Black communities, mental health and the criminal justice system

Browne, Deryck

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-92322-9_23

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Some of these can be explained by local conditions -for example Sussex police covers Beachy Head. This study also confirmed Browne's (2009)finding that black people were almost twice as likely as other groups to be subject to section 136 .…”

Section: Policing and Mental Healthsupporting

confidence: 85%

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Cummins¹

2020

Policing and Mental Health

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This chapter will examine the current debates in England and Wales about the role of the police in responding to citizens experiencing some form of mental health crisis.The chapter will situate these debates in their historical context. It will also place them in the broader social policy context of austerity which has seen reductions in social welfare provision including significant reductions in police numbers (Cummins, 2018). The chapter considers some of the practice developments such as street triage that have arisen in response to the issues raised by police involvement in the mental health field. It then considers the broader notion of vulnerability arguing that Fineman (2004Fineman ( , 2008 provides a radical reshaping of this concept and one that can form the basis of a social state based on core values of mutuality and reciprocity. The chapter concludes that even the most well resourced mental health services will not be able to ensure that there are never any circumstances, in which, police officers are called to respond to individuals in mental health crisis. The aim should be limit the occurrence of these incidents and ensure that inter-disciplinary working means mental health professionals become involved at the earliest opportunity. This will involve significant investment in mental health services alongside other social welfare services. On a policy level, this means a rejection of austerity and the retrenchment of the welfare state. It will also require a radical reshaping of our notions of citizenship. AusterityPolicing cannot be considered in isolation from the broader economic, political and cultural context of the society, in which, it takes place. Since 2008, in the UK, Governments have followed a series of economy policies that have been shaped by the impact of the banking crisis of that year. It is now overlooked that in the aftermath of the bank bailout the Brown administration followed standard Keynesian economic approaches to stimulate demand (Cummins, 2018). These

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Section: Policing and Mental Healthsupporting

confidence: 85%

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Cummins¹

2020

Policing and Mental Health

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“…Verbal racial abuse can also be described as interpersonal racism, which has been argued to be inter-related to structural racism in that these everyday social encounters represent the discrimination of Black, Asian, and ethnic minorities that permeate society (Younis, 2021). The over-representation of individuals of Black ethnicities is prevalent in mental healthcare (Browne, 2009;Care Quality Commission, 2011). Furthermore, individuals from Black and minority ethnic communities are disproportionally detained under the Mental Health Act (Singh et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inpatient Institutional Care: The Forced Social Environment

et al. 2021

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The landscape of mental health recovery is changing; there have been calls for a shift from the clinical expertise being the dominant voice within mental healthcare towards a more personalised and collaborative service that supports those in need of mental healthcare to define what recovery is for the individual. Within this new recovery movement, there has been a recognition of the importance of the social environment in which individuals are situated and the relationship of this to mental health and wellbeing. Included in this is the importance of an individual’s role within society and the ways in which knowledge, such as experts by experience, can hold an important value. The argument then, is that social connectedness forms part of the recovery journey and that relationships can help us develop or re-connect with who we are in powerful ways. Such a view has only been strengthened by the recent and ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Within the UK, discussions of the importance of our wellbeing have become commonplace within the context of restricted social contact. With this heightened awareness of how the social contributes to wellbeing, it is important to consider the environments in which those in receipt of mental healthcare are situated. One of which is institutionalised care, where it is commonplace to restrict social contact. For example, by virtue of being within a locked environment, individuals’ freedom of movement is often non-existent and thus contacts with those not residing or working within the institution is restricted. While such restrictions may be deemed necessary to protect the individual’s mental health, such environments can be unintentionally toxic. Data are presented from an ethnography that was conducted within an inpatient forensic mental health hospital in the UK to highlight the problematic social environment which some individuals experience. Key interpersonal issues are presented, such as, trust, racism, the threat of physical violence and bullying that was experienced by staff and residents at the hospital. Consideration is given to the coping strategies enacted by residents and the pathologising of such behaviour. The consequences on interpersonal wellbeing are explored.

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“…In particular, I am exploring how the inquiries approached these questions and the possible impact on the nature of the care and treatment provided to Orville Blackwood and Christopher Clunis. There is an enormous body of literature, which explores the issue of race and psychiatry generally and the experiences of young black men in particular (Browne, 2009;Cope, 1989;Fernando, 1988;Fernando et al, 1998;Ndegwa and Olajide, 2006;Prospero and Kim, 2009;Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2006). Both the inquiries considered the possible impact of racism in these two cases.…”

Section: Christopher Clunismentioning

confidence: 99%

Discussing race, racism and mental health: two mental health inquiries reconsidered

Cummins

2015

International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare

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The failings of "community care" in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a number of Inquiries. This paper will examine one of these key issues that is rarely if ever at the forefront of the inquiry process-the experiences of young black men of African-Caribbean origin within mental health services and the Criminal Justice System (CJS). It sets out to do this by exploring the way, in which, two inquiries both from the early 1990s approached the issues of race, racism and psychiatry. The two Inquiries are the Ritchie Inquiry (1994) into the Care and Treatment of Christopher Clunis and Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the death of Orville Blackwood and a Review of the Deaths of Two Other African-Caribbean Patients (Prins, 1994). The Ritchie Inquiry was established following the murder of Jonathan Zito by Christopher Clunis. The Prins Inquiry examined the circumstances of the death of Orville Blackwood at Broadmoor Special Hospital. These two Inquiries are used as contrasting case studies as a means of examining the approaches to the questions of race and racism. However, the attitudes and approaches that the Inquiries took to the issue of race are startling different. The Prins Inquiry takes a very clear position that racism was a feature of service provision whilst the Ritchie Inquiry is much more equivocal. These issues remain relevant for current practice across mental health and CJS systems where young black men are still over-represented. The deaths of black men in mental health and CJS systems continue to scar these institutions and family continue to struggle for answers and justice.

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Black communities, mental health and the criminal justice system

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Inpatient Institutional Care: The Forced Social Environment

Discussing race, racism and mental health: two mental health inquiries reconsidered

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