Scottish Prisons
The third item on the agenda is an evidence session on Scottish prisons. I welcome Ms Kate Donegan, the governor of HM establishment Cornton Vale, to the committee. I am sure that she is relieved that she had just to motor for a few minutes up the road today.
Committee members should be aware that Cornton Vale has recently received an Investors In People award, which might have been controversial in some areas. The governor might be asked some questions about that this afternoon.
Members will recall that there is an entirely separate petition about the availability of legal aid for fatal accident inquiries, which has arisen out of a suicide in Cornton Vale. Although I do not want us to discuss that petition or particular incident in detail today, that is not to say that the governor will not be asked about the problem in general.
I invite the governor to make a short opening statement about the problems facing women prisoners and about the steps that she, as the governor of Scotland's only all-women prison, has taken to address them. Perhaps you could start by telling us how long you have been at Cornton Vale. I gather that you have not been there for a long time.
Ms Kate Donegan (Governor, HM Establishment Cornton Vale):
I have been the governor of Cornton Vale since September 1996.
First of all, I thank the committee for the opportunity to give evidence about issues affecting women in Cornton Vale prison. I view the opportunity as a considerable privilege.
For the committee's information, I have put together some data gleaned from the latest Government prison statistics bulletin and a synopsis of some of the principal facts and figures about the prison. Although neither document is exhaustive, I hope that they will give the committee a flavour of some of the issues and challenges.
I want to address the committee on the subject of the challenges that we face. Perhaps it is unsurprising that I should first comment on the tragic suicides that have occurred in Cornton Vale. Although the death by suicide of any human being is profoundly sad, there is a particular sense of sadness and loss when such a death occurs in prison. The effect on staff and prisoners alike—indeed on the whole prison community—is deeply felt and long-lasting, and for me has been the particular spur to introducing a raft of developments and improvements that have significantly impacted on reducing the risk of self-harm and suicide, and will continue to do so.
I took up the post of governor of Cornton Vale in 1996, after being deputy chief inspector of prisons and part of the team that inspected the prison in April 1996. For seven years at the beginning of my career, I was an assistant governor in Cornton Vale, and, as a result, my experience of working with women in custody has prepared me comprehensively, and probably uniquely, for understanding and addressing the challenges posed by Cornton Vale's population.
However, I must say that I was completely unprepared for the physical, mental and emotional condition of the majority of the women in the prison. I found appalling damage, mostly as a consequence of chronic poly-drug abuse, and a variety of mental health problems related to those addictions. I found a population that was characterised by social exclusion, ill health, poor educational attainment, lack of employment skills, backgrounds of violence and abuse and chaotic lifestyles. Many of the women were persistent petty offenders and, along with those on remand, were finding the combination of drug withdrawal, uncertainty about the future and separation from friends and family an almost intolerable burden.
My initial focus was therefore on addressing the needs of the most unstable part of the population—the remands and the newly convicted women and girls. At my request, the Scottish Prison Service commissioned comprehensive research on the nature of the population, so that we could better understand the range and depth of the problems that we faced. The headlines of that research by Dr Nancy Loucks are included in my summary of the facts and figures for the prison.
I confess that, despite the fact that I have presented those statistics on many occasions to many different audiences, I am still shocked by them. I am even more shocked by the fact that women are still arriving in an appalling mental and physical condition. That said, the research helped enormously to focus our energies and resources on the most pressing problems. I will be happy to describe the steps that we have taken in more detail, but there is no magic answer to addressing the needs of my uniquely vulnerable population. Systematic and methodical analyses of the underlying problems, along with a raft of improvements, have been made across the board in relation to a number of core activities. I have done all that I can to advocate for more resources and to provide clear direction and goals for staff.
Perhaps the only constant throughout the process of change in the prison has been the compassion and commitment of all staff and their determination to contribute both towards moving the prison on and towards finding ways to lessen—or, ideally, to eradicate—the risk of self-harm and suicide. My wish would be that the daily challenges that are faced by Cornton Vale staff be much more widely understood and appreciated and that their huge efforts to provide a safe, secure and positive environment for many of Scotland's most damaged women be recognised and supported by the community. In seeking to move on from the past, we do not try to minimise the tragedy of the suicides. However, Cornton Vale has many reasons to be positive and much of which to be proud. Our energies will continue to be poured into providing the best possible regime for our challenging population.
