ABSTRACT
Agencies which have responsibilities to provide services in the community are largely relieved of those responsibilities when a person who is mentally disordered is remanded or sentenced to prison. The prison is outside the usual working arrangements which enable agencies in the community to co-operate to provide community care. The prison may be outside the town or city it serves, standing in forbidding isolation amidst ploughed fields. The isolation of the prison has been exacerbated in the past by the self-sufficiency of the prison service, which makes its own towels and grows its own vegetables. Although health commissioning by prisons is not yet widespread it provides an opportunity for the prisons to become stakeholders in the purchasing of local services and increases the chances of a better service for mentally disordered offenders in prisons. Most prisoners comply reasonably well with prison regulations. If all prisoners presented challenging behaviour the prison system would not be able to function.
