§ Mr. Ieuan Wyn JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what studies his Department has evaluated into the correlation between attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and juvenile crime; if he will make it his policy to ensure that juveniles convicted of more than three crimes should be assessed for ADHD by a medical practitioner competent in the pharmacological treatment of this condition; and if he will make a statement; [10506]
(2) if he will introduce measures to ensure that (a) the police and (b) the Crown Prosecution Service obtain an assessment for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder for children and adolescents convicted of more than three crimes; and if he will make a statement. [10505]
§ Mr. MichaelThe incidence of hyperactivity, attention deficit and impulsivity at ages eight to 10 years has been found independently to predict future juvenile convictions. This finding arises from work by the Cambridge study of delinquent development, which was largely funded by the Home Office. Of course, the causes of juvenile delinquency are complex and wide ranging and hyperactivity is only one of many indicators. Research indicates that the following factors are particularly significant: being male; being brought up by a criminal parent or parents; living in a family with multiple problems; experiencing poor parenting and a lack of supervision; poor discipline in the family and at school; experiencing failure and disaffection at school; associating with delinquent friends; and having brothers and sisters who offend.
However, the Government are developing policies to bring about early identification of social and medical factors which may act as a trigger to delinquent behaviour or increase the likelihood of misbehaviour, not least by the inquiries at the "final warning" stage which we intend should lead to targeted intervention. The findings of the Cambridge study and other evidence of delinquent development will be taken into account as we draw up plans for the final warning which we intend to include in the Crime and Disorder Bill later this Session.
§ Mr. JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the degree of correlation between emotional disturbance among young people and committal to detention centres; what estimate6W he has made of the proportion of the cost of detention centres accounted for by such young people; and if he will make a statement. [10538]
§ Ms QuinDetention centres and youth custody centres were replaced by young offender institutions in 1988.
No such assessment has been made. The reports of two surveys of prisoners' mental health undertaken by the Institute of Psychiatry include findings about the prevalence of mental disorder in young men, although data on young women were not collated separately from data on adult women.
The first survey, the report of which was published by the Home Office in 1991 and entitled "Mentally Disordered Prisoners", estimated that 33 per cent. of sentenced male young offenders could be diagnosed as suffering from some form of mental disorder, including harmful or dependent use of substances, excluding cannabis. The corresponding figure for unsentenced young men in the report of the second survey, published by the Home Office in 1996 as "Mental Disorder in Remand Prisoners", was 53 per cent.
No statistics are available centrally on which to estimate the additional costs of caring for, and treating, prisoners with emotional or mental health problems, as distinct from those who do not have such problems.