HC Deb 03 December 2001 vol 376 cc105-6W
Mr. Lidington

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the number of(a) mentally and (b) personality disordered prisoners now held in young offenders institutions. [16313]

Beverley Hughes

The table shows the principal findings for young people aged 16 to 20 in a survey of the prevalence of mental ill health in the prison population of England and Wales carried out in 1997 by the Office for National Statistics. The report of this survey, `Psychiatric Morbidity among Prisoners' was published in 1998. A second report, 'Psychiatric Morbidity among Young Offenders in England and Wales', which contains further analysis of the data from the survey, was published in 2000.

Percentage
Remanded young men Sentenced young men Sentenced young women
Functional psychosis in the past year1 8 10 29
Neurotic disorder in past week3 52 41 67
Hazardous drinking in year before imprisonment 62 70 51
Drug dependence in year before imprisonment 57 52 58
Personality disorder1 84 88 284
1 From clinical interview
2 Probable diagnosis identified during lay interview
3 From lay interview