Associated Factors of Quality of Life in Prison Officers, Brazil

This study analyzed factors associated with the quality of life (QoL) of prison officers (POs) in the Midwest Region of Brazil. POs in five penitentiary units participated in this cross-sectional study. Sociodemographic data were obtained through face to face interview and a World Health Organization Quality of Life abbreviated version (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire was applied to assess QoL. Student’s t-test or ANOVA were used for bivariate analysis and multiple linear regression was applied for adjusted analysis. The domains used for outcomes were: physical, psychological, social relations, and the environment. The lowest score among WHOQOL-BREF domains was environment (59.9; 95%CI 58.0–61.5). After adjustment, the factors associated with the physical domain were ‘female sex’ and ‘no history of workplace PO-PO violence’; factors associated with the psychological domain were ‘female sex’, ‘without spouse’, and ‘no history of inmate-PO violence’; factors associated with the social relationships domain were ‘female sex’, ‘work experience in years’, ‘no higher education’, ‘no private health insurance’, and ‘no history of inmate-PO violence’; and factors associated with environment domain were ‘female sex’, ‘work experience in years’, ‘no private health insurance’, and ‘no history of PO-PO violence’. This study showed that female workers and those with a history of violence at work had worse QoL scores. This investigation highlights the importance of prison management in promoting QoL of POs, as well as support and development of strategies to prevent workplace violence.

Harm Reduction

Harm reduction is defined as a set of policies, programs, and practices aimed at reducing the negative health, social, and economic consequences associated with various behaviors. Although classically applied to the treatment of substance use disorders, its scope has broadened over time to include high-risk sexual activity, nonadherence to treatment, and other behaviors that may lead to negative consequences. In addition to providing relevant historical context for scenarios encountered, this chapter uses a case to demonstrate how a provider might take a nonjudgmental and humanistic approach to identifying maladaptive behaviors and apply evidence-based, realistic interventions to reduce associated harms. Specific topics discussed include opioid use disorder, tobacco use disorder, female sex work, and nonadherence to psychotropic medications.

Re-framing the prostitute identity in Zimbabwe: An approach to Virginia Phiri’s novel Highway queen (2010)

In Zimbabwe, as in most traditionally conservative, patriarchal and Christian dominated countries, female sex work is abhorred on moral grounds as an unbecoming means of livelihood which takes away the practising woman’s social respectability. In such societies, then, the moral threat and stigma associated with female sex work affect women’s decisions on whether or not to take up sex work as a permanent means of livelihood. One can, however, ask how sustainable and stable these patriarchally constructed notions of morality and female identity are, especially in the face of crises? This article uses Virginia Phiri’s novel Highway queen, which is set in one of Zimbabwe’s economically tumultuous eras, to demonstrate how cultural texts grapple with the discourse of female sex work in contemporary Zimbabwe. The gist of my argument is that dominant prostitute identity constructs shaped by Zimbabwe’s patriarchal social and economic system are unstable. I find that the novel Highway queen manipulates such instability not only to re-inscribe sex work as a product of patriarchal impairment of female agency but, perhaps more importantly, to reflect on how women who are forced by circumstances to become sex workers can rise above their passive victimhood to achieve personal goals despite the social odds charted by patriarchy. Zooming in on the representation of the daily experiences of the female sex worker and protagonist, Sophie, the article explores the various ways in which the novel deconstructs stereotypical perceptions of female sex work and sex workers. The analysis ends with the argument that, whilst Sophie’s situation is fundamentally tragic, it affectively appeals to our sense of morality in a way which destabilises dominant (patriarchal) constructs of sex work.