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Back the Mental Health Discrimination Bill
Posted Wednesday 5 September 2012
In 2009, I received a summons for jury service. The summons came with an information leaflet explaining how to go about deferring jury duty for work or personal reasons, if needed. It also listed categories of persons who were ineligible to serve.
One category in particular caught my eye:
People with mental illness who 'regularly attend for treatment by a medical practitioner.'
Hmm, I thought; at a stretch, this could mean me - although I barely thought of myself as having a mental health problem. I had a diagnosis, sure, but it had been several years since I had seen a psychiatrist. Because I was so stable on a single, very effective, medication, I didn't even see my GP. I simply picked up a repeat prescription every three months. I felt perfectly well and did not believe there was anything about my mental health which would affect my ability to be an effective juror.
And I had plenty of evidence to back me up.
I had recently completed a two year full time training course to become a qualified Probation Officer (PO). In the process I had acquired a BSc (Hons) in Criminal Justice (first class and top of my year, as it happened) and an NVQ Level 4 in Community Justice. I had also supervised offenders in the community, completed placements in a Magistrates' Court and the Crown Court, and visited clients in Young Offenders Institutions and adult prisons before I was allowed to qualify.
The work of a Probation Officer is varied, but at its heart is the completion of detailed assessments on clients. In 2009, my job required me to complete two Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) a week. To write a PSR, a Probation Officer pulls together all that is known about an offender to help the Court decide what the offenders' sentence should be. Some of the sources a PO uses are lengthy and even dull (such as pages and pages of transcribed police interviews); some can be distressing to read (for example, victim and witness reports in their own words); others, like forensic lab reports and psychiatric reports, are technical and full of jargon.
All the material is sensitive and highly confidential. The PO interviews the client, makes a professional judgement about how truthful they are being and how much responsibility they accept for their crime(s), and combine this with the information in the file. The report concludes with a recommendation for a Judge or Magistrates as to an appropriate sentence. The majority of reports I wrote at the time were on offences so serious they had to be heard at the Crown Court.
So I emailed Her Majesty's Court Service. I explained that I did not "attend treatment" other than to collect prescriptions, and that I was perfectly well. I explained that I was a professionally qualified Probation Officer, used to the Court setting and to dealing with sensitive, complex and potentially distressing material on a daily basis.
I received a return email confirming my ineligibility.
So, someone with no interest in criminal justice, who might find a case boring or even incomprehensible, can be a juror. Someone could have a physical health problem that could flare up during a long trial, but there is no bar on them serving. Someone with a poorly-controlled mental health issue who refuses treatment could also serve as a juror, since treatment, not diagnosis, renders someone ineligible. But someone who takes responsibility for ensuring their condition is as well controlled as possible, by taking their meds or seeing their doctor regularly, is barred from being part of a jury service, a key tenet of what it means to be a citizen of this country.
If that's not stigma and discrimination in action, I don't know what is.
Charlotte
You can also follow Charlotte on Twitter @Bipolarblogger
Help us to put an end to these discriminatory laws. Email your MP and Tweet #backthebill.
17 Comments
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I've also been told I'm ineligible for jury services, after a recent summons - to my great surprise. I too am on a fairly low dose of a very commonly prescribed medication which only requires me to see my doctor every three months. There is no doubt about my ability to make coherent and unbiased decisions based on evidence presented to me. The law is discriminatory, out of date, perpetuates misinformation about mental health and should have been overturned years ago.
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Without wishing to denigrate the author or her efforts to reduce stigma, I couldn't help but be curious about why somebody who "barely thought of herself as having a mental health problem" would be blogging under the moniker of BipolarBlogger.
So I headed on over to her blog:
https://twitter.com/BipolarBlogger/status/243329778336292864
I appreciate that mental health is a moveable feast; the fact that the author is changing her medication today does not rule out the possibility that she might have been entirely fit for jury service when she was called, and that she might have remained so for the duration of the trial.
Equally, it is a stretch of the imagination to suggest that Charlotte is being discriminated against because of a problem that she had in the past; this doesn't make the case for changing the law that I initially thought it did.
