The British Psychological Society welcomes and supports the recent report from Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH), 'From the inside', on the urgent need to address the mental health issues of prison inmates.

The report states that prisoners need access to psychological therapy to help them to overcome the trauma and abuse many of them have experienced.

Professor Peter Kinderman, Chair of the Society's Standing Committee of Psychologists in Health and Social Care stated;

"There is a deplorable discrepancy between the demand for mental health services in prison and the availability of mental health practitioners to meet that need. We agree with SCMH on the two key issues: There is an urgent need to address mental health in prisons and that expanding access to psychological therapies is at least part of the answer."

The British Psychological Society has many members working as clinical and forensic psychologists in prisons and more widely in the criminal justice system. The Society recognises the huge gap between what is required and what is available. As the SCMH report makes clear, mental health problems are a very significant issue in prisons and more widely in the forensic field, and the services available simply fail to meet these needs. Furthermore, comprehensive and holistic offender management is required, together with more community programmes and reoffender management. Psychological science can do much to help in this respect.

Psychology and psychologists can assist with policy development, strategic issues, workforce redesign and measurable targets. Much could be learnt from the Government's new, but successful Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, which is designed significantly to improve the provision of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in mental health services. A replication of the IAPT programme in prison settings could do much to reduce the inadequacy of services.

Dr Kinderman continued; 'Due to the nature of the mental health problems in prisons three areas need addressing urgently: mental health issues which might benefit from psychological therapies, addressing reoffending using psychological interventions that have been proven to work and employment. Psychologists have a huge amount to offer on all of these issues.'

British Psychological Society