— This article is based on an interview with Professor Swaran Singh. The gist of his argument is that ethnic differences in detention rates are not the result of a racist mental health system but instead reflect the fact that different physical and mental health issues affect ethnicities differently ("diseases are not egalitarian"). Key risk factors such as urban upbringing, school exclusions, drug use and poverty make ethnic minority groups, and migrant populations in particular, more susceptible to mental health problems. Other factors linked to schizophrenia - urban upbringing, social exclusion, childhood trauma, cannabis use - increase that risk and apply more to Afro-Caribbean people, and also mean Afro-Caribbean men are less likely to seek treatment such as mental health support prior to crisis point. He urged the government to target the wider social risk factors to tackle higher rates of mental health detention, not the behaviour of professionals trying to treat patients in need.
Full details available at: https://www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uk/Fiona_Hamilton,_%27Is_psychiatry%27s_focus_on_race_stats_linked_to_Nottingham_attacks%3F%27_(The_Times,_19_March_2026)?id=230326-1124