Police Harassment of People Who Inject Drugs: Effects on Health Risk Behaviors among Prisoners in Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan

• In Event: Police Use of Force and the Media

Abstract

The expanding HIV epidemic in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan is concentrated among people who inject drugs (PWID), who comprise a third of prison population. Detention of PWID is common but its impact on health has not been previously studied in the region.
Particularly damaging may be unofficial detention of PWID that involves no formal charges and is undertaken outside the scope of the law. We aimed to understand the relationship between official and unofficial detention of PWID and HIV risk behaviors, and report on a cross-cultural, nationally representative study of soon-to-be released prisoners in Kyrgyzstan (N=368) and Azerbaijan (N=510). Overall, 463 (51%) prisoners reported at least one detention in the year before incarceration with an average of 1.3 detentions. Unofficial detention (13%) was less common than official detentions (41%). A multi-group mediation analysis revealed that unofficial detention had an indirect effect on HIV risk, mediated by drug addiction severity, with more detentions associated with higher addiction severity, and increased HIV risk. The final model explained 35% of the variance in the outcome, and the effect was maintained for both countries. This pattern suggests that police targets drug users, and that such harassment results in an increase in HIV risk-taking behaviors.

Author

• Maxim Polonsky, Yale University