AMONG the factors keeping Scotland from being the fairer, socially just country the Government wants it to be is surely the extent to which we put people with mental health problems in prison.
Some of an estimated 80 per cent of Scotland’s prisoners are mentally ill. Some of those people are where they deserve to be. But significant numbers are there more because they are ill than because they are bad, and they are there because we don’t have the resources to treat them, or don’t know what else to do with them.
This was a theme raised again at the recent annual Glasgow conference of the Scottish Association For The Study Of Offending. Police Scotland’s chief inspector Rosie Wright talked about attempts to prevent situations escalating to the stage where someone is arrested, or even taken to hospital. Asking young frontline constables, not long out of college, probably in their first job, to deal with really difficult behaviour from people who are mentally unwell is a tall order, she says (I’m paraphrasing). But 60-70 per cent of their time is spent policing “vulnerability”.
The force has had considerable success by linking up with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to access community psychiatric nurses (CPN) at all hours, who can provide help assessing situations by phone.
The concept has arguably been taken further in England, where CPNs are available to attend incidents in a couple of areas. But the Scottish trials, now being extended to Midlothian and Tayside and tentatively elsewhere, are a start.
In some ways, this only shines a light on another continuing scandal, however – the paucity of our child and adolescent mental health service.
At present, if there is a crisis in the family home, say, or a children’s unit, the police can often call on NHS help. But they can’t provide a service for any young people involved. It’s no surprise given that many health boards can’t even provide treatment within 18 weeks, as per Government targets.
Ms Wright said: “It can be frustrating to put in services for the adults in the house but not be able to do that for a young person in distress as well.”
That seems to me to be an understatement. It’s a disgrace.
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