We can now move straight to the evidence-taking session. A lot of issues have arisen in the context of what the Justice and Home Affairs Committee has been doing so far. We started by considering Clive Fairweather's report in a general way, but that consideration was somewhat extended because of the Executive's decision to take away £13 million from the amount of money that was available to the Scottish Prison Service, a decision that has resulted in closures.
Our consideration has gone on for longer than we had expected. After considering the report briefly, we wanted to consider the specific issues of women offenders and young offenders, and to consider the treatment of both those categories of offenders in our prisons and in alternatives to prison. That is why we have invited you to give evidence. You are part of the next wave of our interest, which may take a good bit longer than the first.
There will be plenty of time for all members to ask questions. We will allocate roughly another 45 minutes for this discussion. I would like to ask one or two general questions just to get things started.
I have been interested in some of the evidence that we have heard from representatives of the trade unions. They seemed dissatisfied with the level of training that staff received, especially when they were moved from one kind of establishment to another one that might have quite different inmates. They felt that they were not getting appropriate training and that what they got was anything but sufficient. I would like you to comment on the training that your staff receive to deal with problems.
As a result of the evidence that we have taken, particularly the research of Dr Loucks, we are aware of the enormously complex series of problems that women in Cornton Vale exhibit. Could you comment on the difficulties that those problems pose for the work of you and your staff? How is that work different from the kind of work that is done in all-male prisons?
Each establishment is responsible for arranging induction training that is appropriate to its population. I read the transcript of the meeting at which Dr Loucks gave evidence and was surprised that Mr David Melrose said that Cornton Vale did not have that kind of training. In fact, our staff training leads the female prison services in the UK.
We run a women in custody programme for all staff; it is not just for uniformed staff and I, too, have taken the course. It lasts two and a half days and explores issues that are peculiar to women and, in particular, examines the stresses and strains that are relevant to women in custody. It gives staff a range of tools to understand and cope with women in custody.
We also run self-harm training modules so that staff understand the reasons for self-harm and how to cope with it. We also run assessment, care, teamwork, or ACT, strategy training programmes, which are detailed, specific and comprehensive. Therefore, I am satisfied that the training provision at Cornton Vale equips staff well to work with women. It is a prerequisite for new staff that they undertake the women in custody programme as soon as possible. Our training is comprehensive and has gone on for a considerable time.
On your question about the challenge that is posed by the raft of problems that women bring to prison, in my introductory statement I said that I was taken aback by what I found in the Cornton Vale population when I returned after being away for about 10 years. The chronic nature of the mental health and addiction problems of women at Cornton Vale means that behaviour is unpredictable. The women find concentrating on the programmes that we offer extremely difficult.
By and large, for about the first four to six weeks, it is difficult for the women to engage positively with very much that goes on, because their concentration is so poor. Often they are still withdrawing, so mentally they are quite depressed, anxious, and without hope. They are also very vulnerable and impulsive. The early stages on remand and after conviction are the most dangerous times for the women because they are in a poor mental state, imprisoned and separated from friends and family, and, if they are remanded, because they are uncertain about the future.
Because the women's behaviour is so unpredictable, it requires considerable skill to cope with them. I do not mean that the women necessarily represent serious management problems because they are violent to others, as they are more likely to focus their violence inwards.
I have two questions. First, you will know that there have been discussions in Parliament and elsewhere about alternatives to locking women up and that the member for Stirling, Sylvia Jackson, has raised questions in Parliament about different types of prison accommodation. Do you want to comment on that?
Your question takes me to the boundary of what is appropriate for me to comment on, so my answer must be taken as a personal opinion rather than representative of the Prison Service's thinking on this. Sylvia Jackson has been enormously interested in Cornton Vale and I appreciate the support that she has given. Sylvia and I have had a number of discussions about how it is all very well to say that many women come to prison inappropriately, but quite another matter to suggest what ought to be done about that.
