Neurotic disorders

Summary ...............................................................................................................................................................
m
Summary - continued
• Very few of the young offenders had been in prison for two or more years during their current
prison term (less than 2%) and the majority had been in prison for less than a year.
• Over half the young offenders were being held for acquisitive offences - burglary, robbery and
theft - while about 1 in 5 were being held for a violent offence. Among the women drug offences
were also common: about 1 in 5 of the sample were being held for these offences.
• The most marked differences between male and female young offenders was in the receipt of
mental health treatment. For example, in the 12 months before entering prison, 11% of sentenced
and 13% of remanded male young offenders had received help or treatment for a mental or
emotional problem compared with 27%of female young offenders.
• Nearly 1 in I0 of the female sentenced young offenders reported having been admitted to a mental
hospital.
Personality disorder (chapter 3)
• Personality disorder was assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-II)
during second stage clinical interviews of a 1 in 5 sUb-sample of the young offenders selected for
interview. In addition, the Self-completion SCID-II screening instrument, completed during the
first stage interviews, was used to identify those with probable personality disorder in the sample
as a whole.
• Among those who had a clinical interview, the prevalence of any personality disorder was 84% for
male remand and 88% for male sentenced young offenders.
• Antisocial personality disorder had the highest prevalence of any category of personality disorder.
Among the sub-sample who had a clinical interview, 76O/ of male remand and 81% of male
sentenced young offenders •were assessed as having antisocial personality disorder.
• Paranoid personality disorder Was the second most prevalentpersonality disorder, being found in
26% of male remand young offenders and 22% of their sentenced counterparts.
- . • -"
Psychotic and severe affective disorders (chapter:4)
• The prevalence of functional psychosis was assessed using the Schedules for the Clinical
Assessment of Psychopathology (SCAN) among the same I in 5 sub-sample who were clinically
assessed for personality disorder.
• The prevalence rates for any functional psychosis in thepas t year based on the clinical interview
data were 10% for male sentenced and 8% for male rema_dyoung offenders.
• Using the dat a collected in the first _tage lay interviews, thepropo/fi6n 0f the female sentenced
sample identified as probablyhavinga psych0tic dis0rderwaS 9% c0mpared with 6% for male
remand and4% for male Sentenced young offenders.
Neurotic disorders (chapter 5)
- ..:
• Neurotic disorders in the week prior to interview were assessed in the lay interviews using the
revised version of the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R). An additional series of questions
covered post-traumatic stress.
2 Psychiatric Morbidity among Young Offenders in England and Wales -- 7 6 9 6 -