Mentally disordered offenders: the need for a diversion service in a rural area Available to Purchase

Over the last decade many ‘diversion from custody’ schemes have been established and there is evidence of their effectiveness in reducing the number of mentally disordered offenders inappropriately remanded in custody. In North Wales there has been pressure to establish such a scheme but it is not clearwhether models developed in large urban areas are applicable to the problems of a rural community.This paper describes a study of male prisoners remanded in custody from North Wales during a four month period to identify need for such a service. In four months 298 prisoners were remanded from North Wales. Only seven courts remanded more than 16 (equivalent to one remand per week); the busiest court remanded 83, equivalent to five per week.In total, 42 prisoners reported a history of mental disorder; records were available on 28 of these, of whom ten were considered to have a mental disorder requiring admission.Only a small number of individuals in this study required diversion from custody (approximately one per week), but in those cases there was significant unmet need. The conclusion was that an effective diversion scheme would have to be able to provide a service to numerous and widely spread courts, most with a low level of activity.