Hansard

As has been said, an effective justice system must protect communities, support victims and seek to rehabilitate offenders. That means that those who have been imprisoned should be supported to change their behaviour, when they are willing to do so, so that when they come out of prison they can lead better lives and no longer pose a threat to the communities in which they live. That is the focus of the debate, which we welcome. The question is whether new models of support can help to deliver real change in levels of reoffending and how their success in changing behaviours can be measured.

There is cross-party support for exploring the potential of social impact bonds, for example—there was a commitment on that in our manifesto and in other manifestos for last year’s elections—even if it is too early to come to firm conclusions about the longer-term impact of that approach. However, it is important to put new models into the context of what we already know about what makes for the effective rehabilitation of offenders. We know, for example, that prisoners’ ability to access their families can help to reduce reoffending by giving purpose and focus to prisoners’ lives. That is why we believe that local prisons are important and why, for example, we opposed the Scottish Government’s plans to close Aberdeen prison and replace it with HMP Grampian, an hour’s bus journey away in Peterhead.

If families can help with the rehabilitation of offenders, those families will need support as they deal with a wide range of emotional and practical pressures, quite apart from the challenge of keeping in touch with the imprisoned person. That is why organisations that work with prisoners’ families, such as Families Outside, have an important role to play. Whatever new models are developed must recognise and support the good work that is already being done that indirectly supports the rehabilitation of offenders as well as the work that is directly engaged in that task.

We have prison education services in place that can and should make a difference to prisoners’ lives. The basis on which those services are provided in a number of prisons in the east of Scotland has changed recently, and concerns have been raised about the range and quality of education that will be available to prisoners in future. I would welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments on how the standards of prison education services are to be assessed and maintained both under the current arrangements and under any new models for providing rehabilitation.

Working and learning should not be incidental to periods of imprisonment; they should define everyday life in Scotland’s prisons. It is in the classroom and the workroom that prisoners can learn the skills that they need to make real and meaningful changes to their lives. That is why it is disappointing that, even in our most modern and well-resourced jails, too many prisoners are not able to engage regularly in constructive activities. Repeat offenders on shorter sentences—the very people who should be given the chance to change their ways before they go back into our communities—often have no access to work programmes. It is worth saying that people are sent to jail by sheriffs rather than put on community service orders for a reason, and the challenge of rehabilitation applies whatever the length of the sentence.

Too many people come out of our jails with a drugs habit that they did not have when they went in. That is also a challenge for the system.

In that context, it is all the more important that ministers should think again about their proposals to scrap prison visiting committees. Plenty of ex-offenders will confirm that prison visitors were the mentors—the cabinet secretary referred to mentors—who helped to set them on the path to a life without crime.

We need more, not less, independent scrutiny in our prison system, particularly if new models of support for rehabilitation are to deliver better outcomes for local communities rather than simply lower costs for the Government. The evidence on new models is limited to date, but it is generally positive. The pilot project that uses social impact bonds to fund rehabilitation at HMP Peterborough was originally authorised by Labour ministers, and it has been running since September 2010. By definition, it is too early to measure the effectiveness of that approach in terms of the frequency or rates of reoffending. The model has succeeded in drawing in non-Government finance to support rehabilitation, but there are still issues to be resolved around the measurement of outcomes and avoiding very complex contractual arrangements. Those issues can be resolved, and we support further work on how to deliver new models of support for the rehabilitation of offenders.

It is critical that the whole range of Government policies on prisons supports rehabilitation, and we will continue to press ministers to ensure that they pursue the right range of policies for the benefit of those in prison and in the interests of the wider community.

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