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This is ridiculous. I have suffered from depression, General Anxiety Disorder, and have recovered from an eating disorder, but I too have been discriminated against due to my past problems with my mental health- due to an ambulance attending to me taking an overdose two years before I applied for teaching assistant temping work, I was refused any work, and when I enquired why, it turned out this had been put on my CRB, and despite it stating that "no action was taken" and that it was not a criminal record, the employment agency said that they didn't want to employ me because it could lead to "awkward questions that would be too much trouble to deal with" from schools that they were contracted with. After appealing this being on my CRB, it was removed along with an apology letter. However, the fact that someone thought to put this on to jeopardise any future employment I sought despite me seeking help for my issues just shows how narrow minded people are in today's society when it comes to mental health, and how more awareness needs to be raised in this area. I really hope that MPs do back the Mental Health Discrimination Bill to end discrimination in this way.
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I believe the law on this is different in Scotland. I take Anti-depressants, have been seeing my doctor for this for over twenty years, but when I was summoned for jury duty last year I was eligable to serve. I think the cut off point here is having been Sectioned. Whether this is a good cut off point is debateable, but at least it is better than what you have now.
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I appreciate your point but right now there are far more pressing injustices - welfare, housing, access to services causing deterioration, poverty, homelessness and death.
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Apart from holding a puplic office and jury service what else is this bill intended to tackle? It seems to me that this bill is mainly aimed at the middle class. MPs and high office puplic servants and a few social workers and the like?
The thing about jury service for me is the fact that our judicial system has become increasingly prejudiced towards those with mental health issues. The number of people who are now imprisoned that should be receiving care, support and treatment testifies to this. The judicial system dosen't seem to be very discriminating any more over the cause of a so called 'criminal act' and an act due to a mental health symptom. Little account seems to be taken of the fact that a person may be unaware of the unintended consequences of what the psychiatric profession refer to as 'positive symptoms'. i.e., acting on psychotic symptoms. (never understood why the shrinks call this positive symptoms as the consequences are almost always negative somewhere along the line). Now because I am aware of this understandable discrepancy in the justice system due to the fact that I have suffered severe mental health issues, I would always want to discriminate on this basis if I were called to jury service where a person had a mental health diagnosis. I would automatically want to explore how this affected the accused alleged misdemeanor. whereas, the judicial system might not want to allow this. And although I might be repulsed and not understand certain behaviors, I would not want to see anyone in need of treatment and care thrown into a dungeon whilst mentally ill. So I guess I would be seen as prejudiced to this extent. Not because I am prejudiced but due to my own personal life experience of mental health issues. But Shh, don't tell the judge. Should I be disqualified from jury service?
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I totally accept that there are more pressing issues affecting people with mental health conditions - and in the criminal justice system in particular. Sadly, we don't have an opportunity to address those today. That doesn't mean we shouldn't act on/work towards chipping away at stigma and discrimination wherever we can. Not everyone will think jury service is very important, but it is literally a "duty" to partake in the decision-making about defendants accused of the most serious of crimes. What does it say about how society thinks about mental health when someone who simply takes medication or sees a GP about their mental health cannot be trusted with that duty?
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Well you only have to read the article really to see that we haven't quite got it right have we!
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well it won't matter if welfare/housing/access to service issues have killed them
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Hi Keith,
Since you did me the favour of going over to my blog, I'm disappointed you didn't seem to note that I have only been blogging for just over a year - because that's when I was diagnosed with bipolar. It's true that right now I am unfit to work (by my doctors' advice, anyway, if not the DWP - but that's a different story). However, all this shows is how very different my circumstances are now from in 2009 when I was sent the jury summons.
Mental health is, as you put "a moveable feast". 2009 was in a period of 8 years' remission from my illness. This means I was completely asymptomatic, year after year after year. There was nothing about my health status at that time that suggested I would become ill if I was a juror- which is precisely why I have supplied all the info about my career at that point. Not only was I well enough to cope with stressful training and work, my achievements in terms of speed of completion and academic success was ahead of my non-disabled peers.
So, in 2009 I had been continuously well for 7 years despite a prior diagnosis of depression and anxiety. I was 100% asymptomatic. I was not just holding down but doing well at a stressful job AND IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SECTOR. I would have been completely willing to obtain a letter from my GP and my manager to confirm all of this.
