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Criminal Justice Committee 11 March 2026 [Draft]

11 Mar 2026 · S6 · Criminal Justice Committee

Item of business

Criminal Justice System (Challenges for Session 7)

Sara Snell Watch on SPTV

We have conducted two inspections. HMP Stirling owns the Bella and Lilias units, if you like, so the governor of Stirling is responsible for them, with unit managers being the day-to-day operators within them. We conducted an inspection very soon after the units opened. We do not yet have evidence from inspections about their operation, although we receive regular input from independent prison monitoring.There are no human rights concerns, but, when comparing the original vision with the delivery, one thing that is clearly very disappointing is how difficult it has been to encourage women to see the units as a positive option. It has been very challenging to keep the units fully occupied. Given that so much of the prison estate is massively overburdened, having parts of the estate standing empty is a waste.The other thing that the report flagged was that, although the units were probably initially envisaged as a progression opportunity for longer-term and life-sentence women, in practice around 70 per cent of recent use has been by women serving short-term sentences, which has brought its own complexities.I think that there was an intention that the units would evolve over time—that allowing women to experience a much freer form of engagement and have a far less oppressive physical infrastructure would lead to their growth. There was also meant to be an element of co-creation, with the women themselves helping to determine how the units should operate. However, the report noted that a significant number of the original staff—who had been trauma-informed trained and really bought into the vision and concept—had moved on and that the new staff had perhaps not been hand picked in the same way or trained quite so well. They brought with them a more traditional approach: “I am a prison officer. I follow the prison rules. This is a prison like any other.” That shows the critical importance not only of having a vision but of ensuring long-term investment and leadership for the programme.My personal desire would be to develop a new model of custody for young men in the same way as we have introduced a new model of custody for women. However, the concept needs to be embedded much more firmly, along with further exploration of various issues—for example, whether it is possible to allow quicker community access for longer-term prisoners, because that is the whole point of the model. Again, though, that potentially involves legislative change, and it raises questions about equality between men and women who are held within the Scottish Prison Service, so these are not easy issues to deal with.The report is incredibly helpful, but taking things forward requires significant leadership and direction from the Scottish Prison Service.

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Criminal Justice Committee 11 March 2026 [Draft]

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