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Discussing race, racism and mental health: two mental health inquiries reconsidered
- Author:
- CUMMINS Ian
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, 8(3), 2015, pp.160-172.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
Purpose: The failings of “community care” in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a number of inquiries. The purpose of this paper is to examine one of these key issues that is rarely if ever at the forefront of the inquiry process – the experiences of young black men of African-Caribbean origin within mental health services and the Criminal Justice System (CJS). Design/methodology/approach: It sets out to do this by exploring the way in which two inquiries, both from the early 1990s, approached the issues of race, racism and psychiatry. The two inquiries are the Ritchie Inquiry (1994) into the Care and Treatment of Christopher Clunis and Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the death of Orville Blackwood and a Review of the Deaths of Two Other African-Caribbean Patients (Prins, 1994). The Ritchie Inquiry was established following the murder of Jonathan Zito by Christopher Clunis. The Prins Inquiry examined the circumstances of the death of Orville Blackwood at Broadmoor Special Hospital. Findings: These two inquiries are used as contrasting case studies as a means of examining the approaches to the questions of race and racism. However, the attitudes and approaches that the inquiries took to the issue of race are startlingly different. The Prins Inquiry takes a very clear position that racism was a feature of service provision whilst the Ritchie Inquiry is much more equivocal. Originality/value: These issues remain relevant for current practice across mental health and CJS systems where young black men are still over-represented. The deaths of black men in mental health and CJS systems continue to scar these institutions and family continue to struggle for answers and justice. (Publisher abstract)
Distant voices, still lives: reflections on the impact of media reporting of the cases of Christopher Clunis and Ben Silcock
- Author:
- CUMMINS Ian
- Journal article citation:
- Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, 3(4), December 2010, pp.18-29.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
This article explores the way that the media reporting of two high profile cases involving mental health policy has helped to support and sustain the stereotypical view that people with mental health problems are violent. It also explores the issue of race and psychiatry via the reporting of the Inquiry into the Care and Treatment of Christopher Clunis. In addition, with the use of government papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the author considers how the response to and the attempts to influence the media debate at that time helped to shape mental health policy culminating in the reform of the Mental health Act 2007 and the introduction of community treatment orders (CTOs). In the case of Ben Silcock, first reported in 1993, emphasis was on the way that mental health services had failed him and his family. In Contrast, in the case of Christopher Clunis, a 19 year old black male, which was first reported in December 1992, focus was on the failure of mental health services to protect the wider community. It is argued that the reporting of this case reflected racial and class divisions with the voice of a black working class family being effectively marginalised. The author concludes that media reporting of high profile cases has a profound influence on the development of mental health policy and that the failings in community care had a profound influence in the introduction of more coercive mental health legislation. Mental health professionals need to challenge racial stereotyping more effectively.