Prisons
We move on to item 5 on the agenda, Scottish prisons. Two groups of members went separately to HM prison Low Moss and HM remand institution Lonriggend last Tuesday. I want to discuss what transpired during those visits, aiming to finish at around 11.30. Those of us who were not at one or other institution, or who were at neither, will be interested to hear the views of those who were. We will talk about Low Moss first, and then Longriggend.
Christine and I went to Low Moss. It was the most useful thing I have done in the committee since joining it. It was the convener's suggestion that we should look into prisons, and I now hold firmly to the view that we should continue to do so. I am not clear where we go from here, but I am clear that we should find space for that work.
We visited Low Moss because it is one of the prisons that are listed as having a high incidence of violence—Safeguarding Communities Reducing Offending had recommended that it should be closed, although I understand that Susan Matheson has now withdrawn that remark.
It was good to get an understanding of why a low-security prison has such a high level of violence—if you go there, it is obvious. Christine and I both found it quite shocking: the dormitories house 27 males who are mostly young, who very often sleep in bunk beds, have tiny lockers, have no personal stuff about the place, and feel no sense of identity. You could see why those conditions could lead to episodes of violence. We went into the dorms and chatted with some of the prisoners, and of course we got a list of complaints. We forgot ourselves for a minute and said that we would see what we could do. [Laughter.] I reverted to my trade union type.
The most interesting—I think for both of us—was being invited to Alba House, where prisoners can volunteer to come off drugs. The two of us, along with Fiona Groves and Andrew Mylne, sat with eight or nine prisoners and just chatted to them. That was the most enlightening experience for me; the men were very open about the difficulty they had faced in volunteering to go on the programme. They said that at Alba House they were able to share their feelings and emotions, and to talk to one another in a way they would never be able to in the normal prison environment. They explained that coming off drugs or alcohol on the 12-step programme was about training their minds about themselves, being positive about society and so on. It is sad that they stay there until they complete their sentences, then they leave. We might want to address the provision of support after they leave prison, which is inadequate. Not all of them were fixed up with somewhere to go; in essence, that would be a social work provision.
Those are the sorts of things I took away from the visit. A job needs to be done there. We discovered that the drug-taking environment is probably the most difficult problem in prisons.
I concur with everything Pauline said—except that when we asked the prisoners about their complaints and they started to address me, I said that Pauline was in the team with the money. They stopped speaking to me after that. [Laughter.]
The dorms had the type of metal beds that I remember from youth hostels way back at the turn of the century when I was young. The 27 men there are locked up from 9 o'clock at night. The dorms are absolutely bare, with no personal belongings because things get stolen by the others. The prisoners are in and out of the place, some for days and some for a few months; there is no core of prisoners in there for five or six months with whom any real remedial work could be done. That makes for great difficulties.
With its wee narrow corridors, the place is like an old army camp. When we started out it was a nice sunny day, which gave it a braver appearance than it might have on other days, although we ended up being drenched.
Like Pauline, I found that Alba House was not a cosy option. It operates on a self-referral basis. There are no papers or television. The prisoners talked openly with one other about their drug problems. They were not using tough-guy images and, as Pauline said, they could never have spoken in such a way in any other prison. However, those prisoners were only eight guys out of the hundreds who are out there.
There are problems for the prison governor because it is a low-security jail. The fence was put up before drugs were an issue. The result is that drugs can be thrown over. The governor said that he and his staff had spent three days just picking up packages that had been thrown over.
I was very impressed with the new governor, who seemed to be well aware of the problems and firm but humane. I was also impressed with the teacher in the classroom, who was a very robust lady who had been in Shotts, of all places, and thought that the prison officers and the young men at Low Moss were in much better condition than they were at Shotts. That was a change from the findings in the report, but it was published in March so things may have moved on since then. That was why it was important to see things for ourselves, against the background of the report.
The visit brought home to me the fact that drugs are the issue. Until we start dealing with the drug community outside and drug problems for youngsters, it will just be a continuous cycle. We cannot deal with these young men's problems in the time that they are there. Eight of them may be dealing with it themselves, but one had already returned to prison. He had gone back out to the community where he was back in the same situation and was targeted again for drugs. He ended up back at Low Moss.
