Colloquium: Women Behind Bars: Mental Disorder in WA Female Prisoners

Dr Sophie Davison is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Clinical Research Centre, North Metropolitan Area Mental Health Service in Perth WA and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences at The University of Western Australia. Her research interests are the mental health of prisoners. She completed her basic training and advanced forensic psychiatric training at The Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College in London, UK. She has worked in a number of settings including Broadmoor High Secure Hospital, the community and in men and women’s prisons. She has published on the topic of women’s mental health, drug addicts in police custody, offenders with personality disorder, prisoner mental health and the mental health of detainees under anti-terror legislation. She was previously Co-Director of the Mental Health Teaching Unit at the King’s College London. She is currently chair of the RANZCP Forensic Faculty WA Branch committee

Prisoner populations have poor physical and mental health. This has wide public health implications. Women offenders have particular needs which are often over looked in the research literature and in clinical practice because of their relatively small number in relation to men who offend. I will report on our research which aimed to determine the nature and extent of mental health and substance misuse problems in WA reception prisoners as well as detailing their health, clinical, social and functional needs. We have just completed data collection on the women and I will report on the preliminary data from this part of the study.