Prisons - new material (28)
01 December 1998
An unsuitable place for treatment: diverting mentally disorder offenders from custody. Penal Affairs Consortium (January) 1998, pp12. Describing the imprisonment of mentally disordered prisoners as "inhumane" this report cites research showing that 19% of sentenced prisoners and 25% of remand prisoners have problems of mental disturbance. At least 47% (28) of the self- inflicted deaths in prison had a known previous psychiatric history. It calls for an "improved range of hospital and community based facilities".
Prison Privatisation Report International. No. 16 (January) 1998. This issue contains an overview of the prison inspection report on the Group 4-run prison at Buckley Hall and a scathing account of a spate of deaths at the most recently opened Group 4 prison at Port Phillip Victoria Australia.
Revised projections of long term trends in the prison population to 2005 Philip White & Iqbal Powar. Statistical Bulletin (Home Office) Issue 2/98 29.1.98, pp16.
Developments in prison law Simon Creighton. Legal Action February 1998 pp19-22. This occasional series considers the law relating to prisoners and their rights - this latest article includes recent case-law that affects life prisoners.
Electronic monitoring of curfew orders: The second year of the trials Ed Mortimer & Chris May. Research Findings No. 66 (Home Office) 1997 pp4. This report monitors the second year of trials of electronic monitoring covering 375 curfew orders - four times the number in the first year of trials.
Asylum Volume 10 no 3 (Winter) 1997/98. The latest issue of Asylum the magazine for democratic psychiatry is a special edition on prisons. It contains useful pieces on deaths in custody (Bob Dunn) which explains how "control and restraint techniques become a euphemism for the use of excessive force and the intensive use of controlling drugs"; the experiences of drug users in custody (Margaret S Malloch); the prison treatment of HIV/AIDS in the context of surveillance regulation and punishment (Alan McGee and Phil Scraton) and other articles on Broadmoor (Janet Cresswell) psychiatry in prisons (Patrick T Salkeld) and children in prison custody (Barry Goldson). Asylum can be ordered from: Prof Alec Jenner Manor Farm, Brightonholmlee Lane Wharncliffe Side Sheffield S30 3DB price 1.50 + pp.