Recommendation 71

We heard that “many offenders experience mental health and substance misuse problems”. 113 His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) estimated that, in 2021, “about 75,000 people being supervised in the community by Probation had a drugs problem linked to their offending”. 114 In “about 38%” of the cases inspected by HMIP (which cuts across the entire probation population), “someone has a mental health issue”. 115 Given that the Probation Service was supervising around 240,000 people in December 2022, this would mean that around 91,000 people on probation suffer from mental health issues. 116 Writing about a different cohort, Revolving Doors pointed out that “one in three people in prison have issues with problematic substance use, 38% of people in prison believe that their drinking is ‘a big problem’ and more than half (52%) of people in prison report having mental health problems”. 117 The Probation Board of Northern Ireland (PBNI) told us that: “The complexity of people PBNI is supervising on community orders is increasing with more people presenting with poor mental health, addictions and trauma.” 118