The reason the law is discriminatory is that it does not take that into account. It doesn't care what you have to offer as a juror. It doesn't care if you are holding down a job. It doesn't care if medics verify that you are asymptomatic and should find jury duty no more difficult that anyone without a mental health diagnosis. It doesn't care if you are being highly responsible and following your treatment plan to the letter. It writes you off.
Sounds like we wouldn't see eye to eye on this, but I want a society that fully engages people with MH difficulties in their periods of wellness. Anything else is a waste of people's lives and talents.
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It's a serious mistake to think that public office and jury service are the preserve of the middle class. If we all think that, then they will be. We are all citizens, including those of us with mental illness. And if mental illness and criminal or social injustice go hand in hand, then it's even more important to get people with experience of mental illness onto juries or into key public roles.
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Well no jury service for me then. I also have a degree in Human Science 2:1, a former nurse, mental health worker, WRAP trainewr and used to be a trainer for the department of health.
If I was Fred Bloggs, 38, often on the dole, heavy smoker and drinker I could stand on a jury.
Wonderful archaic rules the UK has.
I am sure like myself you have also read articles on judges and police officers who have been convicted of crime. Who would I trust more...someone who has a mental health condition. Who makes me paranoid, the government and its "we are Not listening to the general public attitude.
Total farce; I have just as much right to be a juror as anyone else. When will our government accept they must learn from those with lived experience and remember wa are human beings unlike the animals seen in Prime Ministers Question Time. Wish David Dimbilby would aske the question, "Does the panel think"? As clearly they do not. -
Too right, you can be as thick as two short planks but as long as you don't have a mental health problem you can serve on a jury. Judging by some of the verdicts in some high profile cases that seems to be the norm. As with job discrimination this is just another example of society letting us know we do not belong.
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I'm not sure I like where this discussion is going, those claiming prejudice and discrimination are making sweeping judgments about others. 'Fred Blogs 38, Often on the dole, heavy smoker'. Your Fred Blogs well may be suffering with a mental health condition. Also 'You can be thick as two short planks' - I don't mean to be ultra politically correct, but it's rather judgemental and unkind.
I thought the whole point was about understanding others rather than labeling others?
The Juror service question is an interesting one, and I think it's obvious that we'd all agree if someone was in the midst of a total crisis and breakdown they'd be unable to attend. But most of the time people with mental health issues are not in a complete crisis, they are managing. I speak from my own experience, I still don't work and I do take offence at people labelling those that do not work. I still struggle. I do lots of voluntary work. I am fine in many respects, I am not in a total breakdown. I am intelligent. I am able to make decisions. I just struggle to make decisions about my own life. So does that bar me from being a juror? I'm not on medication, it's not irresponsibility - it made me worse. Then the government is giving me benefits because I have had breakdowns and haven't entirely got everything sorted out, does that mean I can't have it both ways? Not fit to work, but fit to be a juror? It may be too stressful for me anyway. I think the point I am making is there are lots of grey areas. Lots of individual experiences. But of course I back the Bill. -
I was watching BBC Parliament this morning as a number of MPs of all political stripes stood up in support of the Bill. Many shared stories of the stigma that people with mental health conditions can still face, drawing on their own life experiences, or those of family, friends, colleagues and constituents. The case of a criminal lawyer with depression was raised; much like me in 2009, has been declared ineligible for jury service despite working effectively in a Court setting.
It was fantastic to see MPs speaking of sending a message from Parliament that the days of discriminating against people experiencing mental distress need to be long gone. All the MPs who spoke seemed genuinely passionate about this.
The Bill passed its second reading, now comes the Committee stage where MPs can take evidence from campaign groups and experts. So there's still lots to do!
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Vicky,
The labelling you refer to in your post evidences the point for me and I agree with you. It seems acceptible by some people to voice their stereotypical prejudice when they are only looking out for their own. 'oh he drinks, he smokes, he's 38, Joe blogs, thick as two short planks, hes on the dole...must be guilty! I think some people could skip the jury service and go straight to being a government minister...to some we'll never be anything more than scroungers off the state. -
It seems you cant even make an off the cuff comment with out someone complaining. Probably explains the reason so many posts get censored especially when the subject of Welfare Reform comes up. Mindreader is right a far more pressing issue resulting in deaths, a bit more important than being upset by a blog!
So I'm going to stop commenting here, these blog posts are too tame and do not reflect the absolute anger out in the real world.
Commenting is now closed.