Centre for Mental Health

Courts failing to use option of mental health treatment for offenders outside prison, says new report

9 January 2008

People sentenced to community orders are not getting mental health treatment when they need it, according to research published today by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.

The Community Order and the Mental Health Treatment Requirement, by Linda Seymour and Max Rutherford, found that less than one per cent of people issued with a community order had a requirement for mental health treatment in their sentence.  Of the 120,000 community orders issued in 2006, only 725 included a mental health treatment requirement (MHTR).  This compares with over 11,000 for drug treatment, 75,000 for supervision and more than 62,000 for unpaid work.

The report found wide variations in the use of community orders.  The London probation region issued 201 MHTRs in 2006 while Northamptonshire and North Yorkshire each issued just two.

The report concludes that the barriers to the use of the MHTR are likely to include difficulties assessing a person's eligibility for mental health treatment, a lack of access to mental health services for offenders living in the community and the need for an offender to consent publicly to treatment for highly stigmatised mental health problems.

Linda Seymour, Sainsbury Centre head of policy, said: "The mental health treatment requirement is clearly not being used fully or consistently.  It is estimated that half of people on community orders have at least one mental health problem.  Few will be receiving the support they need for those problems.  Many more offenders with mental health problems are being imprisoned because judges see no alternative for them in the community.

"Our research will continue to find out why the MHTR is so scarcely used and what could be changed to offer more offenders with mental health problems a viable alternative to prison."

Angela Greatley, Sainsbury Centre chief executive, said: "The prison population is rising inexorably.  Levels of mental ill health among prisoners are high.  Last year the number of prison suicides rose to 92.

"We need to look urgently at how to create a community-based alternative to prison.  The mental health treatment requirement has the potential to offer that alternative for some people. We need to know why it is not achieving that potential and take action to put it right."

This week, we are beginning a research project to examine the operation of the MHTR in more detail.