People With Mental Illness Let Down By Criminal Justice System

Mental health experts, not the police, should be identifying vulnerable people, according to a report by the human rights group JUSTICE which also calls for specialist prosecutors to make charging decisions. The group backs the Law Commission’s recommendations that the test of fitness to plead and fitness to stand trial should be ‘placed on a statutory footing’; the insanity defence be amended to a defence of ‘not criminally responsible by reason of a recognised medical condition’; and called for further review of the defences where mental capacity is in issue ‘taking into account the difference between substantial and total lack of capacity’. You can read the full report (Mental Health and Fair Trial) here.

Andrea Coomber, director of JUSTICE, said that there were ‘fundamental problems’ with the criminal justice system’s response to vulnerability and ‘too few people receive reasonable adjustments to enable them to effectively participate in their defence’. According to JUSTICE people in the criminal justice system were ‘far more likely to suffer from mental health problems than the general population’.

Read more: Jon Robins, ‘The Justice Gap’, http://bit.ly/2BySLX1