People in police custody say they are being denied medication by police and nurses

People in police custody say police and nurses deny them medicine for their health problems, new research has found.

Dr. Stephanie Mulrine interviewed 42 people with physical or mental health problems who had been arrested for alleged minor offenses.

Dr Mulrine from Newcastle University recruited the 36 men and six women through charities and support groups for the homeless, drug users and people with mental health problems in two areas of England.

She told the British Sociological Association Medical Sociology Conference on September 13, 2024 at the University of Warwick, that most people who took medication said they had not been given it despite asking for it.

The refused medications included not only replacement opioids such as methadone, but also cancer drugs, insulin for diabetes, and medications for mental illness.

One man said he admitted to a crime he didn’t commit just to get to jail and get methadone, Dr. Mulrine said.

The man told her, “They tell me, ‘Get your interview out of the way and we’ll get you out and get your meth.’ I’ve admitted to things I didn’t do just to get out of there, to get my meth, to get to jail. I have these things on my record now and I’m like, ‘I haven’t even done that yet,’ and it just looks worse every time I go to court.”

Another man told Dr. Mulrine: “The health care there is absolutely hopeless. You get arrested and you’re held for 12 hours and you’re sick in a cell because the health care won’t help you.

“They don’t give you methadone, let alone call the pharmacist and ask if this guy has a prescription and if he’s taking his methadone. They don’t give you anything like that, so they leave you in a cell suffering, sweating, being sick, having diarrhea, and you just want to end your life.

“There were certain times when I was in custody and I was babbling, I was completely sick, because I hadn’t had my methadone. The health service just gives you a paracetamol, which doesn’t even touch the sides.”

One man told her, “It’s a quicker route to go to jail and get some methadone. So they hold the carrot up to [saying] “Prison is fine, you know… they give you methadone.”

Another man emphasized the impact of release on the community: “You get released and you’ve missed your prescription, you’ve missed your dose for the day. So you get out and you commit more crimes to make yourself feel better. Then you get given illegal drugs because the guard didn’t give you methadone, they let you out at 7 o’clock, so you can’t do that. You explain it to them and they don’t really care, like they’ve heard it a million times.”

A man with mental health problems said he was denied medication: “I was so mentally unstable that I could have been forced to say anything.”

Dr Mulrine told the conference: “It is quite disturbing that the stories of the people I interviewed suggested that their access to treatment is mediated by stigma and mistrust. Although guidelines indicate that there should be access to medicines, in practice this does not happen, resulting in those held in police custody suffering and being at risk of harm in police custody or on release.

“People could request to see a health care provider, usually a nurse employed by a private company who worked in the police station. But interactions with health care providers did not routinely lead to access to medications.

“Requests for access to medication, particularly opioid replacement medication, are met with suspicion because detainees are not seen as credible.

“This can lead to withdrawal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to them deciding to expedite their release or go to prison, such as confessing to crimes they are not guilty of. After release, we see that refusing medication can be dangerous for those in rehabilitation programs and can fuel a cycle of crime.”

She said that refusing to replace opioids during police arrests is against the policy guidelines of the Faculty of Forensic and Judicial Medicine.