Hansard

I am pleased to speak in this debate on women offenders and how we can best deal with that problem. This is my first speech as a member of the Justice Committee, but I have been involved with and have paid close attention to the issue for a good number of years.

My starting point is that prison is sometimes the only place where an offender should be, and that includes women. However, prison is sometimes the wrong place for an offender to be, and that is particularly the case for too many women.

We know that those who have committed low-level offences and have been given short prison sentences are more than likely to reoffend on release. There is little or no time for the Scottish Prison Service to work with short-term offenders to rehabilitate them and ensure that they are less likely to reoffend on release—and so the cycle goes on.

The opinion of some members of the public is that offenders should be punished and that is the end of it. They think, “Just punish them and be done with it.” However, in general, the public look to the long term and take the view that we will cut the risk of reoffending in the future by engaging with offenders and ensuring that we rehabilitate them, whether by using prison or by using other methods. They know full well that increased crime equals more misery for the community and greater public spending to deal with it. It would be far better to spend taxpayers’ money on ways of stopping reoffending and assisting those who are caught in the cycle of crime to get out of it.

The figures show that women offenders are more likely to commit low-level crime and be sentenced to prison time. That has negative consequences not only for them but for their family, and must be addressed. In my view, women in prison have a greater burden, with the impact of their sentence hitting the children hard through the loss of their mother. Sometimes, the children are taken into the care of social services. That burden will have only a negative impact on the mental wellbeing of those women.

While they are in prison, women are less likely to be morally or financially supported by their partners, and that includes partners, husbands, boyfriends and fathers looking after the children. Addictions are heightened, and illness and long-lasting depression increase. Women suffer disproportionately from depression, which could be tied to their natural maternal instincts being challenged because they have lost touch with their family unit and, in particular, with their children.

With that in mind, I am pleased with the Scottish Government and, in particular, with the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Michael Matheson, who has had the courage—and it is courage—to review the proposed new women’s prison in Greenock in the first place and to implement a change of direction. That was a bold and courageous move.

Sometimes people consider that changing our minds is wrong, but too often Governments do not change their minds. I very much welcome the cabinet secretary’s emphasis on the change, which will bring more focus on smaller, locally based units. That will have a number of benefits. Offenders will be closer to their family and children, which I believe will make a huge difference. I suggest going even further and working towards making prison for low-level crimes the exception rather than the rule.

I am a great believer in preventative spending—we have spent a lot of time on the subject in the Health and Sport Committee. However, I get a bit annoyed when statistics are used to score political points rather than to help tackle the issue. Simply put, if we are diverting resources to preventative spending, it stands to reason that, in the long term, we will not spend the same level as is spent on existing services. Particularly during times of economic hardship, as is the case now, and of restricted budgets, if we invest in preventative spend, we cannot spend the money twice.

I believe in cutting the number of women who are sent to prison and in using the savings from that to support programmes for offenders that are based in the community. That is preventative spend at its best, and the dividends will be of great benefit to the public, who will be pleased to see a reduction in persistent, low-level crime.

For me, the goal of seeing fewer women in prison—women who should not be there—means that the lives of women and their children and wider families will be improved or even transformed. That would be a great achievement from which we could all get satisfaction. We therefore need a political truce among all parties in the chamber and to agree to focus our energies on positive action, so that we can take joint ownership of a strategy for the long term. Otherwise, political expediency will once again be the victor.

I am very pleased to support the amendment in the name of Michael Matheson, which I commend to the Parliament.