World Mental Health Day in the Criminal Justice System
Annually, 10th October is World Mental Health Day, and it is more important than ever that legal professionals understand the intersection between the criminal justice system and mental health.
I specialise in representing defendants with mental health conditions and/or who are neurodivergent. I also sit on Mental Health Tribunals as a Specialist Member. This may lead you to conclude that I have a disproportionate degree of professional contact with people who have a mental health diagnosis. However, research from the University of Glasgow, published earlier this year, suggests that you might do too…
According to the research, 85% of the young male prisoners who took part in the study had a current mental health condition. Furthermore, more than 96% of the men had more than one lifelong neurodevelopmental or mental health condition. However, only 3% of the men had received a clinical assessment. Although we have known for a long time that neurodivergent individuals and people with mental health conditions are over-represented in the prison population, these figures are truly shocking. I am not surprised by them, though.
Off the top of my head, I can recall a concerning number of cases in which mental health or neurodivergence did not appear – on the face of it at least – to be an issue. However, after spending time in conference with my client, it would quickly become apparent that they required a clinical assessment by a psychiatrist, psychologist or both.
I represented a man who had spent years suffering, unnoticed and unmedicated, from bipolar affective disorder. Another client couldn’t recall his sexual offending. He wasn’t attempting to deceive anyone – at the time of the offence he was having his first hypomanic episode. Since 2021, I have represented a total of three women between the ages of 40 and 70 who had lived their lives to date not knowing that they were autistic.
There are many excellent resources available on the internet which allow legal professionals to acquaint themselves with some of the symptoms of common mental health conditions. The same is true for neurodivergent traits. In celebration of World Mental Health Day, I would urge everyone to spend a little time in reading. The benefits of this extend beyond mitigation in the courtroom – your clients will be able to access the treatment and support that they need, probably for the first time in their lives.
Charlotte L Surley
The study cited above is ‘Reactive attachment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder, adverse childhood experiences, and mental health in an imprisoned young offender population’ Moran et al, Psychiatry Research, Vol. 332 February 2024.
For information about a range of common mental health conditions, Mind has an excellent resource which can be found here. Their website also provides links for further reading in relation to ADHD here. For information about autism, visit the National Autistic Society’s guidance here.
A number of members of the Public Defender Service Advocacy Team have experience in representing defendants with mental health diagnoses.
If you would like to instruct one of our advocates, please contact our Senior Clerk, Robin Driscoll, via telephone on 0203 334 4253 or email our clerking team at pdsclerks@justice.gov.uk