We need to have a range of credible, viable alternatives for sentencers. If those alternatives existed in the community, I am perfectly sure that sentencers would use them. I have in mind supported accommodation in the community. My notion is of what I call halfway houses. It is not a terribly satisfactory description, but it would fill the gap between non-custodial sentences and prison. At the moment, there is a fairly yawning gap. If an individual fails on the non-custodial alternatives, there is no other alternative for sentencers other than prison. We need something on the way into prison. Arguably, we need something on the way out too, to help with readjustment into the community.
We can do a lot at Cornton Vale. Even if women are only with us for a short time, on remand or on a short convicted sentence, we can pick them up, dust them down and set them off in the right direction. If, however, we return them whence they came, without any additional support, their chances of succeeding are quite limited. It would be an enormous advantage to do something for women on the way in and on the way out of prison.
I am sure that other members will want to ask about that too.
I want, however, to ask about a different subject: remand prisoners. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to visit Cornton Vale, but I hope to do so in the near future. I would like to know as much as you are able to tell the committee about how you feel about the conditions for remand prisoners. I am getting increasingly concerned about the Scottish Prison Service in general, and about the conditions which the remand prisoners have to suffer.
Can you tell the committee anything about improvements that you think could be made for the remand prisoners at Cornton Vale?
One of the first things that I did when I arrived at Cornton Vale was to focus on remand prisoners. Six of the suicides that had taken place were among remand women. Having accompanied the inspectorate, and having seen a number of remand units around the Prison Service, it became very clear that a good deal more attention needs to be paid to the regime and to the facilities for remand prisoners. I started with that, but I was not satisfied, even at the most basic level, with the women's accommodation.
I therefore pitched for resources to have the remand house refurbished. The request for additional resources to do that was accepted, and there has been a substantial investment of almost £2 million in the refurbishing of our remand unit. That is an exciting initiative, because the design of the building is very different from what exists at present. Uniquely, we met with the architects and designers to tell them what we felt remand prisoners needed, to talk about our philosophy and the way that we do things around here and to ask them to design a building fit for purpose. That is exactly what we have. The building is light and airy. It will, I hope, foster a real sense of community. Its rooms are available for the various kinds of activity that the remand prisoners will undertake.
We will also begin an initiative that will provide work for remand prisoners who want to work. There is no obligation on remand prisoners, but we want to offer them that facility. Quite a number of the women who come to us on remand have no resources and no money. They are provided not only with the opportunity to work in association, but with an opportunity to earn something. Remand resources are therefore important at Cornton Vale, and the remand prisoners are quite well catered for.
I would like to return to what Pauline McNeill was talking about. I should say right away that I have a bee in my bonnet: I believe that far too many people are in jail. I accept that serious offenders should be there, but I think that we lock up far too many people.
I do not want to draw you into areas which it is inappropriate for you to talk about, but I am interested in the scale of the problem, and in the number of prisoners who might be accommodated in a different way. My view is that fine defaulters should not be in jail at all. I feel strongly about that. Nor can l see much point in putting women in jail for prostitution, and I feel the same about a certain degree of shoplifting offences.
Those are the categories of offenders that we are talking about. There may be other categories, but I hope that you can see the idea in my mind. In a place such as Cornton Vale, at any one time, what percentage of inmates who have committed that kind of crime—or non-crime—might be accommodated in another way?
The numbers fluctuate. Some of the statistics for 1998, the last year for which we have official statistics, are helpful. A significant proportion of the prison's population is serving two years or less. Fine defaulters account for about 20 per cent of our annual admissions. That is a significant proportion of the prison population.
If those women were not imprisoned, would it free up a lot of space, allowing other things to be done?
Yes. If Cornton Vale contained only those women who represent a serious danger to the public, the number of inmates would be fewer, which would allow us to concentrate on the most needy cases.
Now for something completely different, as they say. Drugs is always a big issue for the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
Perhaps you should put that another way, Gordon.
I am sorry. I have been given anecdotal evidence that jails are awash with drugs. I spend a lot of my time in jails, one way or another. I have been told that Cornton Vale has a lot of drugs, not just so-called soft drugs, but hard drugs as well. What is the scale of the problem?
