Non-communicable diseases in prisons

The perceived balance between these three purposes varies historically and geographically, and is expressed internationally by differences in the definitions of crime and in the incidence and duration of incarceration. [...]at least the 1940s, many articles in The Lancet show that prisoners in the UK were subjected to corporal punishment, starvation diets, and gruelling work as means of discipline under supervision or orders from prison doctors.1,2 These clinicians were employed by the Home Office and laboured under serious constraints of dual loyalty, which have not entirely disappeared. Herbert and colleagues have provided very firm grounds for their findings that female prisoners were denied appropriate diets-female prisoners were more likely to be obese than non-imprisoned women in the USA (prevalence ratio 1.18, 95% CI 1.08-1.30) and Australia (prevalence ratios ranged from 1.15 to 1.20). [...]male and female prisoners in the UK were denied adequate chances to exercise (prevalence ratio 0.71, 0.64-0.78, for male prisoners and 0.32, 0.21-0.47, for female prisoners).