Question: you said you have worked in both a prison and low to medium secure hospitals. what is the difference in the sort of people you get there? is there a significant difference in the amount of people with mental health problems, or a difference in the type of mental health problems present?

John Atkinson answered on 18 Jun 2018:

Hi Florence,
In my experience there can often not be a lot of difference between people in prison and in hospitals. A person can be transferred from prison to hospital due to being too unwell to stay in regular prison (e.g. if they develop mental illness or if their personality disorder is to such an extent that they can’t cope with regular prison). It often depends what happens on the day of court. Looking back my first job was in prison and it is quite worrying in hindsight how many people in prison should probably have been in hospital due to being ill with schizophrenia or having a learning disability. Often things can be overlooked I think.
Generally, I think the levels of personality disorder will be the same in hospitals and prisons, however there will be more people with a mental illness in hospital, i.e. schizophrenia, bipolar, schizoaffective disorder. Regardless of all those things, it is important that the person gets treatment to help with their problems in my view. Good question!