When I arrived, three and a half years ago, the mandatory drug testing random positive rate was 45 per cent. Last month, the rate was 12 per cent and has been as low as 9 per cent. When prisoners say that they can easily get their hands on drugs and claim that the place is awash with them, I am not convinced. However, there are drugs in prison.
There are drugs in Cornton Vale because the women smuggle them in by hiding them vaginally. We are not permitted to search body cavities and it is well known that people who are expecting to be convicted and sentenced to prison time come prepared. Women will hide drugs internally either for their own use or to sell to others. As the committee will have heard, drugs also enter the prison through visits. Without taking all kinds of draconian measures, it is enormously difficult to stop that happening. However, that is a much smaller source of drugs than women bringing them in internally. We even have anecdotal evidence that fine defaulters are paid in the community to come in with drugs to sell. It is a difficult problem.
However, we have reduced the rate of positive testing because we have become very skilled at intelligence gathering and dissemination. We prevent and find out about much drug use, although in some cases we do not know that the drugs are in the prison until we find a prisoner who is clearly under the influence.
Some members of our committee—perhaps not those who are here today—take the view that jail is the one place in which we should be able to stop people taking drugs. Is that almost impossible?
I would say so. At the moment we do not have the technology to detect whether someone is carrying drugs internally. Until such time as we have both the technology and the permission to carry out internal searches, it will not be possible to stop drugs coming in.
Would you, as a prison governor, want to be able to do that?
No.
I do not mean that facetiously. Do you think that having the drugs is the lesser evil?
There is no choice or, rather, it is Hobson's choice. There are serious dangers in having drugs in prison. I can give the committee an example of a woman who brought heroin into the prison by hiding it internally. She and her cellmate smoked the heroin, but they were not aware of its purity. Because they were long-standing drug addicts, they thought that they knew how much it was appropriate to smoke. It is possible to buy a couple of tenner bags on a street corner, one of which is pure and one of which is not. The women smoked the heroin, and the night shift officer, on hearing some noisy breathing, went into the cell to discover that one of the prisoners, who was asthmatic, was smoking pure heroin. She almost lost her life as a consequence. It is very difficult decision for me to have to make and for me to say—and, in a sense, tacitly accept—that this is the lesser evil.
In a prison such as Cornton Vale, are there programmes—methadone reduction programmes and so on—to get people off drugs? We are told that one of the dangers is that when people go into jail and cannot get drugs, their bodies become less immune. When they are released and take a tenner bag, which they had been able to take four months earlier, it kills them. The inability to get drugs in jail can be responsible for killing people once they are released. The problem is complex. What do you do, in terms of rehabilitation and so on, to get people off drugs?
We have a drug detox process, which takes about 28 days and is a humane way of reducing the number of women who are taking drugs. By and large, the same sort of protocol applies for everyone. These days, there is no question of people having to suffer physically and emotionally from drug withdrawal.
We have a close relationship with Turning Point Scotland in Glasgow. Turning Point's Cornton Vale project is called Turnaround. We manage women on the loop, as it were, and talk to each other a lot about through-care issues and so on. Turning Point's drugs workers work with the women individually and in groups, on drug education and harm reduction. A drugs worker from the local community comes in for 20 hours a week. Our medical officer is extremely skilled and experienced in dealing with drugs. We have a variety of different approaches. Our experience is that unless and until a woman is ready to address her drug problem, few interventions of any kind are likely to succeed.
Gordon Jackson has already touched on most of what I wanted to ask about in relation to drugs, so we can skip that.
In your introductory remarks, you mentioned your shock, on your return to Cornton Vale, at the type of prisoner whom you were meeting. How does that type of prisoner differ from the type whom you would expect to find in a men's prison? What are the main differences?
The main difference is probably the chronic nature of the problem. A male establishment such as Barlinnie, where I was deputy governor for a couple of years, has the same kinds of problems, but not to the same extent and not so chronically. I do not want to make sweeping generalisations about the differences in drug taking by male and by female prisoners, but there is a slightly different pattern. Women in Cornton Vale who take drugs tend to do so at the heavy end of the scale—their drugs of preference are the opiates and the benzodiazopines. They tend to take drugs in order to cope with their lives and they tend to take them either in isolation or in small groups. They are poly-drug abusers, whereas the men tend to take drugs more recreationally. That characterises the drug taking, although there are, of course, exceptions.
