The Charge of the Bright Brigade

It is a pleasure to see that (General) Lord Ramsbotham continues to grace our legislature and pepper Ministers with perceptive prison-related questions.

A man with a keen eye for the inept or unjust, Rambo is of late inquiring about the number of counsellors and therapists available to deal with prisoner's mental health.

Ha!  For an institution which is so keenly equipped to disassemble, dissect and judge us using the tools in the modern psychological armoury, the prison service has systematically neglected our mental health.  Whilst claiming that fully 3/4 of us suffer from a mental disease, the system cheerfully avoids dealing with those problems.

Of course, mental health provision in the wider community is notoriously variable and drug-centred and the expect better in prisons is but a crazy dream.

And yet, I am grateful that there are those such as Rambo who give a voice to such important concerns.  Only persistence in the face of indifference has any hope for change.