Statistical Bulletin 2023 — drug use and prison

National routine information on drug use and patterns of use amongst prisoners is rare. Most of the data available in the EU come from ad-hoc studies amongst prisoners, carried out at local level, with samples that vary considerably in size and which are often not representative of the whole prison system. This makes extrapolation to a national figure for the prison system very difficult. Furthermore, the lack of repeated surveys impedes trend analysis in most of the EU countries.