Comment on the Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorate report on offenders with learning disabilities
Commenting on the Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorate report, A joint inspection of the treatment of offenders with learning disabilities within the criminal justice system: phase 1 from arrest to sentence, Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“This report reveals that at every turn people with learning disabilities caught up in the justice system are being let down by a failure to recognise and meet their needs. Often vulnerable and isolated, people with learning disabilities are getting little or no help to understand and navigate a scary and incomprehensible world of police stations and courts.
“In light of this report, the government must honour its Care not Custody promise. While the two million-strong coalition, led by the WI and the Prison Reform Trust, welcomes the recent commitment to fund an extension of liaison and diversion trial sites in police stations and courts, it notes that resources have been reduced and the timescale for delivery for a full national service delayed from 2014 to 2017.
“For too long people with a learning disability, many of whom should be diverted from police stations and courts into social care, have ended up in prison as a default option, while others are left without the support they need as they continue through the justice process.”
Notes
The Prison Reform Trust, Rethink Mental Illness, Magistrates’ Association, Judicial College and Justices’ Clerks’ Society have worked together to produce ‘Mental health and learning disabilities in the criminal court’ a new resource for magistrates, district judges and court staff. The materials, including film clips and a number of links to further information, guidance and examples of good practice.
The Care not Custody initiative was inspired by the tragic suicide of a young man with schizophrenia in Manchester prison, the son of a WI member. The Care not Custody Coalition, representing up to 2 million people across the health, social care and justice sectors and wider civic society, was convened in 2011 to support the government in keeping its promise and to hold it to account for effective delivery. Members of the Coalition signed a joint letter published in the Guardian welcoming the extension of funding of the liaison and diversion trial sites and calling on the government to stick to the revised 2017 delivery deadline for the roll out of a national service.
