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Mental Health Problems, The Least Serious Form Of Mental Ill-health, ‘may Be ...


Mental health problems, the least serious form of mental ill-health, ‘may be reflected in difficulties and/or disabilities in the realms of personal relationships, psychological development, the capacity for play and learning and in distress and maladaptive behaviour. They are relatively common, and may or may not be persistent' [Joint Commissioning Strategy for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Kent, Draft Report, 15th January 2007, p6].
Mental health disorder is the term subscribed to those persons who are suffering from persistent mental health problems which affect their functioning on a day-to-day basis. Whilst most young people will at some stage in their development suffer from mental health problems, it is not normal to expect such persons to suffer from mental health disorders. As noted by the Kent and Medway Multi Agency CAMHS Strategy Group, mental health disorder, as a term, ‘[implies] a marked deviation from normality, a clinically recognised set of symptoms or behaviour associated in most cases with considerable distress and substantial interference with personal functions or development' [Joint Commissioning Strategy for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Kent, Draft Report, 15th January 2007, p6].
Finally, mental illness, the most serious of the three forms of mental ill-health, can be recognized in those young persons suffering from severe clinical psychosis or neurosis, e.g. those suffering from schizophrenia.
These definitions provide a clear and useful taxonomy from which we can begin to analyse the statistics on the prevalence of mental ill-health in young offenders in the UK. However, before we commence this analysis, it is first important to briefly examine the perceived historical relationship between mental ill-health and crime; after all, it has often been the case in the past that societies across the world have attributed certain (if not all) aspects of criminality to symptoms of mental ill-health, in particular mental disorder and mental illness. For example, The USSR during the Cold War often incarcerated political ‘criminals' on the basis that they must be mentally insane for holding such opinions and beliefs.
Whilst the above example would shock most people of today, this phenomenon is not that far removed from how the UK government has traditionally treated the mentally ill: ‘In the UK, mental health care was for decades provided only in large ‘asylums' - keeping ‘mentally ill' people out of society believing this to be for their own good and that of their communities. Beginning in the 1950s and accelerating at the end of the 1980s, government policy switched to providing more services in the community and in most cases limiting hospital treatment to when it is needed most acutely' [All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prison Health, House of Commons, November 2006, p2].

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