Programmes to stop offenders from committing further crimes are poorly adapted for people with mental health problems, according to a research paper published today by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
A review of the use of offending behaviour programmes for people with mental health problems finds that many programmes are not adapted to the needs of people with mental health problems and that they fail to address the most common causes of offending, such as lack of a home and lack of a job. Most offending behaviour programmes have low success rates, and some exclude prisoners with severe mental illnesses entirely.
The review calls for programmes to be made more accessible to prisoners with mental health problems and relevant to people's lives.
Sainsbury Centre chief executive Angela Greatley said: "The vast majority of prisoners in England and Wales have mental health problems. Yet the schemes which aim to stop them from reoffending rarely take proper account of their mental health.
"Unless efforts to tackle re-offending take people's mental health needs more seriously, they will continue to fail.
"Improving the quality of offending behaviour programmes is especially important for prisoners on indeterminate sentences such as Imprisonment for Public Protection. Many IPP prisoners with mental health problems have told us they are excluded from the offending behaviour programmes they need to attend to show they are no longer dangerous, or that programmes they attended did not take account of their mental health problems.
"It is vital that programmes are adapted for IPP prisoners with mental health problems and that they get fair access to the support they need to rehabilitate themselves."