Police look to arrest mental health problems

Published on Saturday 12 September 2009 11:26

CELLS at St Leonard's police station are set to have the phone number for a mental health line painted inside them in a bid to help prisoners at risk from suicide.

The force has joined up with mental health charity Breathing Space to provide support for vulnerable prisoners in the first move of its kind in Scotland.

The Breathing Space number and website address will be painted inside cells and, upon leaving, vulnerable individuals will be given cards so they can contact the service's advisers.

Police chiefs said that 22,000 prisoners a year pass through St Leonards, and many share the same characteristics of those most at risk of suicide – males aged 18 to 44 with drug or other problems.

The scheme will be piloted at St Leonards, but police plan to roll it out in other custody suites in Livingston, Dalkeith, and Hawick.

Chief Inspector Tony Beveridge, the force's custody manager, said: "There is an opportunity to intervene in a positive sense. A large proportion of the prisoners we see here are young men who have physical or mental health problems."