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	NI Prison Ombudsman says time spent in isolation &lsquo;very bad for the mind&rsquo;</p>
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	Solitary confinement can impact on the mental health of prison inmates, especially those already affected by psychiatric difficulties, a prison watchdog has warned.</p>
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	Reacting to figures showing prisoners are being held for months and even years in care and supervision units (CSU), Northern Ireland Prisoner Ombudsman Tom McGonigle said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not good for anybody&rsquo;s mental health to spend so much time in isolation away from the general population.</p>
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	&ldquo;Prison restricts the opportunities to interact with normal society in any event, so the CSU is essentially a prison within a prison.&rdquo;</p>
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	Such inmates are separated from the rest of the prison population. &ldquo;They can&rsquo;t go to work, they can&rsquo;t go to education, they can&rsquo;t do offending programmes while they&rsquo;re in the CSU.</p>
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	&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a further restriction of a person&rsquo;s opportunity to interact and to learn how to conduct themselves in a responsible and a reasonable way within the prison population so it&rsquo;s very bad for the mind.&rdquo;</p>
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	Prisoners&rsquo; psychiatric conditions and personality disorders have been a common thread in critical reports into the North&rsquo;s three prison sites in recent years.</p>
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	Personality disorder</p>
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	Individuals cannot be detained and treated against their will in a psychiatric hospital if their only condition is a personality disorder. The recently enacted Mental Capacity Act (NI) 2016 allows for the compulsory treatment and/or detention of people with personality disorder, although a date for its commencement has not been agreed by Stormont.</p>
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	Mr McGonigle said he believed the current system was having an impact on vulnerable inmates entering the prison system who can often end up in solitary confinement. &ldquo;It really is a societal issue whereby we need to decide how we treat those very damaged people who commit offences.&rdquo;</p>
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	For example, many of those prisoners who end up in the CSU can have personality disorders, but in Northern Ireland a personality disorder is not defined as a treatable condition.</p>
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	Difficulties</p>
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	&ldquo;That causes serious difficulties because a lot of people who might previously have ended up in psychiatric institutions are now ending up in CSU in a prison. Yes, they are a small part of the prison population, but they generate a disproportionate amount of concerns.&rdquo;</p>
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	Prison healthcare in Maghaberry prison and at the Hydebank and Magilligan prison sites is the responsibility of the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.</p>
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	In a statement the trust said: &ldquo;All individuals located within the care and supervision unit are seen daily by healthcare professionals in relation to both their physical and mental healthcare needs.</p>
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	&ldquo;Trust mental health professionals initiate referral processes to secure psychiatric facilities where this is clinically appropriate and in line with regional referral criteria.&rdquo;</p>
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	(Published by the Irish Times on the 5th September 2016)</p>
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	<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/solitary-confinement-can-impact-on-prisoners-mental-health-1.2778962">http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/solitary-confinement-can-impact-on-prisoners-mental-health-1.2778962</a></p>
