Abstract
Report on the Work of the Prison Department
Highlights
It is a century since the Prison Act placed a statu tory obligation on the Prison Commissioners to present an annual report to the Secretary of State and Parliament; in recent years numerical facts relating to the prison population have been published in a separate volume of Statistical Tables
Together these volumes provide an account of the administra tion of the penal system during the previous year
To those who are familiar with bureaucratic reticence in these matters the reports provide welcome information: for others who work in the prison service, normally constrained by the Offical Secrets Acts (1911 and 1920), the reports act as a valuable mouthpiece
Summary
The DHSS and several Government committees (e.g. HSC(iS)6i; Special Hospitals Working Party, 1961; Clancy Committee, 1974; Butler Committee, 1975) have repeatedly emphasized that psychiatric hospitals should continue to manage difficult patients, the violent and the majority of mentally abnormal offenders who are subject to Part V MHA, and where necessary hospitals should provide for treatment in conditions of security If this situation is achieved the proposed forensic developments will provide addi tional facilities for mentally abnormal offenders. If forensic developments result in a further discussion of difficult patients and offenders from the mainstream of psychiatry it will be counterproductive: a few Regional secure units will not possibly be able to manage, the Special Hospitals will rightly resist excessive demands as they do at present, and the prisons will continue to bear the brunt These problems arise because repeated recommendations, assertions and policy documents do not represent the views of the profession as a whole.
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