Secure Units
In the UK, criminal courts or the Home Secretary can refer people to what are known as psychiatric secure units, even though for many decades now, the term "criminally insane" is no longer legally or medically recognized. They are hospitals mostly run by the National Health Service, which undertake psychiatric assessments and can also provide treatment and accommodation in a safe, hospital environment where its patients can be prevented from harming themselves or others. They also run under clearly defined Home Office rules. These secure hospital facilities are divided into three main categories and are referred to as High, Medium and Low Secure. Although it is a phrase often used by newspapers, there is no such classification as "Maximum Secure". Low Secure units are often referred to as "Local Secure" as patients are referred there frequently by local criminal courts for psychiatric assessment before sentencing.
Some units have been opened in recent years with the specific purpose of providing Therapeutically Enhanced Treatment and so form a subcategory to the three main ones.
The general public are familiar with the names of the High Secure Hospitals due to the frequency that they are mentioned in the news reports about the people who are sent there. Those in England include, Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside; Broadmoor Hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire and Rampton Secure Hospital in Retford, Nottinghamshire and in Scotland is The State Hospital, Carstairs. Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man have their own Medium and Low Secure units but use the mainland faculties for High Secure, which smaller Channel Islands also transfer their patients to as Out of Area Referrals under the Mental Health Act 1983.
Of the Medium Secure units, there are many more of these in number scattered throughout the UK. As of 2009 there were 27 women only units in England alone. Irish units include those at prisons in Portlaise, Castelrea and Cork.
Read more about this topic: Psychiatric Institutions, Types
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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