“Criminals with a mental illness need a prison break”

Hi! Today I want to show you a very interesting new about the mental health, which is the area in which I study.

The titular of this new is: “Criminals with a mental illness need a prison break”. Here they tell us that in England and Wales, nine out of 10 of people who is in jail has at least one diagnosable mental health problem, a majority have two or more, combined with a range of other difficulties and disadvantages. In the prison there are 10 times more mental illness that in the population outside.This dramatically high rate of mental ill health among prisoners has given rise to a number of initiatives to improve mental health care within prisons and to divert more people away from prison to health services.Among those initiatives is the creation of two pilot mental health courts. They act as stand-alone courts for defendants with evidence of severe mental health problems. They employ mental health professionals to work alongside court staff to identify practical ways of addressing an individual's offending and ensuring they link up with services: where possible not in custody.

Diversion has been a feature of mental health service in England, since a report recommended national coverage of court liaison and diversion teams, today the role of many of those teams has expanded to include diverting people to community mental health services and to work in the police stations as well as courts.

A recent report has made 82 recommendations on improving the care of people with mental health problems and those learning disabilities in the criminal justice system.

The mental health courts being developed in England should now offer one way of achieving diversion, it should bringing their problem-solving approach into ordinary courts, which could make the system more efficient and careful, because imprisoning people with severe mental illnesses can have a devastating effect. Moreover a short prison sentence is expensive and, in everybody, is devastating.

You can read more in: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/jul/02/prisons-mental-health-illness