Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T10:30:18.513Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Open Forensic Unit for the Borderline Mentally Impaired Offender

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jeanette Smith
Jeanette Smith*
Affiliation:
Wonford House Hospital, Dryden Road, Wonford, Exeter (formerly Registrar, Langdon Hospital, Dawlish, Devon)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Over recent years attention has been directed towards providing appropriate facilities for the mentally abnormal offender. In the past such individuals were probably absorbed into the hospital system. However, the open door policy of the 1960s and 1970s, together with hospital closures and reduced bed numbers, has meant that this invisible absorption has been unable to continue. It has been suggested that many of these mentally abnormal offenders are inappropriately placed within the penal system, thus contributing to prison overcrowding. The Butler and Glancy Reports recommended Regional Secure Units as a possible solution. At the beginning of 1987, 14 of these had opened. The tendency has been for Regional Secure Units to deal mainly with the mentally ill offenders and the needs of the mentally impaired have been largely overlooked. The literature on the subject of this latter group has been sparse. Craft described an isolated unit in Wales, which dealt with mentally abnormal offenders, and there are hospitals which provide secure facilities for the mentally handicapped. The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of the patients admitted to an open forensic unit in order to assess the suitability of the facilities and the outcome of the treatment provided.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 13 - 15
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988

References

1 Penrose, L. S. (1939) Mental disease and crime. Outline of a comparative study of European statistics. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 18, 1–15.Google Scholar
2 Legal Correspondent (1985) Mentally ill offenders in prison. British Medical Journal, 290, 447.Google Scholar
3 Department of Health and Social Security and the Home Office (1975) Report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders (Butler Report) (1975) London: HMSO.Google Scholar
4 Working Party on Security in NHS Hospitals (1974) Revised Report (Glancy Report). London: Department of Health & Social Security.Google Scholar
5 Snowden, P. (1985) A survey of a Regional Secure Unit programme. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 499–507.Google Scholar
6 Snowden, P. (1987) Regional Secure Units: arriving but under threat. British Medical Journal, 294, 1310–1311.Google Scholar
7 Craft, M. (1984) Should one treat or gaol psychopaths? In Mentally Abnormal Offenders (eds Craft, M. & A.). London: Baillière Tindall.Google Scholar
8 Isweran, M. S. & Bardsley, E. M. (1987) Secure facilities for mentally impaired patients. Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 11, 52–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Power, D. J. (1969) Subnormality and crime. Medicine, Science and the Law, 9, 82–93 and 162–171.Google Scholar
10 Reid, A. M. (1982) The Psychiatry of Mental Handicap. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.