Mentally disordered offenders subject to conditional discharge: Their views of risk assessment and management procedures

Background

Mentally disordered offenders are a group of people whom policy makers have viewed as posing a high level of risk to others.  There has been a growing body of sociological work focussing on the way in which risk has become a defining concept within late-modern society.  Whilst research has investigated the way in which health and social care professionals view risk management processes, research into service user views has been less common.  

Aim

This paper will present research exploring the level of awareness that mentally disordered offenders have about the risk assessment and management procedures that they are subject to. 

Research method

All participants interviewed had been detained under s. 37/41 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (England and Wales) and had committed serious offences such as manslaughter or arson.  Service users discharged from this order are normally given a conditional discharge in which they are monitored by mental health staff.  The research was primarily qualitative and was based on nineteen semi-structured interviews.  Participants were asked to consider how they came to be on the order, their own interpretation of their risk and their awareness of risk assessment and management procedures. 

Findings

Although participants generally recognised that risk assessments about them existed, their awareness of the content was low.  The majority stated that they had not seen their assessment.  A number of participants were unclear about what a risk assessment was and confused it with other procedures.  A minority felt that they had been involved in the construction of their risk assessment.  When asked to rate their own risk, participants identified a greater number of risks than staff in professional risk assessments overall.  However, participants rated their level of risk to others as lower than staff.