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A Comparison of Psychiatric Admissions from Prison and Other Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

John S. Bearcroft*
Affiliation:
Long Grove Hospital, Epsom, and Kingston Hospital, Kingston-upon-Thames

Extract

Recently the 1959 Mental Health Act has been criticized because of an apparent increase of psychiatric referrals from courts and prisons, and it has been suggested that there has been an increase of social pathology since the passing of this Act (Rollin, 1963). A previous study (West, Bearcroft and Smith, 1960) showed that men were remanded in custody rather than on bail for psychiatric reports largely for social reasons, and in a more recent study (Bearcroft and Donovan, 1965) the incidence of criminal behaviour in the mentally ill seemed to depend, to some extent, upon social factors.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1966 

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References

Bearcroft, J. S., and Donovan, M. D. (1965). “Psychiatric referrals from courts and prisons.” Brit, med. J., ii, 1519–23.Google Scholar
Rollin, H. R. (1963). “Social and legal repercussions of the Mental Health Act 1959.” Ibid., i, 786788.Google Scholar
Rollin, H. R. (1965). “The unprosecuted mentally abnormal offender.” Ibid., i, 831–5.Google Scholar
West, D. J. (1963). The Habitual Criminal. Cambridge Studies in Criminology.Google Scholar
West, D. J., Bearcroft, J. S., and Smith, A. (1960). “The choice of bail or custody for offenders remanded for a psychiatric report.” Int. J. soc. Psychiat., 6, 3450.Google Scholar
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