As women tend to be poly-drug abusers and tend to take drugs at the heavy end of the scale, the physical and mental effects are much more serious and more difficult to deal with. More than 80 per cent of the women in Cornton Vale are drug abusers; many are chronic poly-drug abusers of long standing. The difference is characterised by the chronic nature of the problem for women.
That is interesting. We have heard evidence that more women from the west of Scotland are being sentenced than from the east. Would you agree that that is the case?
Yes.
What reasons might there be for that, apart from, perhaps, the sentencing policy of the courts?
I do not know what the reasons might be, but most of the Cornton Vale prison population come from the west of Scotland. That has been the case for as long as I can remember. An interesting statistic on prostitutes—admittedly, the figures date back to 1995—comes from a commendable report called "Where is She Tonight", which focuses on street prostitution in Glasgow. It shows that, in one year, more than 700 cases of prostitution ended in custody in default of fines. The figures were something like six from Edinburgh, 16 from Aberdeen and 643 from Glasgow. Those figures are extraordinary.
It is a matter of record that the council in Edinburgh and the council in Glasgow treat prostitution differently. That difference will give rise to some of the disparities.
That is almost certainly the case
The statistic is significant, nevertheless. You talked about the number of petty offenders who find themselves in Cornton Vale. What is the recidivism rate among petty offenders? Do you see many of them semi-regularly? What proportion of the prison population do they make up?
I cannot give that figure at the moment, but I will find it out for you. A significant number of women return to Cornton Vale. They come back again and again until they address their addiction problem—there is usually a close relationship between their addiction and their criminality. As the principal female establishment in Scotland, our failures tend to be evident, which can be dispiriting.
You have given us details of 554 adult female fine default receptions by length of sentence. With the exception of 26 of those, the sentences were between seven and 14 days. You talked about ways in which people with drug abuse problems can be helped in prison, but is there anything that you can do to help those women if they are in prison for so short a time?
We think in terms of emergency aid. We deal with the most pressing problems that the woman has. She might be in a period of drug-induced psychosis, she might suffer from seizures or she might be unstable in a variety of ways. We tend to deal with the worst presenting problem, dust the woman down and make sure that she has a home to go to and a social work contact and that she is registered with a general practitioner before she leaves us. We do basic work like that but we cannot begin to address the notions of rehabilitation, intervention and so on. It would not be possible with such a rapid turnaround.
That rapid turnaround must have an enormously disruptive effect on the way in which you have to work in Cornton Vale and on the administration of the prison. Is that the case?
It is. There is a tremendous amount of administration involved, even when we take in a woman for one day, which often happens with fine defaulters. Each woman is assessed for the suicide prevention strategy and so on.
Our greatest concern is that the prison population is so great at the short-term end that resources are diverted from our work in tackling the problems of women who have longer sentences. The short-term end of the prison population is hugely demanding.
And constantly shifting.
Yes.
I am conscious that, both as an institution and as an agency, the prison can do only a certain number of things and that you have to work in partnership with other organisations. I see that you took a number of initiatives in response to Dr Loucks's research, such as establishing a community psychiatric nurse initiative and occupational therapy, bringing in a community drugs worker and having a rough sleeper housing officer in the prison. Can you provide us with more detail on those initiatives and of your links with other agencies, particularly the health service and the local authorities? How receptive did you find them to working in partnership with you to address specific problems?
There are many initiatives. In the summary of facts and figures, I have tried to give the committee a flavour of the main ones, but there is a lot going on. The community psychiatric nurse initiative has been taken in conjunction with Greater Glasgow Health Board, which runs a project for mentally disordered offenders. We, along with Barlinnie prison, are part of an experimental project that involves community psychiatric nurses coming to the prison, identifying women with mental problems and following them back out into the community. That is very good, because mentally disordered offenders are one of our most vulnerable groups. The project has made a good start and we hope to build on it across Scotland.
I have talked about Turning Point. We were given money for an occupational therapist, who deals with our most vulnerable and needy group, including the kind of women about whom I was speaking earlier—those with little or no concentration, poor coping skills and poor social skills, who would otherwise be very isolated from the rest of the community. The therapist works on a one-to-one basis.
