The Government have commissioned my noble Friend, Lord Keith Bradley to carry out a review on offenders with mental health and learning disability problems. There is a Government commitment to publishing the Bradley review report during April 2009.
The most recent estimates for mental health of the prisoner population of England and Wales come from Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR), from 2005-06. There is also an older Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (PMS) among prisoners (1997). There is a measure of comparability across relevant results from the two surveys.
Across the two surveys, the range of prevalence rates for any functional psychosis was between 7 per cent. and 9 per cent. for sentenced males, and 14 per cent. and 18 per cent. for sentenced females.
Also across the two surveys, the range of prevalence rates for any personality disorder was between 62 per cent. and 64 per cent. for sentenced males, and 57 per cent. and 59 per cent. for sentenced females.
Figures for neurotic conditions such as anxiety and depression were not obtained in the same way in the two surveys. Focusing just on the more recent SPCR figures (using the Maudsley Addiction Profile), and using a threshold of six symptoms, 34 per cent. of sentenced male prisoners and 56 per cent. of sentenced female prisoners were appreciably affected by anxiety/depression and other neurotic conditions.
Neither set of survey results has been translated from percentage figures into estimates of numbers of prisoners.
Further information on the results of these two surveys can be found in the published reports. These are, for SPCR, “The Problems and Needs of Newly Sentenced Prisoners: Results from a National Survey” Ministry of Justice Research Series 16/08 (2008). For PSM: “Psychiatric Morbidity among Prisoners in England and Wales: Summary Report” (ONS, 1998).
SPCR:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/research-2008.htm
PSM:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Prisoners_PsycMorb.pdf
Centrally held information is not available to answer all parts of the question posed. The annual statistical bulletin on mentally disordered offenders for England and Wales over the last 10 years for which figures are available gives the number of mentally disordered offenders admitted to hospital from prison, detained in hospital following transfer from prison and transferred back to prison from hospital (while un-sentenced and after sentencing) are shown in the following table.
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Admitted to hospital from prison after sentence 258 267 270 222 223 296 346 356 421 394 Admitted to hospital from prison while un-sentenced 481 464 392 413 421 426 485 478 473 479 Detained in hospital following transfer after sentence 402 385 386 402 410 489 505 561 627 684 Detained in hospital while un-sentenced 168 151 151 160 141 174 189 218 175 284 Returned to prison from hospital to resume sentence 93 130 100 84 100 96 135 113 164 154 Returned to prison from hospital whilst un-sentenced 35 40 32 40 55 54 54 47 58 60
These figures are drawn from tables 2, 6 and 9 of “Statistics of Mentally Disordered Offenders 2007: England and Wales”, which can be downloaded from:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/mentally-disordered-offenders-2007.pdf
It is not possible to differentiate between those held in NHS and independent sector mental health care places.