ABSTRACT
Mentally disordered offenders in Scotland form a tiny proportion of the populations passing through the criminal justice and mental health systems. There is no agreed definition of the term ‘mentally disordered offender’. In practice it is a term applied to those people who have, or appear to have, a psychiatric disorder and who come to the attention of an agency of the criminal justice system. Scotland has no national policy for services for mentally disordered offenders. In England a comprehensive government review of health and social services for mentally disordered offenders, known as the Reed report, made a careful analysis and produced 276 recommendations. The role of the police in relation to mentally ill people in the community was thrown into focus by the tragic events surrounding the killing of a police constable in Glasgow in 1994. The identification by the police of suspected or actual mental disorder in an arrested person is surprisingly reliable.
