Liberty and psychiatry

Abstract

The security facilities available in one regional health authority area have been surveyed. The simultaneous run-down of the large mental hospitals and the open-door policy have resulted in a lack of facilities for mentally abnormal offenders, and the increasing scarcity of common lodging houses has exacerbated the problem. Newer psychiatric units associated with general hospitals have been mainly concerned with patients suffering from neurosis or acute psychoses. The failure to develop other services to deal with offenders has seriously overburdened both the penal system and the special hospitals.