From the Inside: executive summary from the Sainsbury Centre from Mental Health is based on interviews with 98 prisoners in five West Midlands prisons. It finds that the ‘average’ prisoner has a combination of mental health, substance use and other problems. Mental ill health is not the exception but the rule. Women prisoners suffer especially high levels of distress when they are separated from their children.

It sets out what prisoners themselves say they need to improve their mental health: ’someone to talk to’, ’something to do’ during the day and practical help to plan for what they will do after they are released.