Drugs workers come into the prison, along with representatives of many voluntary organisations. That helps to ventilate the establishment. A number of organisations working in the prison deal specifically and very skilfully with women. They include Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, Crew 2000, Hope and Relate.
We found local authorities and health boards to be very receptive to building up our range of initiatives. We have been quite assertive—almost aggressive—in the way in which we have gone out to establish partnerships, because we are aware that it is crucial for us to try to build bridges with the community, so that the women get support when they leave us. We have found that local authorities are first class at supporting us. Once they have understood the nature of the problem, that we are serious about dealing with it, and that we are capable and professional people, they have been happy to engage with us. We have had a number of successes, which are helping to move the process forward.
It is striking how many prisoners—male or female—suffer from a diagnosed mental health problem. Are there any plans to evaluate whether the initiatives that you take in conjunction with mental health services—particularly the CPN initiative—help to keep women out of prisons, or is the initiative designed purely to manage their medical condition?
We do both. When we introduce initiatives, we do not simply wait to find out whether they fly. An evaluation is built into the CPN initiative. I guess that it will be some time before we know whether the initiative is having an effect on recidivism but, once it has been up and running for a while, we will evaluate it to see whether it does. We do that for all our links with the community. If we find that some of our initiatives that seemed like a jolly good idea at the start are not delivering the goods, we will end them and build on others that are more successful.
Maureen, do you have a question?
I was going to ask about abuse, but my question has already been answered.
What steps are you taking for offenders who have children and what are you doing to keep families together? I am concerned that the effects of people being sent to prison extend beyond the offender to the whole family; I am deeply concerned about the effects on younger members of families. What do you do to keep people in touch and the family unit in some semblance of order so that there is something to go back to?
We have significantly increased the quality and quantity of visits offered. Three or so years ago, Cornton Vale offered the minimum amount of visits. That has now been improved dramatically; the injection of 12 probation staff has allowed us to create a specially dedicated visits group, which enables us to offer visits much more frequently than previously. That helps to maintain contact.
In common with many establishments across Scotland, we have family contact development officers. In addition, we have links with the Scottish Forum on Prisons and Families in Prisons, a group that tries to facilitate better contact with families on the outside. We encourage family contact development officers to be present at visit times so that families can approach us if there are issues that they want to discuss. We proactively encourage visitors and family members to talk to us about their friend or family member who is in custody and to let us know if they have any anxieties. We also encourage them to tell us the kind of information that they need to help them with visits.
We have a play area for children in the visits room. We are unique in the Prison Service in providing bonding visits, which allow mothers and children of up to 12 years of age to spend quality time together away from other visitors. We also have social work visits and family visits—a range of different kinds of visits to try to accommodate different needs.
All other things being equal, I am content to have babies in prison. It is not an ideal environment but, as long as the mother is capable of coping with the stresses and strains of having a small baby in prison, we accommodate them. We have two gorgeous babies in the prison at the moment.
Is there a case for saying that children are safer in prison, where prisoners are under the supervision and guidance of staff, than left to their own devices outside?
Do you mean babies?
Yes.
I think that, paradoxically, babies in Cornton Vale get a fabulous start in life. They have more mothers than you can shake a stick at. The quality of the environment is super. Fully qualified health visitors come in from the community and we have qualified midwives on the nursing staff. We also have parenting classes. Once the babies get slightly older, we put them out to a local nursery. The support that mother gets and the stimulation that baby gets are excellent.
First, I apologise to you, convener, to the committee and especially to Ms Donegan for being late. The clock in the office had stopped. I know that that is not a great excuse.
Is that the best that you could do?
It is the truth, sir. I really wanted to hear what Ms Donegan had to say, but I will read the Official Report afterwards.
A couple of things arise from what has been said. Ms Donegan said that very few of the prisoners are a danger to the public. What percentage of the women in Cornton Vale have to be in prison to protect the rest of us?
I do not think that it would appropriate for me to answer that.
Christine, I think that you are asking a question that is difficult for Kate Donegan to answer in her capacity as governor.
