The Community Order and the Mental Health Treatment Requirement

Linda Seymour, Max Rutherford, Husnara Khanom, Chiara Samele(1)

Introduction(2)
Just a few months into 2008, a convergence of unfortunate circumstances has brought the plight of offenders with mental health problems into sharp focus. Figures released by the Ministry of Justice showed there were 92 apparently self-inflicted deaths among prisoners in England and Wales in 2007, compared with 67 in 2006.(3)

This 37% increase in suicides in prison has been associated with the overcrowding that has continued inexorably. Indeed towards the end of February the population of offenders in the prison estate rose above the critical 82,000 mark for the first time.(4) The Home Office has predicted that the prison population could rise to 101,900 by 2014.(5)

Footnotes:
(1) Respectively: Head of Policy; Policy Officer; Research Assistant; Head of Research – all at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.

(2) Unless otherwise stated, statistics on the use of community orders were obtained from the Ministry of Justice and are unpublished.

(3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jan/02/conservatives.politics

(4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/24/prisonsandprobation

(5) Home Office (2007a) Prison Population Projections 2007– 2014, England and Wales 11/06. London. Home Office

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