Call for mental health ‘diversion systems’

POLICE and court diversion systems should be set up to redirect people with serious mental illnesses away from prisons to therapeutic services, campaigners have said.

Activists said prisons don’t help people suffering mental problems and, in many cases, make them worse. The comments were made in response to a case reported in yesterday’s Irish Examiner of one sister’s outrage at the way her brother’s mental illness has been treated by prison and health agencies. Sally (not her real name) said she was very concerned her brother, Pat, currently locked up 23 hours a day for his own safety, could kill someone when he is released on March 26.

Pat was repeatedly given temporary release despite breaking his release conditions, despite stabbing a prisoner and despite an official diagnosis by prison psychiatrists that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. John Saunders of Shine (formerly known as Schizophrenia Ireland) said he couldn’t comment on the individual case but said it highlighted general issues. “Prison is certainly not the most appropriate place for anyone with a severe mental illness. All the research suggests that... There is limited mobility. The person is unlikely to receive the type of treatment required. They often find themselves in an isolated and hostile environment.”

Mr Saunders said the condition does not improve in prison and often “gets worse”. He called for a “robust police and court diversion system” underpinned by legislation, to send people coming to the attention of the police and the courts to mental health services.

Dan Neville, Fine Gael’s spokesman on mental health and a long-time campaigner on the issue, said experts estimated up to 40% of people in Irish prisons suffer from a mental illness.

“If a prisoner has a physical illness... they are immediately moved to a general hospital, under supervision. There’s a different attitude to mental illness. They should be treated in hospital. Locking people in a cell for 23 hours a day is opposite to therapeutic treatment.” He said the issue of building a secure psychiatric hospital had been on the agenda for 20 years but he was “not confident” anything would happen in the near future.

lShine helpline: 1890-621-631