Development of a specialised forensic service for women with learning disability: the first three years

Abstract

In recent years there has been growing interest in the fate of those women with mental disorder who come into contact with the criminal justice system. This interest has stemmed from growing recognition that traditional forensic services could not offer the appropriate care required by this group in a conventional mixed‐gender environment. Women‐only services have begun to be developed in generic psychiatric settings, spurred on by the national service framework (NSF) which set a time limit for the development of segregated in‐patient facilities. Forensic services for those with learning disability have been slower to take up the challenge of how best to place women with learning disability who offend and require an in‐patient secure environment. This article describes how one such service attempted to rise to this challenge and build a service for this often neglected group