A NORTH-EAST jail will assess and treat dangerous people with personality disorders.

Frankland Prison, in Durham City, has been chosen by the Government to pilot two new units, which will be built within its walls.

It is one of several projects announced by the Government that will provide 320 places in hospitals and prisons by April 2004.

Home Secretary, Jack Straw, said: "The Government's strategy for managing people who are dangerous and severely personality-disordered, is to ensure that a full range of powers and safeguards should apply, under proposed new mental health legislation.

"We should develop new services and pilot and evaluate new approaches.

"The sites that we have chosen for our pilot programmes have been carefully selected."

The Government is putting £126m into the scheme over the next few years