Hansard

Members are aware that I announced on Monday that the Scottish Prison Service’s plan for a women’s prison in Inverclyde will not go ahead because the plan does not fit with my vision of how a modern and progressive country should address female offending. We need to be bolder and to take a more radical and ambitious approach.

When it comes to the justice system, we must make smarter choices and be more sophisticated in how we deal with female offenders. To do that, we must make sure that we tackle the underlying causes of offending, including mental health problems, drug and alcohol use and all the other issues that can result in a person committing a criminal offence in the first place.

I want to be clear, however, that some women who present an unacceptable risk to the community or to themselves need to be in prison. We also have a small number of young women who offend and we need to ensure that they have separate and appropriate facilities. When it comes to how we deal with women who are sent to prison, we intend to have a separate national facility for high-risk women and a separate facility for young women.

I believe that we should invest in smaller regional and community-based custodial facilities across Scotland for the majority of women who are sent to jail. That approach is more closely aligned with the vision that was set out by Dame Elish Angiolini. The commission on women offenders called for radical reform of the existing system and in working practices across the criminal justice system, and of how universal services including housing, welfare benefits and healthcare interact with women to help them to make positive changes and to build the skills that they need to move away from a life of offending. I want to make sure that that happens.

On Monday, I said that I will now enter a period of dialogue; that is exactly what I will do. I will work collaboratively with partners from across the sector who have a serious contribution to make to the debate.

Although it is obviously for the courts to decide who receives custodial sentences, I believe that we continue to lock up too many women who present low risk. I want to take a new approach to dealing with that type of offender, and to provide them with the best possible support to help them to turn their lives around. I am committed to reducing the female prison population in Scotland, but let me be clear: there are no quick solutions and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

The evidence tells us that community-based residential units are better at supporting women and helping them to make positive changes in their lives. They provide a safe and structured environment in which women can improve their health and wellbeing and address the underlying issues that contribute to their offending behaviour—for example, substance misuse. Women offenders are far less likely to be a danger to the public than men. We also know that the families—the children—of female offenders are more likely to go off the rails and to offend if their mothers are jailed miles away from home. That becomes a vicious circle that affects future generations and does nothing to address reoffending behaviour. Therefore, we need to ensure that a woman’s links to family and community can be maintained at the same time as she takes part in targeted work to address the specific issue that fuels her offending behaviour.

On Monday, I spent a few hours with the women and staff at the 218 centre in Glasgow, as other members have done over the years since the facility was established. Although the centre takes an entirely voluntary approach, it provides exactly the type of sophisticated approach that I would like to be part of our plans for dealing with women in custody in the future. I was struck by how honest the women are about how tough it is to stick with a residential rehabilitation centre, compared with spending time in prison. It is definitely not a soft option; it is hard work for them to be honest with themselves and, finally, to ask for and take the help that they need to deal with their issues and problems. Deep-seated issues including substance misuse, trauma, bereavement, physical and sexual abuse and low self-esteem can often be a woman’s way into offending.

Dame Elish’s commission said that “many of” its

“recommendations could be achieved through reconfiguration of existing funding, rather than significant new investment.”

However, the Government recognises that it might be difficult for partners to reconfigure service delivery for women quickly. That is why we have been working with community justice partners and have invested £3 million between 2013 and 2015 to allow reconfiguration of existing services to take place. That has allowed us to support 16 projects to deliver new or enhanced services for women offenders in communities throughout the country. The Scottish Government’s funding has allowed local partners some headroom to reconfigure their services in a way that it is felt can meet the commission’s aspirations and provide the best outcomes for women in their localities and, crucially, at a level that partners are sure they can sustain beyond the limited funding.

In Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, we have worked with partners to establish justice centres for women. Those centres provide a multi-agency service and a holistic response to women who offend. They have not only central locations, but networks of activities and services that operate from those bases. The staff work proactively to support the women who use the services.

I recently visited the new centre in Glasgow, called tomorrow’s women Glasgow. It is a new co-ordinated service for women that local justice and health partners have developed to work alongside existing services for women in the city like those who use the 218 centre. I was struck by the multi-agency approach to working with women and the clear commitment of all the staff to providing the right help to support the women who require their assistance to turn their lives around. I also spoke to some of the women who use the centre. Just like the women at the 218 centre, they told me how much of a difference it is making to their ability to address their offending behaviour.

Our funding has also helped services—the willow project in Edinburgh and the Aberdeen women’s justice centre—to secure new fit-for-purpose facilities, expand their activities and increase the availability of services to women in their areas. Some projects have been created through criminal justice social work provision, for example, in Dundee.

In North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and Highland, services have all taken approaches that they believe could enhance how they deal with women offenders in their localities. In Fife, Angus, South Lanarkshire, Falkirk and Forth Valley, partners are testing an outreach model to engage and deliver services to women in the communities where they live, rather than basing them in single locations. Evaluation of the approach that they are taking will be undertaken to identify the most effective approach in those models.