Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2009 of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I remind all those present, including members, that mobile phones and BlackBerrys should be switched off completely, as they interfere with the sound system even when they are switched to silent.
Thank you.
Sue Brookes is also a former governor of Cornton Vale. Given that our witnesses will talk about posts that they are out of, or will be out of shortly, perhaps they have an opportunity to be even more candid than usual.
We could probably improve our information gathering about all of our offender population. Currently, we run an integrated case management process, which is a joint process that involves prison-based and community social workers. Assessments of offenders are undertaken at various stages of that process. However, one of the greatest difficulties, which affects female offenders in particular, is that the majority of the resource is targeted at those who are subject to statutory supervision—that is, those who are serving four years or more. It is difficult to obtain information on admission about people who are not subject to statutory supervision or to undertake realistic assessments with people who are serving very short periods of time.
My answer is not gender specific. Improvements could be made to the information that is gathered about both men and women. I have high hopes that the prospect of the medical care of prisoners becoming a national health service responsibility will significantly improve the information that is available to prisons when people enter them and to medical services in the community when people are released from prison. I know from the evidence that the committee has taken that there is a clear connection between prisoners' health—women prisoners' health, in particular—and their offending.
I asked my question specifically because the committee heard during the previous evidence session that Cornton Vale does not always track prisoners on release. Unless we know what happens when a person leaves prison, how can we assess whether anything that happened in prison—such as the extent to which they participated in rehabilitation programmes—had an impact on reoffending? Given the huge complexity of the problems that most individuals in Cornton Vale have, it seemed to the committee that it would be worth while to tease out that issue a little bit and to target where you think resources are being well spent and effective, and where there is a gap.
Andrew McLellan is right. There are issues to do with sharing information during transitions for male and female offenders, whether the person is entering or exiting prison. The movements that we are making with the Scottish Government towards having joint risk assessment tools, such as the stable and acute assessment tool, risk matrix 2000 and—eventually, I hope—the level of service case management inventory, or LSCMI, might help a bit with that. One of the issues for the committee will be the validity of those tools for female offenders as opposed to male offenders. I am not a risk assessment professional so I cannot talk about that, but there are certainly issues, in the same way that there are issues with programmes and interventions in ensuring that risk assessment tools are as valid for specific population groups as they are for adult male offenders. If we have common joint risk assessment tools across community and prison boundaries, there will be more opportunities for information to transfer back to the community.
Improvements should be relatively easy with throughcare, but we know that throughcare does not always exist. However, that is a different subject.
I welcome your explanation of the thinking behind the question and the committee's determination to focus not simply on what happens in prison, but on the key moment of release from prison. Many people come into prison in a mess and are released from it into a mess, which generates further mess within them.
How do overcrowding and short-term sentences impact on reoffending rates, specifically for female offenders? Does overcrowding have the same impact on female offenders as it has on male prisoners?
To explain that, I will need to say a little more about the background of the female offenders. I am keen to highlight the key part that their trauma and abuse plays in their offending behaviour and their pathways into offending. That is played out in the prison in all kinds of practical and pragmatic ways. For example, their relationship skills are damaged and they need a lot of staff support and time. The number of staff contacts in a hall in Cornton Vale will be noticeably higher than that in a male prison. We have in excess of 400 women in custody—there were nearly 420 this morning, with home detention curfew numbers on top of that. When such overcrowding takes place, the reality is that staff simply do not have time to spend with the women and they become much more involved with the broader systems and processes that deliver basic things such as medication and food.
Is there a specific difference in the impact of overcrowding on male and female offenders? You suggest that the impact on female offenders is greater.
I will give a practical example. In my time at Cornton Vale, we created in Ross house a specific day care environment for women who were acutely vulnerable and unwell, physically and mentally. In the facility, we had mental health nurse support, a sensory room, occupational therapy support and some day care activity. It is clear that the staff are having difficulty in sustaining some of those services. When the prison is running with 400 women in custody, the nursing resource must be directed towards the essentials of giving out medication and ensuring that people do not harm themselves. Sometimes, it is just not possible to deploy resource where we would like to do so.
You paint a fairly gloomy picture. I visited Cornton Vale when you were governor. It is worrying if overcrowding is making the situation worse. We will talk about alternatives to Cornton Vale later.
