Centre for Mental Health

Centre for Mental Health responds to Government plans for Personality Disorder Services in Prisons

24 October 2011

The Department of Health today published its response to a consultation it carried out on plans to reshape personality disorder services in prisons in England.

Centre for Mental Health chief executive Sean Duggan commented on the Government’s implementation plan: “We support the move to reshape the current Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme in order to increase treatment capacity and to improve the effectiveness of treatment and support for more people with personality disorders in our prisons.

We need to learn from the pilot projects that have been carried out under the DSPD programme, which have been very expensive, had mixed outcomes and worked with only a small number of offenders.

“We are concerned that the implementation plan focuses on people with severe personality disorder and says little about arrangements for the broader population of offenders with personality disorder. Two-thirds of prisoners have a personality disorder yet very few receive any support at all. For women prisoners in particular, personality disorders can make their experience of imprisonment especially distressing and harmful.

“We urge the Government to look at how to offer services for all prisoners with a personality disorder, not just the most severe. Reinvesting funding from the DSPD pilots to a broader range of responses to personality disorder among the offender population would help more people and provide better value for money. It is also vital that the plan looks beyond prisons to what happens when people are released from custody and to reforms of secure services.”

"Trained therapists with the appropriate skills need to work with women suffering from BPD throughout their time in prison. Support to help women through the transition from prison to the community also needs to be improved."