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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect gender has on the public perceptions of offenders with mental health issues. The authors aim to understand how offenders with mental illness are viewed by the public so future information and practices can be implemented to further educate on the topic of mental illness. Research has shown that mental health education can be a pivotal part of reducing risk and crime among the mentally ill population.

This study applies a quantitative design using vignettes. There were four scenarios, two as controls, and two experimental variables to examine how responses differed depending on gender and mental health. Twenty statements then followed each vignette and participants were asked to share how much they aligned their opinions with each statement on a five-point Likert scale. The sample was comprised of 80 participants.

The findings of this study largely support the relevant literature on the topic of gender and mental illness in offenders. Overall, the public was the least supportive of female offenders with mental illness, followed by male offenders with mental illness, then male offenders and lastly the most support was directed towards female offenders. Therefore, the present study’s initial hypotheses are also supported in that female offenders will garner a more sympathetic reaction than their male counterparts. However, if female offenders have mental health issues, they are viewed more negatively than males.

For future replication of this study, the authors consider that a larger and more gender-balanced sample size would increase the ecological validity of the findings. Despite this, the findings of this study do fall in line with the relevant literature. Therefore, suggesting perhaps that the gender of the sample does not affect the overall outcome of the results.

Education regarding mental health for the public should be implemented as research has found this effective in de-stigmatising and helping to create protective factors to reduce offending. More training is needed for professionals within the criminal justice system, including police personnel, to ensure they are better equipped to consider the needs and behaviours of mentally ill individuals. The authors suggest that mental health awareness should be taught as part of the education system in the UK to help de-stigmatise and share helpful resources. The prison system in the UK needs to be able to provide better treatment programmes for inmates with mental health issues as research shows this is the most effective form of treatment at reducing recidivism.

The social implications of this study are that it aims to understand perceptions of mental illness, gender and offending and, therefore, use the conclusions drawn to inform what is needed to improve perceptions if necessary. De-stigmatising and acknowledging mental illness can allow for better access to appropriate treatment. Facilitating reintegration back into society, and, therefore, increasing peer support which has been shown to reduce reoffending rates within the mentally ill population.

There are very few research studies looking at the impact of both gender and mental illness on how offenders are perceived. Most relevant research tends to either pick one or the other and therefore the present study is unique. In addition, most established research looks at the perception of a specific population. Whereas the present study has used a small but broad UK participant sample which is likely to be more generalisable. Finally, the results of this research have been able to both meet the aims of the study and accept the proposed hypotheses.

Interprofessional collaboration is necessary when supporting mentally ill offenders but little is understood of these interactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore prison officers’ perceptions of current and desirable levels of interprofessional collaboration (relational coordination (RC)) to understand how collaboration between these systems can be improved.

Gittell’s RC scale was administered to prison officers within the Norwegian prison system (n=160) using an adaptation of the instrument in which actual and desired levels of RC are evaluated. This differentiates between prison officers’ expectations of optimum levels of collaboration with other professional groups, dependent on the role function and codependence, vs actual levels of collaboration.

Prison officers reported different RC levels across professional groups, the lowest being with specialist mental health staff and prison doctors and highest with nurses, social workers and other prison officers. Significant differences between desired and actual RC levels suggest expertise of primary care staff is insufficient, as prison officers request much greater contact with mental health specialists when dealing with the mentally ill offender.

The paper contributes to limited literature on collaborative practice between prison and health care professionals. It questions the advisability of enforcing care pathways that promote the lowest level of effective care in the prison system and suggest ways in which mental health specialists might be better integrated into the prison system. It contributes to the continued debate on how mental health services should be integrated into the prison system, suggesting that the current import model used in Norway and other countries, may not be conducive to generating the close professional relationships required between mental health and prison staff.

Previous research on community attitudes toward the police focuses on suspect race as an important predictor of attitudes toward law enforcement and police use of force. Generally, missing from these studies, however, is the role of mental illness, both independently and in conjunction with race, and its effect on perceptions of police. This chapter summarizes our recent research addressing two issues: (1) how race and mental illness of suspects affect perceptions of the appropriateness of police use of force, and (2) how race and mental illness of citizens affect perceptions of police.

We examine these issues by summarizing research obtained through The Portland Race and Mental Illness Project (PRMIP), a survey administered to residents of Portland, Oregon. For our first topic, we use an experimental vignette that randomly alters race and mental health status of suspects. For our second topic, we ask respondents to self-report race, mental health status, and perceptions of the police.

Our dual focus provides two key findings: first, citizens’ perceptions of police use of force are affected by suspect race and mental health status. Second, like Black citizens, citizens with mental illness also have a negative impression of law enforcement.

Our research builds on research indicating racial disparity in trust in police by showing that mental illness – both that of the respondent and that of a suspect – affects attitudes toward the police. These results suggest that mental health status affects attitudes toward law enforcement and should be considered in future research and public policy.

Effective collaboration between mental health services (MHS) and criminal justice services (CJS) impacts on mental illness and reduces reoffending rates. This paper proposes the change laboratory model (CLM) of workplace transformation as a potential tool to support interagency collaborative practice that has potential to complement current integration tools used in this context. The purpose of this paper is to focus specifically on the theoretical dimension of the model: the cultural historical activity systems theory (CHAT) as a theoretical perspective that offers a framework with which interactions between the MHS and CJS can be better understood.