The problem is not just the destruction of these men's own lives; they had families and children they were not seeing anymore. Whole families had been broken up.
The governor is looking to have four men to a cell. We also saw the solitary confinement cell, which was really awful. The governor wants to change it, too. It had white concrete walls and a maroon floor, with a raised concrete bedding area on which they put a mattress. It is known as the non-ligature area—an expression I had not heard before. There were three men in there at the time of our visit, but we did not want to see them; I am not being soft, but prison visits can be intrusive. Those young men were being punished, but the situation was brutalising. I could not see how it would turn things around.
I would like to tell you a funny story.
Oh please, no.
What story is that?
Christine and I were chatting to the guys in Alba House. I do not know the names of the guys involved, but one of them was coming off drugs for a second time. Christine was chatting to them about how many children they had and the impact that drugs had had on their families. This particular guy said that he had two nine-year-old girls and a two-year-old. Christine asked him whether the nine-year-olds were twins. He replied that he had had the girls by two different lassies.
I should add that I introduced the teacher to the prison governor, whom the teacher had never met. She had worked there for three months and the governor was a wee bit embarrassed. She said that she had seen his photograph and I told him that I thought that he should meet this wonderful woman.
I must say that I reassessed my views, having been to the house. I reassessed what I thought of the drugs problem and why such things happen. I also reassessed my opinion of the personnel who work in those places after meeting the teacher and some of the prison officers.
I can assure the committee that we were not not shown stuff. We were referred to the scrappy by the teacher. That is the worst possible job—it involves teasing bits of metal out of cabling and so on. For some of the young men in there, it is a show of bravado to do that job—they say that they have fallen so low that they can get no lower. It is seen as a badge of honour to be working in the scrappy, as opposed to doing worthwhile work.
There is a psychological turnaround that must be achieved for some of those men. To do that—as we know—we must examine what happened when they were much younger.
The visit was very useful.
Four of us went to Longriggend prison; when we arrived we split into two groups—Scott Barrie and I went off in one direction and Maureen Macmillan and Euan Robson went off in another. I will ask Scott to talk about what he and I participated in, and Maureen can tell us what she and Euan experienced and saw.
We saw the whole prison between the four of us, so that method worked out quite well.
Scott, will you describe the bit of Longriggend that we saw?
Through my previous employment, I have been to Longriggend on a number of occasions, and what struck me on revisiting it—and I think that all of us who visited would agree—was the poor state of the physical environment. It is, perhaps, no surprise that its closure has been announced, as it is in a quite dreadful condition.
Apart from seeing round the place and chatting to some of the young people who are on remand, Roseanna and I sat in on the case conference of someone who was being considered as a suicide risk.
The room in which we had to meet was grossly inadequate for the purpose. It was very small and there were a lot of people in it. There were bread vans delivering bread at the back of the office, which made so much noise that we could not hear what was going on. On the other side of the door was a busy corridor. We could hear what was being said there, so anyone there must have been able to hear what was being said in the meeting.
It was impossible to have a relatively confidential meeting. The staff appreciate that fully and they are trying their hardest to deal with it, but the environment at Longriggend makes that difficult.
The same issues came up that Pauline and Christine mentioned. Time and again, it came across that drug-related offences are the reason why many of those young people are on remand. The young man whose conference we attended was reputed to have had a £100-a-day heroin habit when he was on the outside. His addiction had not continued, but its implications had followed him into Longriggend. His family was breaking up, and his mother refused to visit him because he had stolen from her—that was contributing to the situation in which he found himself. That was, I think, his fourth time in Longriggend. He did not want to be there, but breaking his habit on the outside was impossible.
I felt incredibly sorry for several people, and for one in particular. If I put my social work hat on, I would argue that he should never have been in a young offenders institution. The young man in question clearly had learning difficulties and found himself in an environment that was grossly unsuitable for dealing with him.
You may agree, Roseanna: just in chatting to the young inmates, I would say that a number of them were just poor souls. They were not hardened criminals; they were not people who would necessarily have been thought to pose a huge risk, although some of them were in for serious offences, including murder—or awaiting trial for attempted murder.
