Max Rutherford is the Policy Officer for the Sainsbury Centre’s Prisons and Criminal Justice Programme. His work focuses on the criminal justice system and its impact on offenders with mental health problems. Current interests revolve around Sainsbury Centre projects running in 2008: A study of the impact of the sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPPs); an analysis of the under-use of the Mental Health Treatment Requirement as part of the Community Order; and forthcoming work looking at the role of the police and the courts in diverting offenders with mental illnesses away the criminal justice system towards treatment.
Since joining the Sainsbury Centre in February 2007, he has co-authored briefing papers on Forensic Mental Health Services, Mental Health and ASBOs, and the Community Order’s Mental Health Treatment Requirement.
After graduating from the University of Oxford with an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice in 2006, he co-authored the independent audit of ‘Ten years of criminal justice under New Labour’, and the Community Sentences Digest, both for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London.
In the summer of 2006 he completed an internship as a research assistant for Liberal Democrat Party President Simon Hughes MP in his House of Commons Office. During this time he also wrote a report on community sentences for the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Tel: 020 7827 8308
Email: max.rutherford@scmh.org.uk