Drawing on research an other literature discuss the issue of menal Essay

Drawing on research an other literature discuss the issue of menal health ill-health amoung the offender population and provide - Essay Example As for psychotic disorders, schizophrenia and delusional disorder are the most common (Birmingham, 2003, p. 193). Moreover, inmates display a wide range of neurotic disorders, such as depression, insomnia, fatigue and irritability (Birmingham, 2003, p. 193). Additionally, there is substantial comorbidity in individuals with psychiatric disorders, in that many of them also suffer from substance abuse (Crawford, et al., 2003, p. S2). There are also many youthful offenders, which are defined as defenders who are between the ages of 15 and 21, with juveniles being defined as being between the ages of 15 and 17, and 30 percent of youthful males and 50 percent of youthful males on remand have a diagnosable mental disorder (Farrant, 2001, p. 1). Therefore, something must be done to address the needs of these inmates and defendants, and this requires humanitarian concerns to dominate the debate about how to treat mentally challenged defendants and inmates. Because of this, there is a great n eed to address the needs of these inmates when meeting their mental health challenges. Some of the ways to address these needs include diversion schemes, transfers to hospitals and treating the inmates in the prison hospital. However, as indicated below, none of these schemes are perfect, and many of them are severely flawed. Because of this the mentally ill prison population, by and large, continues to be untreated and this has severe implications for society. Discussion Unfortunately, humanitarian concerns do not dominate the penal system in England andWales, but, rather, the dominant concern is that the perceptions and attribution of risk are attenuated (Peay, 2007, p. 497). Because of the perception and risk attribution of these offenders, therapeutic considerations are considerations no longer. This in contrast to the recommendations of the Home Office Circular 66/90, which stated that mentally disordered offenders should be placed in the care of health and personal services, a ccording to their mental illness. This recommendation would have caused the prisons to adopt a treatment-based approach, with a de-emphasis on the questions of risk and reoffending, and would have taken mental health law in the direction of medical law (Peay, 2007, p. 498). This approach was rejected by the Government, which, in its White Paper (Department of Health/Home Office 2000), put the safety of the public as the paramount concern, not treating the mentally ill offender, and called for, in essence, â€Å"a form of indefinite detention for some people with personality disorder† (Peay, 2007, p. 498). Therefore, this pushed mental health law more in the direction of penal law, and away from the direction of medical law (Peay, 2007, p. 498). There are a number of different schemes through which a mentally disordered criminal can get treatment instead of straight incarceration. One of these schemes is court diversion (Peay, 2007, p. 506). In this, the offender, the psychiat rist and the Crown Prosecution Service, are brought together to come up with a solution for what to do with the offender (Rickford&Edgar, 2005, p. 1). Diversion is especially appropriate where the offence committed is non-violent and relatively minor (Pakes&Winstone, 2009, p. 158). One of the key aims of diversion is to reduce the