Mental health needs ‘scare’ prison staff

Young offenders who have personality disorders are being excluded from services because prison staff are “scared of them”, a senior civil servant said this week.

John Boyington, director of health and offender partnerships at the Department of Health and the National Offender Management Service, told a conference it was scandalous that such children were being sent to establishments that “do not know what to do with them”.

Linda Christie, inspector for secure care at the Commission for Social Care Inspection, said prison staff often described children with personality disorders as “untreatable” because they did not know how to deal with them.

Boyington also condemned the lack of services for adult offenders with personality disorders.