Backing mental health enquiry

Backing for enquiry into mental health problems and suicide in prisons

The campaigning group Black Mental Health UK has condemned the rapid rise in the number of suicides in prison over the past 12 months, and is seeking the backing of community and faith groups in its call for urgent government action.

The latest official statistics indicate that black prisoners are currently passing through the prison system at a rate five times higher than that of white prisoners, says BMH, which is calling for a government enquiry. "Clearly there are concerns about this and we need to have an ethnic breakdown of exactly who has died in prison in the last 12 months in order to establish current trends," Lord Herman Ouseley, former head of the Commission For Racial Equality (now part of the Commission on Equality and Human Rights) said.

He continued: "One suicide is one to many and we have seen figures on the over representation of ethnic minorities within prison settings but have not been given any answers as to why this is not being addressed."

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Churches rise up

Black Churches make Mental Health a Civil Rights Issue
17th August 2006

Black-majority churches have a crucial role in tackling injustice says Matilda MacAttram. The central role Black churches have played in the civil rights movement both here and in the United State has many believe been critical in combating many of the abuses of ethnic minorities rights. Nowhere are the human and civil right of Black people more flagrantly abused than within psychiatric services.

Community leaders representing thousands of Black Majority Churches (BMCs) across the UK have thrown their support behind a campaign for justice for people in the community subject to mental health laws. Through a new webstie Black Mental Health UK, which will be launched next week the community will be able to lobby MPs over current changes to mental health law.

The African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance, The Council of Black Led Churches and Christians together in Brent are among the supporters calling to make the treatment of African Caribbean’s in psychiatric care central to any changes in the 1983 Mental Health Act.

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