Mental Health In-Reach - The Way Forward for Prison?
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Author | Alice Mills |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455050204900205 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
107
Mental Health In-Reach –
The Way Forward for
Prison?
Alice Mills discusses her research on the workings of a prison wing set
up specifically for vulnerable prisoners, many of them with mental
health problems, and considers the implications of her findings for the
new mental health ‘in-reach’ teams being introduced in prisons across
England and Wales.
As a result of increasing concern
about the state of mental health
care provision in prisons, new measures
have recently been introduced which aim to
develop multi-disciplinary mental health
‘in-reach’ work on prison wings, and
promote a continuity of care between prison
and community mental health services.
Drawing on research into facilities for
prisoners with special needs, this article
explores how this approach operates in a
category C training prison. It focuses on
several important issues, including helping
prisoners cope with their imprisonment, and
problems surrounding resettlement and
access to mental health care on release.
In recent years concern has been growing
about the increasing number of prisoners
with mental health problems. A survey
conducted by the Office for National
Statistics in 1997 examined the prevalence
of eight mental disorders within the prison
population – psychosis, neurosis,
personality disorder, self-harm, post-
traumatic stress, intellectual functioning,
alcohol misuse and drug dependence – and
found that approximately 90 per cent of all
prisoners had one or more of these
conditions (Singleton et al, 1998). This is a
striking figure, notwithstanding the
difficulty of distinguishing the extent to
which it is made up of individual disorders
such as drug or alcohol misuse;
approximately three-quarters of prisoners
had more than one disorder, and just under
half had more than two. Mental illness can
also contribute to social exclusion
(Department of Health et al, 2001), and
prisoners with mental health problems are
often persistent recidivists caught up in the
cycle of offending, institutionalisation, and
lack of care in the community – the so-
called ‘revolving door’ syndrome (Wilson,
1980; Barker and Swyer, 1995; NACRO,
1995).
Many commentators have argued that
those with mental disorders should not be
sent to prison at all, but should be cared for
Mental Health Care in
Prisons
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