One in four prisoners in the UK is thought to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to a new report. The figure, which surprised experts, is five to 10 times higher than its prevalence of 2% to 4% in the general population.
Patient groups and doctors are now calling for offenders to be tested for ADHD when they arrive at the prison. Routine screening of each new inmate can reduce violent incidents behind bars and help sufferers avoid further crime by helping them deal with the disorder, they said.
The outstanding figure is highlighted in a new report prepared by the ADHD Foundation, a group of experts on the disorder and the pharmaceutical company Takeda, which analyzes the evidence for ADHD and the criminal justice system.
The report warns that the failure to spot ADHD prisoners when they arrive to begin their sentences contributes to prison management difficulties, as those with it are up to eight times more likely to be involved in incidents involving aggression in result of their condition.
“Someone with ADHD can be very impulsive and unable to sit still, and many of them become quite capricious and hyperactive, so closing them in a small, closed space makes them more and more stiff. They have a low tolerance for frustration, so they kick and kick doors or hit the wall, or injure themselves or damage property, such as breaking their cell, “said Dr. Joe Johnson, a counseling psychiatrist with the Mersey Care NHS Trust, who works as a visiting psychiatrist running mental health clinics at Risley Men’s Prison in Warrington for six years.
“Although ADHD is very common among the prison population, it is not subject to screening,” he said. Automatic screening on arrival would provide “distant” benefits, he added.
“Screening can significantly improve results because ADHD is a very treatable disorder. This could reduce the risk of re-offending, reduce substance abuse rates, as some people could self-medicate with illicit drugs, improve their mental health and [make them] more likely to be involved in education and employment, “Johnson added.
Prison authorities could easily identify people with ADHD by including that newly arrived prisoners who have already passed for mental health problems in the screening process, he said.
The report also found that treating ADHD with psychological management techniques or medication showed that it reduced criminal behavior in men by 32% and women by 41%. However, about 80% of prisoners have not been diagnosed with it, it added.
“People with ADHD don’t have a criminal gene. They are not more likely to become criminals, “said Dr. Tony Lloyd, CEO of the ADHD Foundation. The unusually high proportion of people with the disease who have been in prison is due to their inability to be diagnosed when they were children, he said, due to the long waiting time for mental health services for children and adolescents in the NHS, poor governance to students from schools with them and the fact that some sufferers then struggle to keep their jobs and some end up taking drugs, especially cannabis, which can lead them to commit crimes.
However, Johnson added that in his experience, some convicts who were already on ADHD medication when they arrived then found themselves unable to continue taking it because prison authorities said the drugs were not on the list of therapies. who have issued.
An unnamed 14-year-old boy convicted in Liverpool court last month of stabbing 12-year-old Ava White to death in the city last November had ADHD.
A study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry in 2018 found that the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in prisoners could be a “critical intervention” that is “likely to have a positive impact on the offender and society.” However, “in the criminal justice system, ADHD remains both incorrectly and insufficiently diagnosed and therefore inadequately treated.”
Academics listed a series of “barriers” in prisons to the identification and treatment of ADHD. These include too little awareness among staff and prisoners of their symptoms and treatment, a lack of “use of appropriate screening and diagnostic tools” and a shortage of mental health staff.
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare declined to comment. But a Whitehall source said the Justice Department was testing and considering the use of several different screening tools that would show the prisoner has neurodivergent traits, including those related to ADHD, and that would help staff help such prisoners. The source insisted that all adults and people under the age of 18 who are detained are already being screened for ADHD in the first week of their stay as part of an assessment of whether they have mental health, learning disabilities or neurodivergent needs.
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