Hansard

Like other members and the organisations that have campaigned for a rethink on the proposed female prison at Inverclyde, I welcome the cabinet secretary’s statement. As Roddy Campbell said, when the Cabinet Secretary for Justice attended the Justice Committee on 16 December, he said that he intended to understand all the aspects of the issues before he took the final decision, and I am pleased that he has done so.

Previously, the Scottish Government stated that it accepted 33 of the Angiolini commission’s 37 recommendations. However, the principal recommendation—that HMP Cornton Vale should be replaced by a smaller, specialist prison for female offenders who are serving a statutory long-term sentence and those who present a significant risk to the public—was not really followed either in spirit or to the letter.

The statistics on female offenders speak for themselves. In 2012-13, 14 per cent of crimes were committed by women, but the vast majority of the offences were minor. Overall, women are less likely than men to receive a custodial sentence. Less than 6 per cent of the prison population are women, but three quarters of those who are serving a custodial sentence are serving 6 months or less.

One quarter of women in the prison population are on remand—that figure has doubled in 10 years. Those prisoners are women and girls who have not yet been found guilty of any offence and, shockingly, only 30 per cent of women who are held in prison on remand actually go on to serve a custodial sentence. More than one in six women who are held in prison on remand should not be there at all, as the crimes of which they are accused do not merit a custodial sentence. Those women are removed from their homes, their families and their children and placed in prison, accused of a crime that is not punishable by imprisonment. That cannot be right.

As Stewart Stevenson indicated, four fifths of the female prison population have mental health problems, and 60 per cent were under the influence of drugs and 40 per cent under the influence of alcohol at the time of their offence. Eighty-four per cent were unemployed at the time of their offence and 71 per cent have no formal qualifications—compare that to the figure of 15 per cent for the general population. More than half of them have experienced domestic abuse and one third are victims of sexual abuse.

Almost four out of five women offenders show evidence of impulsive and risk-taking behaviour. Recent studies, including those of male prisoners, indicate that such behaviour may result from brain injuries, particularly those that are acquired in childhood.

It is not just the women themselves who are affected. Two thirds of the women in prison have children and across Scotland 27,000 children annually are affected by their parents’ imprisonment. However, although two thirds of women prisoners have children, only four in 10 receive visits. Prison visiting is a particular problem when women are imprisoned far from home and where public transport links are poor. That was one of my concerns about the configuration that was proposed previously, which had a large prison in Inverclyde and hubs in Edinburgh and Grampian. Prison visiting would not be easy for families from Dumfries and Galloway.

HMP Dumfries used to take local women offenders when it was a young offenders institution, but there were insufficient numbers for it to be able to offer the women an effective programme of education and work. Once when I visited there was only one woman there; clearly, that was a very unsatisfactory situation for her. There needs to be an examination of how we treat different parts of the country.

The Angiolini commission stated that it was convinced that there needs to be a new approach to the management of women in Scotland’s prison system. We know that very short prison sentences are often ineffective in addressing the causes of offending. Alternatives to imprisonment, remand and prosecution need to be developed that challenge offending behaviour and provide support to deal with the underlying issues that result in offending—mental health problems, addiction and so on.

The Angiolini commission, as members have said, recommended investment in community justice centres to provide intensive interventions that would be available at every stage of the criminal justice system. Attendance could be a condition for diversion from prosecution, a condition of bail or a condition of release from prison. Offenders would be supervised and managed and would be able to draw on support from a variety of agencies and services on mental health, debt management, employment, housing, childcare and benefits. Community justice centres can co-ordinate alternatives to prosecution such as early intervention with young offenders, fiscal work orders and composite diversion orders.

As other members have said, support needs to be made available for female offenders across Scotland, including those in rural communities. That means sustainable funding for other support models, too, so I was pleased to hear the cabinet secretary’s announcement today of £1.5 million in the next financial year.

Women often end up on remand because they have broken their bail conditions; that should be tackled by better supervision of bail, but monitoring and supervision of bail have actually decreased. In contrast, some time ago Sweden introduced intensive supervision sentences of up to six months, which are served at home on an electronic tag. They are a form of house arrest, although women are allowed out for employment, training, healthcare and rehabilitation—they get those services, as well. We need to look at some of the international examples of good practice regarding alternatives to imprisonment.

Cancelling the prison contract is a welcome first step, but we have a long way to go in developing the sort of interventions that keep women out of prison and that work across urban and rural Scotland. Diversion from crime and prevention are of course the most preferable, but interventions are needed at all stages of the criminal justice system.