Queer narratives of power and control in inpatient mental health settings

In 2020 over 53,000 detentions were made under the Mental Health Act (MHA) which allows for detention of people with a mental disorder to a hospital in the interest of their own or public safety (MHAT 2021).Patients describe the experience of admission to a psychiatric ward as 'prison-like' due to restrictive safety measures like door locking and seclusion (Bowers et al 2006). This carceral turn away from care toward risk management represents the intersecting interests of mental healthcare and criminal justice(Singh 2021). Despite the disproportionate criminalisation and institutionalisation of LGBT+ people throughout history (McCauley et al 2017), little research on LGBT+ people and the MHA currently exists. This project addresses this gap using innovative arts and humanities methods and an critical queer criminological framework to examine LGBT+ peoples' experiences of power and control while detained under the MHA.