‘We Are Recreating Bedlam’: A History of Mental Illness and Prison Systems in England and Ireland

摘要

In May 2014 the Guardian newspaper reported a number of shocking instances of homicide carried out by prison inmates suffering from mental health problems. The article went on to accuse the English prison system of ‘recreating Bedlam’, with a prison service poorly-equipped to deal with the 10% of the prison population who were suffering from serious mental health disorders at any one time. Unable to protect their mentally ill inmates from self harm or from harming other prisoners, mental health support in some prisons was described as ‘virtually non-existent’ and mental health disorders were ‘often viewed by management as a discipline problem rather than a health issue’. The Bradley Report of 2007, investigating the provision of mental health services in prison, had urged the ‘earliest possible diversion of offenders with mental disorders from the criminal justice system’. Yet little progress had been made by 2014 and mentally ill prisoners were still ending up in prison rather than hospital (Guardian, 24 May 2014).