Overview on the Commissioning And Provision of Services For People With Mental Health Problems Who Come Into Contact With The Criminal Justice System

To date, health and social care services have had great difficulties in adequately meeting the needs of people with mental-health problems who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Historically, these people have been a low priority and are often still not able to access local services. They are a particularly vulnerable group and, if their health and social care needs are not met, there is a risk that people slip into a vicious cycle of imprisonment, re-offending, and deteriorating mental health. Effective care involves a wide range of agencies who straddle a number of government departments, including health and local authorities, NHS Trusts, housing departments, GPs, the police, legal profession, courts, prisons, probation departments, voluntary and private organisations. This makes the planning of both national policy and the care of individuals extremely difficult. National policy has consistently, over the last decade, called for people’s needs to be met by health/social care services, not the criminal justice system. Yet the public perception, given particular prominence by some recent high-profile cases, is that this policy is failing and tragedies are occurring which ought to have been avoided. Media attention has focused on those serious offenders who demonstrate a failure of the NHS and other services to provide adequate care and treatment and where performance is measured by the prevention of offending behaviour. This attention has presented a real challenge in providing services to this group. People require a response, not only to their mental illness, but also to their offending behaviour, particularly in relation to the safety of the public. Achieving the balance between an individual’s needs, ensuring their safety and preventing harm to themselves and the public are fundamental to a good service.