Ms Molly Joyce:

My colleagues could give the exact legal definition but I think of it as almost meaning criminal. It means someone who has got caught up in the criminal justice system and is now in the mental health sphere. A distinction is made between mental health services for someone who has not apparently committed a crime and people who because of their mental health or what is thought to be due to their mental health have a committed a crime and who we place within a separate group within the forensic mental health facility. We talk about forensic mental health facilities but the only one is the CMH. It is the only designated centre under the legislation but it is also an approved centre similar to other centres throughout the country. My understanding is that the CMH has that higher degree of security and control.

As we said in the foreword to our report, it is not surprising that this report is quite challenging and complex because it is sitting at the direct intersection of two very complex systems - the penal system and the mental health system, which is essentially why we wanted to do this report. We get asked a lot about mental health and, to date, we have focused in our advocacy and commentary around the waiting list for people awaiting transfer from prison to the CMH but we had not really engaged deeply on what actually happens in the next stage even though that is part of the prisoner's journey. If we are concerned with people in prison, we should probably be concerned with the forensic journey as well.