Mentally Disordered Offenders: Finding a Focus for Diversion

Abstract

Abstract: The paper is based on an ongoing evaluation of a court‐based diversion scheme for mentally disordered offenders in a busy inner‐London magistrates' court. It begins'with a review of the field, in particular the different decision‐making points at which diversion schemes of this kind might be situated. This is followed by an account of the early experience of the Islington Mentally Disordered Offenders Project which began in the early 1990s. Attention isfocussed on four areas of special need: homelessness; drug misuse; personal violence, and race and ethnicity.