by John Gunn & Pamela Taylor, Co-chairs of Crime In Mind
This article appears in our latest newsletter (Winter 2024) which can be downloaded here.
Among the many areas of our work where we need to build research are prisons and prisoners. Overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales has rarely been out of the news in the last few months. Nor have the government responses to facilitate earlier release for those serving sentences. The likely mental health correlates of the problem are perhaps less widely discussed, but the Ministry of Justice released Safety in Custody statistics in October that highlight some of these 1. Numbers of people dying a self-inflicted death (n=88) were rather similar in the year to June 2024 to the previous year (n=92), but self harm rates increased. Although self-harm in prison fell slightly among women prisoners, there was a total of 76,365 incidents. This figure includes a 20% rise in self-harm among male prisoners. Furthermore, not only did the number of prisoners self-harming increase but the number assaulting others rose by 16% to 29, 254, or 335 per 1000 prisoners. All this misery is occurring at the same time as there is an alarming reduction in the amount of legal advice that prisoners can access. Laura Janes has set out the survey findings about this poorly funded but vital service 2 . Unless there is more support for such activity, we may lose a vital specialism.
This newsletter features research in prisons. Andrew Forrester calls for research to underpin a redesign of health service delivery. Prison research is a core feature of the growing research unit in Bangor University, where Rob Poole has pioneered important work into prescription medication among prisoners within the wider portfolio of work relating to substance misuse. Heidi Hales has joined him there, developing research across Wales with younger offenders and those with similar needs. One of us (Pamela) has written about some of the principles of research with prisoners, the rewards, but also growing difficulties, for example with the ever expanding bureaucracy that attends it.
David Honeywell brings a vital perspective – the extent to which ex-prisoners and peer researchers can expand what is achievable with research with prisoners. We have moved beyond the relative tokenism of people with such experience as merely advisers on developing protocols. Restrictions remain on being allowed to enter any prison as a responsible, employed researcher, but at every other level, such researchers can be full members of the research team and expect to be lead authors
or co-authors of publications, according to research skills and role.
Finally, Jide Jije considers an important paper recently published from Seena Fazel’s Oxford centred but now international group. Having already done so much to bring together information about the prevalence of mental disorder among prisoners and of their risks of self-harm, Jije draws our attention to the latest update – led by Louis Favril, drawing together the physical as well as the mental health information about this substantial population.
In a look forward, we are delighted to announce some new webinars scheduled for 2025. The first will be on Tuesday 3rd February 5.00-7.00pm and on the contribution of forensic clinical psychologists to criminal investigations in the UK – led by Professor Gisli Gudjonsson. The next one will be about applications of neuroscience in our field – led by Dr John Tully.
References:
- Safety in Custody Statistics, England and Wales: Deaths in Prison Custody to September 2024 Assaults and Self-harm to June 2024 – GOV.UK
- APL_SUSTAINABILITY_REPORT_AUGUST_2023
Research can transform lives. We want to support discoveries about what helps people with mental disorder who have been victims of criminal behaviour, or perpetrators of criminal behaviour, and their families, and the clinicians and others who treat them and, indeed, the wider community when its members are in contact with these problems. More effective prevention is the ideal, when this is not possible, we need more effective, evidenced interventions for recovery and restoration of safety.
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