Study title

The objective of MNS Disorders in Guyana's Jails, 1825 to the Present Day was to develop a historicized analytical approach that addresses a critical but almost entirely neglected aspect of prison systems in the Global South: the definition, extent, experience, and treatment of MNS disorders among inmates and the people who work with them. The project consolidates a previous collaboration between Clare Anderson (University of Leicester), Mellissa Ifill (University of Guyana), and the Guyana Prison Service (https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/uk-international-challenges-17-history-and-security-sector-reform-crime-and-punishment-british-colonial-guyana/), and develops new relationships between the University of Leicester, the Ministry of Public Health (Mental Health Department), Guyana-based NGOs, and HMP Leicester. The project's perspective is historical, social and cultural. It covers the period from 1825, when the British opened the colony's first jail in Georgetown, to the present day (project concluded July 2022) following Guyana's independence in 1966.This project will research a critical but entirely neglected aspect of the prison system in Guyana, which certainly contributes to violence and instability: the definition, extent, experience and treatment of MNS disorders among inmates and the people who work with them. A UK-Guyana team will co-create new academic perspectives from Economic and Social History and Criminology, and use them to produce policy-relevant materials on mental health, cognitive impairment, addiction and substance abuse among prisoners and prison officers. The research will be shared with the project's partner, the Guyana Prison Service, which has an appetite for change and is seeking to effect transformations in prisoner well-being, health and education, during a time of unprecedented penal crisis. The project will not only model a new interdisciplinary way of working in this field, it will impact on prisoner and officer...