategies identified were the use of drug detection dogs and urinalysis programs. Despite an extensive use of drug searches and urinalysis, it was found that the detection of drugs was modest for both strategies, indicating that drug use was low in Australian prisons.

Professor Dolan has spent over two decades in drug and alcohol research. Her key research interests include drug treatment and the prevention of blood borne viral infections in prisons; drug injecting and drug treatment in developing countries; and needle and syringe programs, methadone treatment and injecting rooms.

Her work has been published widely in journals including Addiction, Drug and Alcohol Review, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The International Journal on Drug Policy, Drug and Alcohol Dependence and the European Journal of Epidemiology.

We congratulate Professor Dolan for this great achievement.