I could rabbit on at great length.
I want to endorse what Scott said. I have visited prisons previously—and visited them in my previous professional existence. When one visits a prison and speaks to many of the inmates, it comes across that prison is not the place for them: wherever they ought to be cared for and whatever the custodial necessity for their situation, a prison is not helping matters. In the case of the individual whom Scott Barrie mentioned, it was clearly inappropriate. In that situation, when the young man was remanded, there was presumably nowhere else to send such a person. He had special needs, and was not somebody who could be assisted—if anybody can be—at Longriggend in present conditions.
The physical fabric of the building is appalling. The entire set-up is harsh in the sense that it is concrete and plastic and unpleasant. The cells are tiny and wholly unpleasant—not conducive to encouraging anybody to care for their own surroundings. Plaster is peeling off walls; mould is growing over windows. Those are appalling conditions for anybody to have to live in.
The HMI report commented adversely on the condition of the cells, and on the windows in particular. You had to see it: reading about it in the report was not a preparation for how awful and unhygienic they were.
The windows were black with mould, to the point where their existence was almost pointless. They might as well have been boarded over in some cases, because they let in so little light. The mould was not just in little bits round the window edge: it was right across them.
Such physical circumstances are not conducive to anybody addressing the prison issues that they should be addressing. I maintain some of the concerns that took us to Longriggend in the first place.
I echo the comments made about the governor at Low Moss. We were all extremely impressed with the governor at Longriggend, Rona Kite. She has not been there for long, but she was extremely good. She seemed to welcome any attention given to the situation at Longriggend. When we went in with the fixed notion that Longriggend was to close in April, she was surprised, because she had not been given a time scale for closure. From our discussion it was clear that whatever had been reported as the closure date was not so. Far from Longriggend closing in April, the time scale is likely to slip. Rona Kite was already talking about May or June. My guess is that it will slip even further. The concern is that while it remains open and while it is known that it will close, nothing will be done about the physical conditions.
Something else was highlighted by the individual whose case conference we sat in on: the effect of the isolation of the institution. That individual had many family problems. His mother had not been visiting because of the breakdown in the family relationship, caused by the thefts that had been brought on by his drug habit. Another reason was the distance that she had to travel. He was hopeful of getting a visit from her the day that we were there.
Those involved in the case conference were worried about the effect on the individual if his mum did not show up. He was relying on the fact that she was coming to visit him. Also, her visit was dependent on the fact that she had just been paid, so it was an optimum time for her to get out to a place such as Longriggend, which is extremely difficult to get to and requires a big commitment in time and money from people who do not have very much.
The remoteness of Longriggend contributed to the difficulties experienced by families travelling there, and the fact that people did not have frequent visits in turn contributed to their state of mind, causing enormous problems for handling a situation with an individual who was clearly quite damaged.
We were advised by the governor that 97 per cent of people admitted to Longriggend tested positive for one drug or another on arrival. That is not to say that 97 per cent are there because of drugs offences. That is not the case—often they are there for theft or whatever. It is also not true to say that 97 per cent are addicted to drugs. The young man made it quite clear that he found it easy enough to come off drugs when he was in the institution. The real problem occurred when he was released into the community. The people who sold him the drugs were on the doorstep, and he was back in circumstances in which it was extremely difficult for him to stay off drugs. There is not much in the way of support out in the community for somebody in his situation. It highlighted the need for residential rehabilitation.
I thought that prison authorities had begun to address that issue by linking up with local voluntary groups and that that was to be encouraged. It struck me afterwards, however, that that was all very well while people were still in Longriggend, but given that they would be leaving and spreading out across central Scotland, linking with a local group was of no value. Unless they were going to settle in Cumbernauld or Airdrie, that would be useless to them. The sheer complexity of trying to organise such a programme from within a closed institution makes it difficult, and it cannot be tackled in a prison environment because it is the societal environment that must be changed.
