Hansard

Yes, to put it briefly.

Statistics show that 70 per cent of women offenders who receive a prison sentence of three months or less are reconvicted of an offence within two years. That is because the scope for rehabilitation with such short sentences is highly limited. According to the Prison Reform Trust, “virtually all” women in prison in Scotland have a history of problematic use of drugs or alcohol, or both. The trust reports that more than 70 per cent of women in prison have reported using drugs in the past year, that one in three are currently on methadone and that around half say that they were under the influence of alcohol when they committed the offence for which they were imprisoned, which is a higher figure than that for male offenders. Similarly, seven out of 10 female prisoners disclosed a history of abuse or trauma. Prison is a hugely counter-productive environment for many of those women.

As I said, women tend to commit fewer serious offences than men. The most common crime that resulted in a custodial sentence for women in 2013-14 was shoplifting, with one in four custodial sentences being given for that crime. Only 5 per cent of women who received custodial sentences were convicted of serious crimes such as homicide, attempted murder, serious assault or robbery, and only a handful of women a year are imprisoned for long sentences of more than four years. We should also keep it in mind that, as colleagues have said during the debate, the proportion of the female prison population on remand is higher than that of the male population, and 70 per cent of female remand prisoners do not go on to receive a custodial sentence.

It is also important to acknowledge the increased effectiveness of women-specific interventions, whether custodial or non-custodial. According to the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland, 83 per cent of women who used the services of the 218 service in Glasgow reported significant decreases in drug and/or alcohol use, and 67 per cent indicated improvements in their overall health and wellbeing. That is one of the many examples of successful, women-specific, tailored interventions. I have not visited the 218 service but I would certainly like to visit it in the near future.

Another example of such a service is Fife Council’s criminal justice social work service, which has adopted a multidisciplinary approach to women offenders, with input from the national health service, Scottish Women’s Aid, the Scottish Prison Service and many other agencies. I really welcome the commitment that has been given this afternoon to additional funding for such services, which can only be good news.

It is troubling to me that we now send twice as many women to prison as we did in 2000, even though the female crime rate has dropped significantly since then. We can see the effects at a local level in Fife. In February 2009, 27 women from Fife were in custody and 330 were on community-based supervision—that is, 8 per cent were in custody and 92 per cent were in the community. By July 2013, 49 women from Fife were in custody and 456 were subject to community-based supervision. As the Scottish Prisons Commission said:

“Increased use of prisons is the result of using it for those who are troubled and troubling rather than dangerous.”

I therefore have no problem in agreeing with the Government’s amendment and its acknowledgement of the Angiolini report and its proposals for dealing with women offenders.

As I have outlined, it is clear that prison does not work for most women or families. Nearly two thirds of women in prison have children. When a father goes to prison in Scotland, 95 per cent of the children continue to live with their mother, but when a mother goes to jail, fewer than one in five children stays with their father—the others are sent to live with other family members or find themselves placed in care. A large number end up having no contact with their mother.

The Angiolini report demonstrated that women prisoners who have regular contact with their children are less likely to reoffend. We also know that the children of women in prison are more likely to suffer trauma. One in three children with a parent in prison develops serious mental health issues—almost 450 children in this country are affected at any given time.

I very much welcome the Scottish Government’s decision not to build the proposed women’s prison at Inverclyde. I know that that position has widespread support from Barnardo’s, the Howard League for Penal Reform, Circle Scotland, the Scottish Quakers community justice network, women for independence, Professor Andrew Coyle, King’s College London, the international centre for prison studies, Baroness Jean Corston and the thousands of people, including me, who signed an online petition that Edinburgh women for independence set up.

Scottish Labour’s plan to cancel the building of the new facility and reinvest the costs associated with it in far more successful and humane community-based sentences and family justice centres that are tailored to women would cut crime and reoffending. It costs almost £32,000 a year to keep someone in prison, but the human cost is incalculable.