Work led by the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow informed the decision announced by the Scottish Prison Service last week that they will make Scotland's jails smoke free by the end of next year, bringing this plan forward by three years.

The announcement and publication of research into the exposure to second-hand smoke in Scotland’s prisons generated huge impact over the space of 24 hours with coverage in every, mainstream UK news platform from the BBC and commercial broadcasters to the Daily Mail, Herald, Sun, Newsweek, i and many more.

This large-scale, National Institutes for Health Research (NIHR)-funded study - Tobacco in Prisons (TIPs) - sees the University of Glasgow research team work with the University of Aberdeen, University of Stirling and NHS Lothian. The results of the first phase of this TIPs work was published in the scientific journal Annals of Work Exposure and Health and can be accessed on the Oxford University Press website. 

A survey by the Scottish Prison Service in 2015 found that 72% of those in custody smoked - more than three times the rate of the general population. Under the Scottish Prison Service's plan, inmates will not be allowed to smoke after November 2018. Smoking is currently allowed within cells and in some outside spaces within prison sites.

Smoke-free

Commenting on the research, Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Michael Matheson, said: “Second-hand smoke poses an unacceptably high risk to the health of prisoners, staff and visitors. There are very high rates of smoking among those in custody. The staff working in Scotland’s prisons should be afforded the same protection as people working in other professions."

Professor Kate Hunt, Principal Investigator of the TIPs study, at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, said: “Smoking, and the inhalation of second-hand smoke (SHS), have been known to be harmful to health for many decades. Although smoking has declined in recent decades in many countries in the UK, levels of smoking remain higher in people from less advantaged backgrounds and this is a major contributor to inequalities in health. One group with particularly high rates of smoking is prisoners. This means that prison staff are one of very few groups of workers who are still exposed to SHS during their working hours.

“A part of a larger study of smoking in prisons, the Tobacco in Prisons study (TIPs) has collected data on levels of exposure of prison staff to second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS). TIPs is the biggest and most detailed study of SHS levels in prisons in the world and has used comprehensive methods to measure smoke levels in all of the fifteen prisons in Scotland. The study gathered more than 130,000 minutes of SHS measurements using laser particle counters, information on nicotine levels in the air and, using samples of saliva from over 400 staff, estimates of how much nicotine was inhaled over a typical working shift. This evidence has lead the Scottish Prison Service to bring forward its plans to implement smoke-free policies in prisons. As announced on 17 July 2017, Scotland’s prisons will be smoke-free from November 2018.”

First published: 25 July 2017

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