Matthew Offord (Hendon, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his most recent estimate is of the incidence of mental health illnesses in the prison population in England and Wales.

Paul Burstow (Minister of State (Care Services), Health; Sutton and Cheam, Liberal Democrat)

Based on the 1997 Office for National Statistics psychiatric morbidity survey and Ministry of Justice research published in 2008, our estimate is that around 90% of sentenced prisoners have some form of mental health problem. The 1997 survey showed that 7% of sentenced male prisoners and 14% of female prisoners had functional psychosis.

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