A cross-sectional survey of foreign national and indigenous mentally disordered offenders admitted to South London and the Maudsley (SLAM) forensic services in the last 5 years to identify variables that may differentially affect the length of stay of foreign national offenders, compared to the indigenous population.

This project is part of a student MSc dissertation. It uses data from a cross-section of mentally ill offenders in secure hospitals within South London and the Maudsley (SLAM) in the last 2 – 5 years to compare the length of stay of the foreign national offenders compared with the indigenous population. The latter includes the Black Minority and Ethnic (BME) group and the non-BME groups. The project will be exploring whether there are differences in mental health act status, diagnoses, co-morbid substance abuse and Index Offence/offending patterns between these groups and what association exists between these variables and their length of stay in a secure forensic hospital. The main hypothesis for this project is that any differences in terms of Length of stay within forensic services between these groups is likely to be accounted for by delayed discharge protocols for the foreign national group due to complicated immigration procedures or perceived lack of access to section 117 aftercare provisions and not as a result of clinical or demographic variables.