Psychiatric trend ‘raises need for prison service’

Press, 15 September 1988, Page 4

Psychiatric trend ‘raises need for prison service’

A world-wide trend toward narrowing the scope of psychiatric hospitals has increased the need for psychotherapeutic services in prisons, a Christchurch psychiatrist consultant to the Addington remand prison, told members of the Committee of Inquiry into Prison Systems yesterday. Psychiatric hospitals throughout the world were generally limiting their caseloads to people With treatable psychological illnesses, and so more emotionally disturbed people were being sent to prison, Dr Robyn Hewland told the five-member committee. "There are a lot of people who aren’t bad and aren’t mad — they are the sad non-copers who drift into prison,” Dr Hewland said after her submission. “They end up using prison as an adult orphanage because they have no family support.”

The committee in Christchurch for its final round of public hearings, heard closed testimony by two probation officers as well as open submissions by prisoners’ wives asking for improved visiting conditions .and from a,support group advocating that child molesters be sentenced to group homes rather than prisons. Dr Hewland said Addington Prison’s decision to make greater use of psychotherapeutic services had cut the facility’s suicide rate. During the same period, suicide among remand prisoners has risen in most other facilities, she said. Dr Hewland said her visits to Addington not only helped inmates with their psychological problems but also helped the prison staff in detecting potential suicides. “There is good teamwork,” she said. “Everytime I go in there, I’m

also talking to prison officers — telling them how to look for early signs, convincing them it is worth while to report them, and getting them to report them.” Dr Hewland also said that court-appointed psychiatrists should be given access to Social Welfare Department documents when preparing remand reports. The information on a prisoner’s family background would provide insight into his or her mental condition, she said. Mrs Anne Thornton, convener of Families Organised for Support of Sexual Offenders and Families, said child molesters should not be sent to prison. The large number of child molesters who offended again once they had been released from prison was a sign the system was not working, she said.

“They are normally sensitive, gentle, with low self-esteem and low selfworth. They are inadequate men and putting them in the prison system makes a mockery of the system,” Mrs Thornton said. , - . - - The prisons now had little psychological counselling available for sex offenders, she said. “It is pie-in-the-sky for judges to say these men will be helped when they are put in prison because (the counselling) is not there.” Two probation officers who testified in a closed session said their submission focused on care for inmates during imprisonment, the early release programme and supervision for parolees. The committee, chaired by a retired High Court judge, Sir Clinton Roper, is charged with reviewing all aspects of the prison system.