The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has called upon West Midlands Police to stop sending seriously mentally ill people to jail when, instead, they should be accessing urgent psychiatric assessment and treatment.
His warning follows concerns raised by his inspectors at HMP Birmingham, where men with acute and untreated mental illness, including psychosis, were arriving from court without having received a mental health assessment in police or court custody. Mr Taylor said the same police force was sending mentally ill women straight to HMP Foston Hall, also without prior assessment.
This practice, he says, is not typical elsewhere in England and Wales, but has become an established pattern in the West Midlands. As a result, Inspectors found cases of men exhibiting extreme behaviour, including walking naked around wings and smearing faeces about, causing distress to other prisoners and staff. Limited space on healthcare wings meant that some of the most seriously unwell men had to be managed on ordinary prison wings while awaiting specialist care.
In a letter to the Home Secretary, the Justice Secretary, and the Health Secretary, Mr Taylor said he had raised the matter with the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands back in October 2025 and was assured in April this year that the practices had changed, but at a return visit to HMP Birmingham his team found no evidence of that.
Commenting on Mr Taylor’s intervention, Andrea Coomber, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, commented:
“These distressing findings underline the unacceptable burdens being placed on the prison system. Given the Prime Minister has committed to fix the prison crisis and he must ensure that the Department of Health, Home Office, and Ministry of Justice work together to stop seriously mentally ill people being sent to prison.”
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