Criminological and Psychiatric Survey of Women Serving a Prison Sentence

The re-building of Holloway prison in the 1970s was based on the assumption that women in prison have high rates of psychiatric disorder. Criticism of Holloway was often directed at the unwarranted medicalization of women's criminality and contemporary evidence provided only limited support for the notion that women in prison had higher levels of psychiatric disorder than men. Interpretation of research findings was difficult because none of the studies applied the same methods to comparable groups of women and men in prison. This paper describes a case-note and interview study of a representative, cross-sectional sample comprising 25 per cent of all women serving a prison sentence in England and Wales. A 5 per cent sample of the male sentenced prison population was used for comparison purposes. An assessment was made of the treatment needs, if any, of all women given a diagnosis. The prevalence of psychosis was approximately 2 per cent in both groups. Women had a higher prevalence of mental handicapjlearning difficulties (6 per cent compared to 2 per cent in men), personality disorder (18 per cent v 10 per cent), neurotic disorders (18 per cent v 10 per cent), and substance abuse (26 per cent v 12 per cent). Despite higher percentage rates for some disorders, women are outnumbered by men in all diagnostic categories