Thomas Oriti reported this story on Monday, October 12, 2015 12:23:30

ELEANOR HALL: Health researchers have warned that most prisoners who are banned from smoking in Australian jails are likely to take up the habit again a short time after they're released.



They've found that the rates of relapse are significantly higher than the rest of the population.



As Thomas Oriti reports.



THOMAS ORITI: There's no denying that the number of smokers in Australia has declined in recent decades.



In 1991, 24 per cent of people smoked each day. That dropped to 13 per cent by 2013.



But researchers at The Kirby Institute within the University of New South Wales say, until recently, that trend wasn't mirrored in prisons.



Professor Tony Butler is an expert in prisoner health.



TONY BUTLER: It's a group that we know has some of the highest smoking rates in the community, so when people go into prison, about 85 per cent actually are current tobacco smokers. And you don't see rates like that in any other groups.



THOMAS ORITI: That's now changing.



New South Wales became the latest state to ban smoking in prisons about two months ago; following Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory.



The remaining states and territories are expected to follow suit in the not-too-distant future.



Therapy is available behind bars, but that's not what concerns Professor Tony Butler.



TONY BUTLER: If you look at the evidence, and that's mostly from the US, an incredibly high proportion actually revert to smoking. So I think one study showed that at six months, 97 per cent of people who'd had a smoking ban in prisons had returned to smoking post-release.



And so what we're about, what we suggest in this article is that it would be a very good idea if support was in place for this group in the community so that people remained smoke free, and not smoking when they return to the community.



So, if 97 per cent resume smoking on returning to the community, it's probably not a very good outcome for the community, and we could probably do a lot better than that.



THOMAS ORITI: In an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Butler has warned that the majority of former prisoners will light up within weeks of being released.



And although many smokers find it hard to quit, he says it's a particular challenge for prisoners.



TONY BUTLER: They're a very entrenched smoker group. A lot of them start when they're about 12, so they're very early smokers and returning to the community from prison is very stressful. So you put those two together: people trying to reintegrate into the community and renew relationships and reintegrate, so I guess in the process of that, the pressures of returning to the community people may relapse to smoking.



THOMAS ORITI: He acknowledges there are support services available to people who want to quit smoking.



But, with a relapse rate as high as 97 per cent, he says former prisoners need their own programs.



TONY BUTLER: Perhaps they could be encouraged to connect with community support groups for smoking cessation. There might be special interventions that need to be developed for this group. I mean, we know that prisoners are a group who don't access health services as much in the community for whatever reason, and perhaps we could be doing more to be developing programs that are specific for this particular population, rather than generic ones that this group may or may not access.



I think the fact is, we don't know a lot about what happens to this particular group when they return to the community, and they try to reintegrate. Particularly in the smoking area there's very little known about this in Australia.



ELEANOR HALL: That's Professor Tony Butler from the University of New South Wales, ending that report from Thomas Oriti.