The structure and rationale behind future piloting of the change laboratory in this context is made. Then CHAT theory is briefly introduced and then its utility illustrated in the presentation of the findings of a qualitative study of leaders from MHS and CJS that explored their perspectives of the characteristics of collaborative working between MHS and prison/probation services in a Norwegian context and using CHAT as an analytical framework.

Leaders suggested that interactions between the two services, within the Norwegian system at least, are most salient when professionals engage in the reintegration and rehabilitation of the offender. Achieving effective communication within the boundary space between the two systems is a focus for professionals engaging in interagency working and this is mediated by a range of integration tools such as coordination plans and interagency meetings. Formalised interagency agreements and informal, unspoken norms of interaction governed this activity. Key challenges limiting the collaboration between the two systems included resource limitations, logistical issues and differences in professional judgments on referral and confidentiality.

Current tools with which MHS/CJS interactions are understood and managed, fail to make explicit the dimensions and nature of these complex interactions. The CLM, and CHAT as its theoretical underpinning, has been highly successful internationally and in other clinical contexts, as a means of exploring and developing interagency working. It is a new idea in prison development, none as yet being applied to the challenges facing the MHS and CJS. This paper addresses this by illustrating the use of CHAT as an analytical framework with which to articulate MHS/CJS collaborations and the potential of the CLM more widely to address current challenges in a context specific, bottom-up and fluid approach to interagency working in this environment.

The purpose of this paper is to increase our understanding of the role of mental disorder in sexual offending as well as identifying innovations in assessment and treatment with offenders who present with these typically complex risks and needs.

The converging literatures on “good lives” and other developments in sexual offender treatment are compared with recovery from mental disorder and what is known about the particular needs and characteristics of sexual offenders with mental illness and severe personality disorder (PD).

A key outcome of this review is that many mentally disordered sexual offenders have similar needs to those in prison and the community but there are particular challenges posed by severe PD, paraphilias and the relatively rare individuals whose offending is functionally linked to psychotic symptoms.

Practical implications include the need for case formulation of complex needs related to mental disorder using direct and indirect measures of attitudes and interests. Treatment needs to be responsive to very different personality and mental health presentations as well as problems with offending and cognitive schemas. Direct functional links between mental health symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations are very rare in practice and are usually secondary to PD and sexual offending issues. In practice, treatment promoting recovery from mental disorder is highly compatible with the “good lives” approach to sexual offender treatment. Staff development, supervision and support are particularly important for staff treating mentally disordered sexual offenders.

It is argued that mentally disordered sexual offenders are an under-researched sub-group within the wider sexual offender population. This paper brings together the relatively limited literature on treatment with examples of recent treatment innovations, multi-modal assessment approaches and reviews of research on the needs of this relatively uncommon but highly risky group.

The Lemuel Shattuck Hospital Youth Service Program adopted a public health approach to address the mental health needs of incarcerated juvenile offenders in Massachusetts. The program, which operated for 6 years, provided psychiatric care and neuropsychological assessment to delinquent youth as well as training for psychiatry residents, neuropsychology fellows and Massachusetts Department of Youth Services’ staff. The program recognized and attempted to address the health care disparity of limited access to quality mental health services for incarcerated youth, particularly those from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. The program was a collaborative venture among the Massachusetts Departments of Public Health and Youth Services, and Tufts-New England Medical Center. The scope of the problem of mental health care for incarcerated youth will be first outlined, followed by a history and evaluation of the program from a public health and system integration perspective.

A high and possibly increasing prevalence of mental disorders in prisoners has been demonstrated in recent surveys. Psychiatric care of prisoners is subject to wide regional variations in Germany, especially regarding inpatient treatment. Although hospitalized psychiatric patients in prison closely resemble those in forensic psychiatric secure hospitals with regard to socio‐demographic (percentage of women, age peak) and forensic characteristics (delinquency, prison experience), marked discrepancies in the diagnostic spectrum necessitate very different treatment planning based on general clinical psychiatry when considering the approach and especially the treatment duration. In Berlin, we try to develop a care structure within the prison system, which addresses inmate‐specific problems and circumstances as well as the possibility of inpatient and outpatient treatment and semihospitalization according to the principle of “equivalence”.

This study aims to evaluate the utility and reliability of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) to investigate the criminal cognitions of mentally disordered offenders (MDOs) from the UK.

The reliability and validity of the PICTS scales were investigated within an MDO sample from the UK (N = 45) and compared to PICTS data from the USA and general offenders in the UK.

The findings showed that the PICTS functioned in a similar way when used in MDO and non-MDO populations, indicating that from a psychometric perspective, the PICTS scales produce consistent results across both populations. Evidence is further provided to indicate that MDOs from the UK endorse criminal cognitions at a similar level to those in the USA and at a significantly higher level than general UK offenders.

The implications and insight that these findings provide into the criminal cognitions of MDOs are discussed, with specific focus on the significant difference between general offenders and offenders with serious mental illness.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to use the PICTS with MDOs in the UK, comparing the criminal thinking styles of MDOs and non-MDOs.

Imprisonment for public protection (IPP) has been the subject of much attention and some controversy since its implementation in April 2005. High numbers of IPP prisoners, combined with a low release rate, have meant that IPP has had a significant impact on the prison population. This paper charts the genesis of IPP and its historical antecedents. It also explores IPP as an exemplar of the ‘rise of risk’ and focuses on its links to the ‘dangerous severe personality disorder’ pilots. It presents two hypotheses on the mental health implications of IPP.