Psychotropic drug prescribing for prisoners

To the Editor

At the time we were designing the review we were keen to be inclusive of all settings where prisoners were medicated, and we acknowledged the methodological flaws in the included studies that made it difficult to distinguish between prisoners and others in forensic rather than correctional settings (Griffiths et al., 2012). While the themes of polypharmacy, high dosing and duration of treatment came predominantly from forensic hospitals they were also found in prisons. The documentation and monitoring theme was reported for all settings and the environment theme came predominantly from studies in prisons. We thank the author for underscoring for us the important distinction between prison and other correctional settings, including forensic wards and hospitals (Simpson, 2012), and concur with many of the points made, as is evident from our paper. We are also grateful for his pointing out the other important review of prisoner medication published this year – it is a field that needs more systematic attention.