Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

Due to our expertise and experience since 1996, Kids Company is beginning to
recognise prevalent patterns and trends throughout our client group: extreme destitution,
homelessness, and undiagnosed mental health conditions, and other such safeguarding
issues that negatively impact upon children. Whilst these kinds of issues have traditional
been viewed as primarily the concerns of the individual they impact upon, it would be a
fallacy to not understand that they have wider social implications and create new
problems for society as we fail to address them 1 .
From our experience it is often the case that due to a wide range of factors, our varied
client group have at some stage experienced the criminal youth justice system. The
other major concern at the moment is the numbers of young people presenting with
significant mental health problems, often co-morbid disorders or dual diagnoses 2 .
Presently national statistics show that there is a growth in mental health figures 3 . These
are of course two separate issues from an operations perspective and we have tailored
programmes to assist our clients back to lead fulfilling and constructive lives in either
eventuality.
1 “Adolescents who commit serious offences have been shown to often experience a broad range
of psychosocial problems as well as reduced educational, occupational and social opportunities
(Martin, G & Stathis, S, 2004), Fenton, S-J, 2007, “A comparative study of adolescent mental
health policy in Australia and the UK to examine whether or not there is a demonstrable need for
a specific adolescent mental health policy”, Unpublished, Oxon, pg 14.
2 “The Epidemiological Catchment Area Study (Reiger et al., 1998 in Roers, A & Pilgrim, D.,
2003) showed that the median age for the onset of mental illness was sixteen years old and
previously in Part II discuses the average onset of first stage psychosis as being at 22 years old”,
), Fenton, S-J, 2007, “A comparative study of adolescent mental health policy in Australia and the
UK to examine whether or not there is a demonstrable need for a specific adolescent mental
health policy”, Unpublished, Oxon, pg 14.
3 2009 - 2010 findings state that 1.25 million people used NHS specialist mental health services
of which 107,000 spent time in hospital which included 42,000 sectioned patients – 3,000 of
which came via the criminal justice system, The Times, 12 th January 2011, pg 7.
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