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The recent advent of new, highly effective, direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is dramatically reshaping the hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment landscape and prisons are set to play an important role. While there is a substantial literature addressing the centrality of stigma to experiences of living with HCV in the community, including as a barrier to treatment, scant attention has been paid to documenting how HCV-stigma figures within the distinct sociality of prison life. This article focuses on initial, pretreatment interviews with prisoner participants (n = 32) from the first, real-world trial of HCV 'treatment-as-prevention' in prison: Australia's Surveillance and Treatment of Prisoners with Hepatitis C (SToP-C) study. Drawing on recent developments in stigma theory alongside Goffman's original insights, we posit HCV-stigma as a relational, contingent and political process, materialised across the network of power relations in prison. Participant accounts describe a complex picture, with reports ranging from those suggesting the 'normalisation' of HCV to those detailing the potential effects of HCV-stigma, including additional disciplinary attention from officers and/or the rejection from peer networks by fellow prisoners. While acknowledging the limiting effects HCV-stigma may yet have on treatment-as-prevention efforts, we speculate that with committed political leadership, operational investment, sufficient prisoner engagement, interventions such as SToP-C may also afford opportunities for such effects to be challenged, disrupted, and even left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a global public health concern. Prisoners are particularly affected, with high prevalence and ongoing HCV transmission. The Surveillance and Treatment of Prisoners with hepatitis C (SToP-C) study is implementing the first trial of HCV treatment as prevention (TasP) in the prison setting, i.e., scaling up treatment at sufficient scale to achieve a preventive effect. This qualitative sub-study sought to explore prisoners' perceptions of feasibility of TasP. Participants were recruited from four correctional centres in New South Wales, Australia, including one women's prison. Thirty-two prisoners with a history of injecting drug use participated in interviews prior to prison-wide HCV treatment scale-up. All participants had been screened for HCV within the previous 6 months; half (n = 16) had chronic HCV; n = 2 were awaiting test results. Concerns regarding prisoner movements (e.g. transferred to another prison, or incarceration-release-incarceration) and perceived subsequent risks for HCV reinfection were consistently raised as a major challenge for TasP elimination efforts. Suggestions for harm reduction measures to assist TasP effectiveness (and reduce risk of re-infection) included education and prison needle syringe programmes. Prisoners remain concerned about long-term effectiveness of TasP efforts without access to effective prevention measures and subsequent risk of (re-)infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes findings from an Australian mixed method study, and explores young people's perceptions of police. We focus on the nature of positive experiences, and the potential for positive encounters to improve outcomes for young offenders affected by problematic alcohol and other drug use. Buber's concept of dialogical interaction is used to articulate the components of a positive experience and how this increases police legitimacy. In doing so, we demonstrate that, despite negative experiences, young people can be sympathetic to the tensions of modern policing, and can envisage police as positive role models. As such, police can enhance outcomes for 'vulnerable' young people through more respectful interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the harms associated with stimulant use, treatment options for stimulant users are limited. Psychosocial interventions are the mainstay of treatment, with greater effectiveness among people with less severe use. As many stimulant users delay treatment seeking, St Vincent’s Hospital Stimulant Treatment Programme in Sydney established a check-up programme to attract stimulant users. The model, termed the S-Check Clinic, is a four-session brief intervention with psychosocial and medical components. An evaluation of S-Check was conducted to describe service users’, assess retention and establish perceptions of the service. A mixed methods approach was used consisting of assessing clinical records of 186 clients attending at least one session and qualitative interviews with 10 clients. Eighty-one percent attended two sessions and 59% attended all four. Just over half (52.2%) reported previous experience with drug treatment. Participants rated each session favourably, with median scores of above 90 out of 100. In interviews clients’ reported on the benefits of a service designed for stimulant users and delivered within a non-judgmental, harm reduction framework. The findings suggest the attractiveness of this dedicated service offering brief psychological and medical interventions to stimulant users. Further translational research is required to scale up this promising service delivery model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rates of hepatitis C virus transmission among people who inject drugs in Australia remain high despite decades of prevention education. A key site of transmission is the sharing of injecting equipment within sexual partnerships. Responsibility for avoiding transmission has long been understood individually, as have the measures designed to help individuals fulfil this responsibility, such as the distribution of sterile injecting equipment. This individualising tendency has been criticised for placing an unfair level of responsibility on poorly resourced, marginalised people and ignoring the social nature of injecting drug use and related health care. Likewise, although research has demonstrated that injecting drug use is gendered, gender and sexual partnerships remain marginal to health promotion efforts. In this article, we address these weaknesses, drawing on a qualitative, interview-based project that explored equipment sharing within (hetero)sexual partnerships. In conducting our analysis, we explore a key theme that emerged in discussions about accessing and sharing injecting equipment, that ofconvenience, using critical marketing theory to understand this theme. In particular, we investigate the issues of convenience that affect the use of sterile injecting equipment, the many factors that shape convenience itself, and the aspects of equipment use that go beyond convenience and into the realm of intimacy and meaning. We conclude that injecting equipment needs to be both meaningful and convenient if sharing within partnerships is to be reduced further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project evaluated consumer participation projects in five drug user treatment services in metropolitan and regional areas in three Australian states. Qualitative interviews were conducted with staff and consumers at two time points between 2008 from 2010 ( n == 108). At baseline staff and some consumers focused on the stability of consumers to undertake representative roles. At postimplementation, the focus was on the stability of the organization, as frequent staffing changes and lack of adequate handover affected the progress of the projects. These issues combined with the perceived ''noncore'' status of consumer participation resulted in none of the projects achieving all of their agreed goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]