The appalling physical conditions of that institution are borne not just by the prisoners; they are appalling conditions in which to expect someone to work. I cannot imagine that being a prison officer in Longriggend is a particularly pleasant existence—they are as much affected by the conditions as the prisoners. The prison officers we met appeared to be committed to what they were doing, although Scott and I were in a certain part of the prison—we were visiting those who were thought to be at risk. A measure of concern and support was expressed by the officers.
On the very point of accommodation and the staff, the staff also felt that not enough recognition was given to what they were trying to do with totally inadequate facilities. Some of them felt that they were almost being blamed for conditions at Longriggend, whereas in fact—as Maureen and I saw—they were making a major effort to overcome some of the terrible structural problems with the buildings and the maintenance problems. They were doing a great deal with limited opportunity and resources. I pay tribute to them for the effort that they put into overcoming some of the problems with the physical environment.
Recreation areas had been carved out of corridors. A television stuck in a corridor with a few seats can now be called a recreation area. The prison officers are not to blame for that. What is to blame is years of neglect.
The prison officers were doing their best to raise morale among the prisoners. They pointed out one or two schemes to us. There is artwork by the prisoners around the football pitch. Adult prisoners had their recreation room decorated with portraits of Elvis Presley and others—he was the only one I recognised, because I am so old. They had done a good job, and I felt that the prison officers were very positive. One of them pointed out that he had been instrumental in getting duvets for the beds, rather than the old Army-type blankets that they had had. He was trying to make it more homely for the boys.
What appalled me was how young the boys were; they looked like the kids I was teaching six months ago. Euan and I noticed that especially when we went to the school, which was called a learning centre rather than a school, because some of the lads had had terrible experiences at school and it was the last thing with which they wanted to be associated. Attendance at the learning centre is voluntary, and between 20 and 30 boys had volunteered to attend lessons.
The two teachers were terrific, and the attitude in the classroom was very positive. Because the average length of stay is about 30 days, the boys do modules that fit into that short period. The courses are linked to the local college, and modules in computing, maths, English and one or two other subjects are available. The idea is that the boys can carry on those courses on their release, but in reality they tend to slip back into their old ways, as is the case with drug problems. Often, the only way that the boys will carry on is when they come back on remand at some future date. I spoke to a boy who was doing a computing module and was positive about using it when he got out because of family business connections, but he was probably the lucky one who had something to look forward to.
We also saw where the deportees were; it was the saddest place that I have ever visited. Some of the people had been there for months, and many of them spoke little or no English, although they were polite and pleasant. They seemed to have nothing much to do except play pool or watch television, and they did not know when they were going to be dealt with. Most of them were from the Indian sub-continent and a great deal of effort had gone into providing them with the food that they wanted and ensuring that their religious observances could easily be kept if they wanted to be religious. We were shown the shelves in their rooms on which they could keep the Koran, which has to be kept high up. I had not known about that requirement, but the prison officers had taken the time and trouble to find out how to treat people who had particular religious beliefs.
I had never been to a prison before and I was appalled at the physical conditions. I understand what Roseanna said about the windows; I wanted to get a scrubbing brush and some bleach and get started on doing something about it. However, I was very impressed by the staff. I thought that they were trying their best. If we cannot do something better for young offenders, God help us.
I think that we would all echo that sentiment. We have serious concerns about people who are in that position, and if we are going to turn them round, it must be done while they are still young. That is the point at which, if something can be achieved, it will have a long-lasting effect.
Scott and I sat in on a case conference with a young person who said that he had begun to feel a little better about himself, but that feeling manifested itself in him lying at night daydreaming about the house that he was going to have. He was beginning mentally to decorate the house for himself. That was regarded as a positive sign and initially, Scott and I saw it as such. However, we said to each other afterwards that, when he is released, he will not get a house. He is building his hopes up and, in turning his depression round, he is basing his faith on something that is highly unlikely to happen. When the reality of his life outside sets in, there is a danger that he might go straight back on to the drugs.
It is an extremely complex issue, and I do not think for one minute that we can do anything other than add our voices to the concern about how young offenders are dealt with in Scotland today. The way in which they are looked after does not give us much to be proud of.
