Female offenders

Bartlett, Annie

doi:10.1383/wohm.2006.3.2.91

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Volume 3, Issue 2 , Pages 91-95, March 2006

Female offenders

Annie Bartlett MB BChir MA MRCPsych PhD is Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychiatry at St George’s, University of London, London, UK. She is Consultant for the Women’s Service and Clinical Lead of South West London and St George’s Forensic Mental Health Services. She is a health service researcher with specific research interests in qualitative method and women’s health issues in mental health.

Abstract

This paper specifies the scale and nature of the challenge for women’s forensic services. It reviews recent information on patterns of female offending and mental ill health in relevant populations. It discusses both the origins of current secure services for women and the recent proposals of alterations to them. This is in light both of a better clinical understanding of mentally disordered female offenders and changing perceptions of their security needs. Mentally disordered female offenders are now more widely recognised to have been vulnerable to abuse in childhood. Within the last twenty years, there has been a developing view that women are rarely in need of high secure hospital services, but there continues to be a lack of consensus about how and where their needs would best be met.

Keywords: mental health , secure services for women , forensic women patients , women mentally disordered offenders

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