Justice 1 Committee, 25 Feb 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Official Report 223KB pdf

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Rehabilitation Programmes in Prisons

Item 5 relates to the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes in prisons. I welcome our adviser, Dr Laura Piacentini, and refer members to the paper that contains a proposal about our approach to an inquiry into this subject and a suggested remit.

When I was approached to suggest a remit for the inquiry, I was struck by the fact that rehabilitation is a broad, generic and universal term and it seemed that, from the outset, any inquiry would have to have a clear structure for exploring, evaluating and examining the question of rehabilitation. Hence I have structured the remit around the three central themes of examining penal policy, opportunities that enable rehabilitation to take place and conditions that can either lead to rehabilitation or exacerbate imprisonment. Within those three themes a range of questions and issues emerge to do with whether rehabilitation is an effective penal stance in prisons in Scotland. I think that it is, because as I understand it, there is a cultural sensibility within the Scottish Prison Service that is welfare oriented and which is promoted in the values of prison staff and in the prison estate generally. Unlike England and Wales, Scotland has hit the ground running in that regard, because there has been a strong rehabilitation principle underpinning imprisonment for a good number of years. That is basically how I have couched the remit, as you can see from my paper.

I thought that the paper was comprehensive. It sets out the issues that I want to consider in the inquiry.

Do you have a view on the rehabilitation—if I can use that term—of people who have experienced a miscarriage of justice, which we discussed earlier? If it is not too sensitive an issue, perhaps we could deal with it in the inquiry, if we cannot get redress any other way. Do you have a view on that?

Do you mean the post-custody rehabilitation in the community of people who have been victims of a miscarriage of justice?

Yes.

That is an under-explored area of rehabilitation and further research is needed on opportunities for people who have been victims of miscarriages of justice. They have still been exposed to the whole prison experience and face an additional punishment, because their custody has been illegal or wrong for various reasons. They face the additional burden of coping with that miscarriage of justice. A mechanism could be put in place that facilitates rehabilitation for those groups. The remit can cover all people who have been in prison. You might be able to consider the issue in section (ii) of the remit, which is on opportunity, which could be nuanced to cover those who have suffered miscarriages of justice. Agencies and bodies, which are set out in paragraph 8 of the paper, on evidence, could be brought in to deal specifically with those groups. I do not have information on the number of those people or who they are. I suspect and hope that we are talking about a minority of people being victims of miscarriages of justice.

Ideally, we would have liked to have held a separate inquiry, because we felt that the issue merited it, but that would not be feasible in the time available. The main concern about including the issue in the inquiry was about whether we were making enough of a separation and treating the issue sensitively enough—the people involved were in prison through no fault of their own.

The issue would warrant a separate inquiry, given that it is so specific. As I have said, the remit of the inquiry is so broad that I would be concerned that the issue would be lost in it.

Paragraph 7 of annex A is the most important paragraph, given the suggestion that we consider the integration and comprehensiveness of rehabilitation programmes within the constraints that you set out, which include pressures on staff, overcrowding and lack of time to undertake assessments. That context is absolutely right, because those factors perhaps explain why rehabilitation has suffered; considering rehabilitation on its own will not give us a realistic picture. I welcome the suggestion that we carry out the inquiry in that context.

The only other area that we might want to spend some time on is deciding what witnesses we want to call. We should try to think of witnesses other than the people whom we already deal with.

The paper is comprehensive and lays out very well the basis for an inquiry, and I am more than happy with the suggestions in it. There might be some discussion and debate about whom we should invite to give evidence. Paragraph 7 of the annex already gives us quite an extensive list of suggestions. It is a good paper and it sets out the way in which we should proceed.

There will be an opportunity to add witnesses to the list if there are any you want to add. I thank Laura Piacentini for her work.

Before we move on, there are a couple of areas on which I have to canvass members' opinions. Paragraph 9 of the paper states:

"The Committee has already secured funding for consultation of prisoners in a number of prisons."

Are members happy about the visits to Edinburgh throughcare centre, the Possil drugs project and the 218 time out centre in Glasgow?

Members indicated agreement.

There is a suggestion that we should visit some prisons to discuss the inquiry with prison officers and agency workers. Are members happy to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

There is also a possibility of holding a meeting on the inquiry outside of Edinburgh. Glasgow has been suggested, but it does not have to be Glasgow. Are members okay with that?

That is a very good suggestion.

That suggestion meets with approval.