Prisons: Britain’s ‘Social Dustbins’
Britain’s prisons have become ‘social dustbins’ for people with mental health problems and multiple needs. The costs involved could be redirected into more effective support and care for this group. In this paper, we set out four proposals for deep systemic change to keep this group out of prison. Nearly half of the people kept in prison have at least three co-occurring mental health problems. The equivalent proportion in the community is less than one per cent. Around 60,000 people with this profile enter prison each year.
Most worryingly, the majority of prisoners with mental health problems report that they were not receiving basic support from community services prior to imprisonment. It is clear that the holes in the safety net of services are too large for this group. They fall through into the criminal justice system easily and repeatedly. It costs £1.6 billion a year, at the very least, to process people with identified mental health problems through the criminal justice system. These costs will be dramatically higher for those with unidentified needs. This points to a staggering and perverse misallocation of resources. These costs are avoidable and they could be redirected. This could tighten the safety net of community services and result in more effective support and care for vulnerable people.
Revolving Doors makes the following proposals for deep systemic change to keep people with mental health problems out of prison:
- A targeted reform of community services, driven by evidence of how and why vulnerable prisoners have fallen through the net
- Reinvestment of a significant proportion of criminal justice resources spent on people with mental health problems to fundpreventative measures outside the criminal justice system
- Using early points in the criminal justice system as opportunities for social inclusion. And providing increased access to health and social care services to help target the risk factors associated with crime
- Enhancing community sentences with mental health support for those who continue to fall through the net, or whose offending behaviour is particularly entrenched.
Such reforms would require sustained strategic drive and political courage. The benefits would be felt in reduced crime and lower spend on offender management. They would also be experienced in services that genuinely reach and support our most vulnerable citizens, ending our corrosive reliance on ‘social dustbins’.
