Commenting on the publication today of the government’s action plan on offender health, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said
This action plan charts the way for many vulnerable people out of the criminal justice maze into health and social care. It will come as a relief to so many families who have sought help in vain to know that their relatives will be assessed and treated at last.
For too long we have locked up our most vulnerable people in our most bleak institutions. Why waste time and public money building new prisons when it is clear that our jails are full of people in urgent need of proper mental health and social care?
The shadow hanging over these reforms is that words won’t be matched by action because of departmental turf wars or the money won’t be found because it’s being sunk into building more prisons. If we can end the buck-passing between the NHS and the justice system and hold them to account for implementing this plan, then the pay-off is that we can improve public health and cut crime.
Notes:
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Lord Bradley’s review was published on 30 April 2009 and welcomed by PRT for being a comprehensive plan to reduce reoffending and improve public health by ending the revolving door to custody for mentally ill and learning disabled offenders.
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Useful statistics from PRT’s Prison Factfile published this week:
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On 13 November 2009, the prison population was 84,593.
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It costs on average £40,992 a year to keep a person in prison in England and Wales.
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72% of male and 70% of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders.
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7% of male and 14% of female sentenced prisoners have a psychotic disorder: 14 and 23 times the level in the general population.
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According to the operational head of the Prison Service, Michael Spurr, at any one time 10% of the prison population have ‘serious mental health problems’.
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10% of men and 30% of women have had previous psychiatric admission before they entered prison.
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Women prisoners account for 54% of self harm incidents, though they form only around 5% of the prison population.
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Male prisoners with evidence of psychosis are more than twice as likely to spend 23 or more hours a day in their cell than those without mental health problems.
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The proportion of people in prison who have learning disabilities or learning difficulties that interfere with their ability to cope with the criminal justice system has been estimated at 20 to 30%
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23% of under 18 year olds in prison have an IQ of less than 70
