Prisoners

AIM: To explore the role of prisoner caregivers in providing peer social care to older prisoners and to identify methodological information and challenges to conducting research in prisons, to inform future research in this setting. METHOD: The literature review was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, a systematic literature review was undertaken to retrieve articles related to prisoner caregiving. The main themes from these articles were identified.

Taking as its starting point the establishment of the Standing Commission on Carers in 2007 and the launch of the National Strategy for Carers in 2008, this article explores who carers are and how demographic changes are likely to impact on carer numbers. It deduces that the need for care is likely to rise significantly in the near future and as such carer numbers will grow. It argues that future policy must take this, and the importance of carers themselves being supported, into account.