I appreciate that. In that case, my second question relates to what Roseanna said, which is partly what I thought. At Low Moss, too, there is a difficulty due to the high turnover. You have instructional staff, but I imagine that they have little chance of getting anywhere. To some extent you came to the point by talking about Turning Point Scotland and the other ancillary groups and intermediary links back into society. You may not be able to answer this question either, but if we could address three priorities in Cornton Vale and for women in prison in general, what would they be, not necessarily in order of priority?
I would love to see viable and credible alternatives to imprisonment for the kind of women that I described. Cornton Vale is neither a residential drug rehab unit nor a psychiatric hospital. Arguably, colleagues and others in the community are better able to deal with the complex problems that our women have. Viable alternatives to imprisonment should be considered; a pilot study should be carried out into whether halfway houses, or supported accommodation in the community, are viable. How much would that accommodation cost? Is it feasible? Would the public accept it? Would it be legitimate and credible in terms of sentencing? If Cornton Vale could concentrate on the knitting—in dealing with offenders who represent a danger to society—that would make life a great deal easier for us.
In other respects, Cornton Vale is well resourced. I would never say, "If only I had another £100,000 or some more staff, I could do great things." I am well resourced, and need nothing in that respect—which will probably induce great joy in my colleagues in the rest of Scotland when we fight for resources. I am content that I am well resourced.
What you have said is very clear. Many women at Cornton Vale are in the wrong place. They would be better off elsewhere and would be helped better elsewhere. That is not through any fault of your system, which is just not the system for them.
That seems sensible.
I still have one or two questions.
At the back of the report of Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, which we have considered, is a summary of recommendations that were made in 1998-99. One of them was:
"The Scottish Office should consult on how to ensure that by the year 2000, young women under 18 years of age are not held in prison establishments and on how and by when to achieve the same for males under 18."
The latter has nothing to do with you. The report remarked that the recommendation was agreed in principle for women, although it acknowledged that there were resource implications. Now that we are in 2000, can you tell the committee what progress has been made towards that target?
In respect of reducing the number of 16 to 18-year-olds?
To zero. The recommendation was that the Scottish Office should consult on how to ensure that, by 2000—which is now—young women under 18 were not held in prison establishments. Can you say how many under-18s are in Cornton Vale? You do not have to give a precise number.
We have 13.
How does that compare to the past year?
The number of 16 to 18-year-olds has been rising. When Dr Loucks conducted her research, she expected to find perhaps 12 to 14. In fact, during the period that she was examining, the number of 16 to 18-year-olds in prison establishments was 28—many more than expected. We have 13, which is very high. To date, 11 are convicted and two are untried.
So the target to have none by 2000 will not be achieved.
No.
You have said that the number appears to be rising. Can you say whether any progress is being made, in the longer term, towards a reduction?
Unless some alternative is found in the community, I cannot foresee any reduction. The number of young offenders in Cornton Vale has risen significantly since I have been there.
I was curious about what progress was being made on that recommendation, which I note was agreed in principle. In practice there are clearly difficulties.
You helpfully gave us the extract statistical data—the sheets of numbers that I have already used in the context of fine default. There is some interesting information right at the end, in what is called "contextual data" on sample prison populations per 100,000 by jurisdiction. I take it that those data represent an averaging out of male and female numbers.
We should be hugely grateful that we are not competing with Russia and the USA, which seem to be level-pegging in jailing as much of their population as possible. However, Scotland has markedly higher levels than many other countries have, although, in 1988, the level was not as high as it was in England and Wales. The figures that you have provided suggest that the number of women in custody has risen during the past 10 years by 31 per cent, whereas the increase among men has been considerably smaller.
Are you aware of what might be described as international best practice? Japan, for example, jails only 42 people per 100,000, so I dare say that the number of women jailed there is considerably smaller. Sweden jails 60 people per 100,000 and France 89. Australia, which people might not consider a hugely different culture from ours, still jails fewer people than Scotland. Do you have an idea of what some of those other countries are doing that we are not doing and could be doing?
I have been to a number of female establishments as a guest inspector. I went back into Holloway with David Ramsbotham after he had walked out following his first inspection. I have also been to Framingham in Massachusetts as a guest inspector. I have visited jails in Canada and have done a lot of research on female establishments in other countries.
