Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that people imprisoned for stalking offences receive psychiatric or psychological support to break the cycle of offending.

Stalking is a form of abuse which can escalate to other very serious forms of offending. It is important that we treat stalking with the seriousness that it deserves.

NOMS have staff trained to assess the risks presented by this group of offenders, and to identify the best options for intervention and support. Those imprisoned specifically for stalking offences can have a range of different intervention or treatment needs, which can often be addressed by existing offending behaviour interventions. Staff managing the shorter sentenced harassment cases can also access community based support and intervention. Prison Service professionals can provide advice on risk management to offender managers and Multi Agency Public Protection panels on request.

Health services are available to prisoners with clinical needs from primary care services, secondary mental health in-reach services or through transfer to psychiatric hospitals under the Mental Health legislation.