Enhancing Outcomes for Offenders who have Mental Disorder: Tailoring Community Sentences

About this webinar:

Some mental disorders put people at higher than average risk of criminal offending. A few people in this position may be sent to hospital. Most are not and it is hard to find optimal services to promote the health and future safety of those not eligible for in-patient treatment. Many get sent to prison, so people with mental disorders are over represented there and suicide and self-harm rates rising. For a substantial number there are safe and effective community alternatives but these are rarely used for people who need specialist psychiatric treatment.

Laws in England and Wales and in Scotland allows for people convicted of an offence that could result in a prison sentence not only to have that sentence suspended or to be placed under a community sentence, but also to have those sentences tailored to meet their special needs and risks. Courts may add requirements or conditions to a community sentence – for example placing a restriction on where the person may travel or imposing a curfew. There are three possible treatment requirements – for mental health, for drug rehabilitation or for alcohol treatment. Before any of these three requirements may be added, however, the person concerned must agree to them as must a consultant psychiatrist or psychologist and a probation officer. If all do, then a court may order, in effect, a contract between these parties for a specified period of up to three years.

Such arrangements for formal partnerships between probation, health and an offender-patient have been available for several decades, but take up remains low. We will explore model delivery and experience of being under such an arrangement and evidence to date of effectiveness in terms of both criminal justice and clinical outcomes. We will look at a national programme in England that has substantially improved uptake of the arrangement for people who need primary health care in such circumstances. This has improved access at this level but further highlighted the difficulty in giving people who are seriously ill this opportunity for change. We will explore one developing model to support increased uptake of the arrangement for women who need specialist mental health services (secondary health care) across Greater London. Finally we will provide an early view of new research into meeting the needs of the wider range people of people needing secondary mental health services while enhancing community safety and, ultimately reducing health and justice system costs.

Speakers

Pamela Taylor, Mignon French, Clare Bingham and Louise Robinson

Pamela Taylor 

is co-chair of Crime in Mind, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, has several roles for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is a member of Council for the Howard League for Penal Reform. She has published widely, edited/co-edited five books and is editor-in-chief for the journal Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health.

Mignon French 

is a jointly qualified general and psychiatric nurse who has worked across the mental health sector for over 30 years. 

Her professional interest in Criminal Justice, mental health and associated vulnerabilities has further developed over the past 15 years. 

In 2014 she was central to developing the first Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) pilot in Milton Keynes which provided the foundation for the current NHS England MHTR Programme further and more recently takes a lead for the development of the mental health programme across health and justice.

Mignon is also a Magistrate Chair in Northamptonshire and takes an active lead in highlighting vulnerability issues by providing specialist knowledge about mental health and associated vulnerabilities.

Dr Clare Bingham 

is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Joint Head of Psychology in a Medium Security Health Service. 

She is also Clinical Lead for Mental Health in the London Violence Reduction Programme, NHS England Secondary Care Women's Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR), London Region.

Dr Louise Robinson 

is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, based at Guild Lodge in Preston. She is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. 

Her research focuses on health and social care in the criminal justice system, and current research projects include an NIHR-funded evaluation of secondary care MHTRs