Setting aside sentencing policy, I have not found the establishment that demonstrates all-round best practice. Each usually has a pocket of excellence in some area. Framingham's best feature was its health care; the women were screened through blood and urine tests for absolutely everything when they went into custody. I thought that that was an example of best practice. I did not find an establishment that did everything that would constitute best practice. However, I shall tell my director that you were interested and he might fund my globetrotting to examine other jurisdictions. There is excellence all over. My vision for Cornton Vale is that it could become a centre of excellence. The top slot for a female establishment has not been filled by any establishment that I can find.
The overall prison population figures for Sweden and France are considerably lower than they are for Scotland. You may not know the answer to this question, but are those figures lower because there is provision for alternatives? Why can those countries get away with jailing far fewer people when, I suspect, they are no more law abiding?
Those countries have different methods of dealing with people who offend. There are weekend prisons and other options that serve to make the prison population at any time seem less than it really is. However, I am afraid that I do not have the detailed information that would fully answer your question.
That is okay; I just hoped that you might have some idea.
Before I ask my final question, I want to ask about induction for prisoners. Clive Fairweather's report commended Inverness and one other prison for induction and the effect that he thought that it was beginning to have on the atmosphere and on people's ability to cope. However, his report did not mention induction at Cornton Vale; information on induction concentrated on the male intake rather than on the female intake. Although you have said that it takes about half a day to get the women into prison, the suggested induction procedures take time and allow people to understand what they can expect. What is Cornton Vale doing along such lines for women?
Very much the same as everyone else. Induction procedures are fairly sophisticated and comprehensive—more so for long-term prisoners because there is more time to go through the process, instead of simply telling the prisoner, "Today you do the induction; tomorrow you will do something else." Induction happens over a number of days for a variety of reasons, not the least of which—as Clive Fairweather pointed out in his previous report—is that women can take the induction on the first day and not remember it at the end of the week. That is linked to their feeling poorly and lacking concentration.
In Cornton Vale, we have individual care folders. If a woman comes back to the prison for a second or third time, we can take her folder off the shelf and start where we left off the previous time.
Is not the ability to track individuals though the system a relatively new development?
It has never been difficult for us to do that as women always come back to Cornton Vale. Part of our induction procedure is to pick up where we left off, if appropriate, and to build on that. You asked what we could do with short termers. We have devised some short modular programmes that a woman can pick up again if she comes back into prison. However, induction is quite comprehensive, and I am pleased that part of the process works very well. For example, remand prisoners are interviewed by a social worker within one working day. A variety of inputs, such as social workers, the chaplain and the uniformed staff, endeavour to ensure that we pick up all the issues that the prisoners might have.
Thanks. You might feel that you have already dealt with my final question in your response to Christine Grahame. When you mentioned centres of excellence, you said that the top slot has not yet been taken and that, ideally, you would like to put Cornton Vale in that position. If you had a magic wand, what would you do to make Cornton Vale an international centre of excellence?
I would make sure that all the initiatives that have been introduced had reached their full potential to allow the whole machine to swing into action and to be flexible enough to deal with each individual's needs. Furthermore, our assessment tools would all be present and evaluated. The programmes that we offer prisoners would all be accredited. We would not have simply a range of cosmetic interventions; they would be proven to have an effect on criminogenic behaviour and on women's needs. We would also have incredibly robust throughcare links so that we had strong links with the community and managed the whole very successfully. We do not have so many women offenders in Scotland that it is impossible to do that in a systematic and methodical way. Finally, as with IIP, we should get recognition from external professionals that what we are doing is effective and of very high quality. Then, I will be happy—or retired.
It is a process, a journey, a continuous effort to improve what we are doing and never to be satisfied with anything that we have done. Although some of our initiatives work quite well, we constantly revisit what we have done and what we are doing to make sure that nothing has lost its focus. The population's needs are changing all the time. From my experience, the population is more needy now than three years ago, and then I did not think that the situation could get much worse.
If there are no more questions, I thank you on behalf of the committee for agreeing to speak to us. As it is almost certain that the committee will want to visit Cornton Vale when we can fit it into our schedule—which is not always very easy to do—we will probably get back in touch with you about that.