REMANDS AND PSYCHIATRIC ASSESSMENTS IN HOLLOWAY PRISON .2. THE NONPSYCHOTIC POPULATION

Non-psychotic remand prisoners who were referred by Holloway's doctors to outside psychiatrists, or who were the subject of court reports, o r who were diagnosed as mentally handicapped, were followed up to the time of sentence. Most of the referred women were minor offenders with diagnoses of mental handicap or personality disorder. They were usual ly refused beds on treatability criteria and then released with non-cu stodial sentences. Some were highly disturbed, and it seemed that the police who charged them, the courts who remanded them and the prison p sychiatrists who referred them, all found it hard to accept that psych iatry had so little to offer these people. Local health and social ser vices need to address the problems raised by this small group of women . Arsonists more often obtained beds than minor offenders, and were li kely to be imprisoned when hospital places were not forthcoming.