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Following on from the discussions in the last two chapters of male prisoners’ drug use, this chapter addresses substance misuse among female prisoners and highlights a number of factors associated with this use.

Female inmates represent an increasingly large proportion of the overall prison population. Between 1991 and 2001 the average female population rose by 140 per cent from nearly 1,600 to more than 3,700 (during the same period, the male population rose by 41 per cent from just over 44,000 to 62,500). And, while drug users often share similar characteristics, such as employment problems and poor mental health, the literature concerning drug-using female prisoners suggests that they have a number of needs that are quite distinct from those of their male counterparts (see Chapter 3).