Rep36 Understanding Personality Disorder

1.2.2 Prevalence of personality disorders in
prison
In the UK, the Office for National Statistics 
Study
on Psychiatric Morbidity Among Prisoners
(Singleton 
et
al
., 1998) found personality disorders in 50 per
cent of female prisoners, compared with 78 per
cent of male remand and 64 per cent of male
sentenced prisoners. Antisocial personality
disorder was the commonest specific diagnosis in
both men and women, but it was more prevalent
in men (63 per cent of remand and 49 per cent of
sentenced males) compared with women (31 per
cent of female prisoners). Paranoid personality
disorder was the second most common personality
disorder among men, whereas borderline
personality disorder was the second most common
personality disorder among women. 
A survey of young offenders in prison (Lader,
Singleton & Meltzer, 2003) showed even higher
rates of personality disorder; prevalence rates for
male young offenders were 84 per cent for those
on remand, 88 per cent for sentenced offenders.
Personality disorders were most common among
acquisitive offenders (those with
charges/convictions for burglary, theft and
robbery) and were less frequently diagnosed in
sex and drug offenders.
An early paper by Cloninger and Guze (1970)
noted that antisocial women were more likely to
have dual diagnoses with 40 per cent of their
study population fitting diagnostic criteria for
hysteria as well as sociopathy (which is more or
less synonymous with antisocial personality
disorder). Mulder 
et al
. (1994) also drew attention
to the high prevalence of co-morbid psychiatric
illnesses in women with antisocial personality
disorder. This is a robust finding, and the
treatment for female offenders including mentally
disordered offenders is often dictated by the fact
that they show symptoms of mental health
problems in addition to personality disorder.