Prisoners with severe mental health needs are too often isolated, say monitoring boards

A lack of secure mental health beds in the community means that many prisoners in England are spending long periods in isolation, during which their health and wellbeing deteriorate, a damning report from the Independent Monitoring Boards has found.1Of 31 prisons surveyed over four weeks in autumn 2022, more than a quarter (26%) included prisoners who were held in isolation while waiting to be assessed or transferred to more appropriate secure settings because of their mental health needs.One prisoner spent over 800 days in care and separation units (previously called segregation units), where prisoners are isolated to “maintain good order and discipline” or for their own safety if they are at risk from other prisoners.Another man with autism, schizophrenia, and severe symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder spent over nine months in isolation and experienced a dramatic deterioration in his mental health, said the boards, which monitor and report on the conditions…
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