Thousands of people with mental health problems are ending up in jail rather than receiving treatment, the Prison Reform Trust has said. Offering mental health and social care instead of custody would relieve pressure on prisons and could cut reoffending rates, the trust argues.

It says figures show one in 10 inmates has a ‘serious mental health issue’. The Government said it had made it clear that offenders with severe mental illness should be treated not punished. The trust report adds that 90 per cent of inmates have at least one diagnosed mental health disorder.

Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: ‘This unique report raises searing questions about why we lock up our most ill people in our most bleak institutions. Why waste time and public money building bigger and bigger prisons when it is clear that our jails are full of people in urgent need of proper mental health and social care?’

Peter Selby, President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards, said there was ‘no more distressing mismatch in our justice system than mental illness and prison’. He said that too often prison officials were doing work better carried out by skilled health professionals.

The trust wants to see a national network of specialists created who could divert offenders into mental health care treatment if safety considerations allowed. In addition, every prison should have a learning disability specialist and care should continue once a prisoner had left jail, it argues.

bbc.co.uk