The approach of HM Prison Service for England and Wales and the Scottish Prison Service to drug users in prison, focusing on the experiences of women drug users in particular – and looking at items such as:policies and guidelines, their implementation and effect the experiences of women drug users in prison in their own words the views of prison staff who need to ‘care’ for drug users whilst concentrating on security and control tensions inherent in an increasing prison population with a significant ‘drug user’ element the priorities and emphasis of current prison practice the ‘medicalising’, ‘pathologising’ and ‘criminalizing’ of women drug users, who are seen as ‘sick’, ‘deviant’, ‘depraved’ and ‘degraded’ the impact of prison regimes on drug users – and vice-versa the discretionary implementation of policies the stereotyping of drug users how the social control of women extends into the penal arena.