The governor also highlighted the number of under-16s who are accommodated in that supposedly adult or young persons institution from time to time, although that was not the case when we visited. That gives me great cause for concern, and we should consider it when we discuss how to progress this area of work. This is not just about people aged over 16; it is about under-16s and the accommodation that is available for young people in trouble.
I understood from the prison staff that the young men are all categorised as category B prisoners when they enter the prison. One of the staff suggestions was that there should be a category B and a category C. The point was illustrated when someone who had been using drugs was in the same dining hall as a drug seller. The drug user was a non-violent poor soul, to use Scott's phrase, whereas the other individual said to prison officers that he could not wait to get out as he earned £400 a week from his activities.
I agree with the prison officers that it is not sensible that those prisoners should be in the same environment, as there was a marked difference between the two types of prisoner. That illustrates the problem of categorising all prisoners as B, although using both B and C as categories would raise accommodation issues.
I agree with Maureen that the saddest thing of the whole visit was to see the deportees—people who have committed no offence and who are locked up in entirely unsuitable accommodation. The prison officers were doing the best for them and making immense efforts, but Longriggend is entirely the wrong environment for those people, and it is a disgrace that they are held there and treated in that manner.
Yet Longriggend was considered to be far better than their previous accommodation at Greenock, which gives even greater cause for concern.
It does.
Returning to the chief inspector of prisons' report, I believe that there is no doubt that we need a national strategy for the young offender. The present approach is piecemeal, although people are trying to do something. Bearing in mind the victims of the prisoners' crimes—victims of burglaries and so on—I believe that it is in the interests of victims and potential victims that remedial work be done with these young men, rather than simply taking them in for six months and releasing them again. That is a complete waste of time for everyone, as well as a waste of lives. There must be investment in the prison structure.
As a postscript, I note that, because there are about 27 beds in a dorm, the governor tried to create a recreational area for the prisoners. It was okay—it was great compared with what was there before. However, only tiny moves were being made and they do not address the problems of why those young men are in prison, and why, when they are released, they will go back to prison again. I hope that we will address that in our report. In the long term, the community will save money by expending it in certain areas.
It is worth pointing out that the individual with whom Scott and I had most contact was on remand for the fourth time, as Scott said. We should remember that Longriggend is a remand prison, rather than one that deals with prisoners who have been sentenced. Although the individual had been in Longriggend on remand four times, he had never had a custodial sentence as a result of a trial. He was coming into Longriggend on remand, being tried and ending up with a disposal other than custody. I have no idea whether he has been found guilty before or whether he has been acquitted—there might have been fines or other disposals. When it comes to making a decision about who should be remanded in custody, I am not sure whether, in those circumstances, custody is particularly helpful or appropriate. He continues to be remanded and it is almost as if he is being punished before he is tried.
I want to close this part of our discussion and remit the issue of our consideration of the report of Her Majesty's inspector of prisons to future business of the committee. I want to consider how we should proceed with that area of general concern, which was useful for us to examine—I think that we are all agreed on that.
Before we move on to item 6, which will be held in private, there will be a detailed note on the visits by members to Longriggend and Low Moss. The clerks who accompanied each group are close to finalising the note. It was unfortunate that it was not available for today's meeting, but members will receive the note, which will be interesting.
I commend the clerks for all the work that has been done for today's meeting. It did not strike me until I received the papers that our decision to have a discussion meeting—as opposed to one that takes evidence—ironically puts most burden on the clerks. The meetings at which we hear evidence are not anything like as burdensome as meetings such as today's. The notes that have been supplied for each of the agenda items have been extremely helpful. I thank the clerks for their work for today's meeting as, without their background advice, there is no doubt that we would still be sitting here at this time tomorrow, trying to sort through some of the issues.
I close the formal part of the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
Before the end of the meeting, I want to put on record my apologies for failing to attend the visit to Low Moss. The night before the visit, I found out that Sarah Boyack was coming to Ayrshire to look at the A77. I made that decision on the spot, but I recognise the inconvenience that it caused everyone.
Thank you. Do you want to associate yourself with Phil's comments, Lyndsay?
I was in the same place.
The meeting continued in private.