ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a qualitative analysis, is to present women inmates' subjective attitudes toward their physical and mental health issues in prison. It addresses the high prevalence of childhood abuse of incarcerated women; and it deals with drug addiction as a means of coping with a history of abuse. The chapter presents the physical health issues as the long-term effect of childhood abuse; and it focuses on the major mental problems of imprisoned women. It considers if the prison environment exacerbates the health problems of incarcerated women. The ethnic ratio of the participants comprises 65.2 per cent Jews and 34.8 per cent Arabs, all of whom were literate Israeli citizens. The chapter focuses on the physical and mental health of women inmates are based on quantitative methodologies. Women use drugs as a primary coping mechanism for dealing with negative emotions a kind of 'self-medication', and a maladaptive coping strategy of escaping from trauma.
