Promoted by Scott Redding, 72 Mayfield Road, Coventry, CV5 6PN, on behalf of The Green Party, 37A Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6JY. For more information, please call 07906 316726.
Jack Straw needs to get his cabinet colleagues to accept prisons cannot and should not continue to pick up the tab for a range of social and health needs.
Our prisons today contain an estimated 5,000 people with severe and enduring mental illness who should not be there but in treatment, [it's] a national disgrace. Not to mention the thousands more with lower-level mental health problems currently in custody who could be treated effectively and safely in the community.
A national network of diversion centres in courts and police stations to identify and help people whose offending is driven by mental illness not criminality would do much to relieve pressure on prison places, cut re-offending and help some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Many of the solutions to prison overcrowding and re-offending lie outside of prison walls.
We are the Coventry Green Party, and we try to blog about issues relevant to Coventry, the West Midlands, and the rest of the world, from a Green perspective.
Juliet Lyon, Director, Prison Reform Trust:
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