I share your confusion about the criminal identity of prostitution. In recent years, suggestions have been made about a move away from criminalising women to a recognition of the significant part that men play. We must also always recognise that there are male prostitutes as well as female ones.
Is there an overcrowding issue for prisoners on remand? We have heard in written evidence that toilet facilities for the over-21s and the under-21s are really quite barbaric. That hardly starts the prison experience—whether or not it continues—on an exemplary footing.
I could talk about toilet facilities in Cornton Vale all day, and I am glad that the committee is paying attention to that. Year after year, reports condemn the lack of access to toilet facilities 24 hours a day in certain areas for a small number of women. It is shameful that that has continued to be the case up till this year. I should, however, point out that most prisoners on remand in Cornton Vale are held in a hall with very good living conditions.
It was even suggested that some of the conditions in Cornton Vale were such that, were they to prevail in a male prison, the prisoners would be on the roof.
A range of issues is tied up in this. The first issue, from a governor's point of view, is that many of the buildings at Cornton Vale are quite old and not particularly fit for purpose, if only because they do not have good lines of sight. Without having very high staffing levels, it is quite difficult to supervise some of the vulnerable women.
Marlyn Glen has not yet had her question answered about prostitution being asked about on an offender's entry into prison, but abuse of any kind—domestic, violent or sexual—not being asked about. I would have thought that that was pretty basic.
I am not sure that that understanding is correct. Services are certainly available in Cornton Vale for women who have been abused. I suspect that it comes back to whether prisoners are serving a long or short period. When people join the induction process, they are generally asked whether they have any specific requirements. If they are serving a longer period and are subject to statutory supervision, and if we have more responsibilities regarding home leave, access to independent living units and a gradual transfer to the community, all those issues are likely to be researched, considered in depth and discussed with the woman. If they are serving only a short period, the most immediate needs are often to get someone to take care of their children, to get their methadone script sorted out and for them to have somewhere to live when they get out. It is simply not possible to resolve all those issues during a short period in custody.
I do not want the committee to lose sight of the centralising/localising issue. If Mrs Brookes is correct, and those three issues are the paramount questions for women who are serving short sentences, all three would be better answered closer to home rather than further from home. The Scottish Prison Service, and perhaps Mrs Brookes, has not quite addressed the point about the advantages of women being locally placed, rather than centralised. It is not only a question of having access to family; there is also a significant benefit to being in a small unit, and there might even be a gender equality issue in that regard. Men react badly to being in a very large body or unit, but women react even worse. In a small unit of 10, 12 or 20 people, they have more opportunity to be themselves and to be listened to.
You say "a small unit"—might you have several small units within a prison, or do you mean a separate unit of 12?
The experience of the past, which I am defending, was units of 12 people in other, larger prisons.
I have a couple of questions about the causes of crime. You might feel that that is rather a big subject for a few minutes this morning, but it is important to get some comment on that in relation to women, given your experience. We have had a lot of written and oral evidence on the subject. I cannot quote from all of it, but I will refer to a couple of bits of evidence. A couple of weeks ago, Dr Andrew Fraser said to us:
My view is that many women come into offending as a result of difficulties in their relationships. Much of that involves an experience or background of physical, mental or sexual abuse. Some of that is extreme and prolonged. That is not to say that the women should be treated only as victims. In my time at Cornton Vale, I tried very hard to help the staff to understand that the women there were adult women, with choices to make and responsibilities, both to themselves and to their families, and that treating them as victims, almost as children, was not helpful to them in addressing their reoffending and moving forward in their lives. In some respects, both those observations are correct.
You hardly ever meet a prisoner who is not poor, a woman prisoner who is not an addict, a woman prisoner who is not afraid, or a prisoner who has been loved and cherished. Some of those factors are non-gender specific, but two of them are—addiction levels are higher among women prisoners than among male prisoners, and women prisoners are more likely to be afraid.
Previous witnesses have suggested that some people stop offending not because of intervention by the criminal justice system but simply because they are getting older or whatever. It has also been suggested, however, that some people never change their offending behaviour—I would not like to think that that is the case, of course. Will you comment on those two scenarios and say what implications each of them might have for public policy?
I suspect that the most important issue for women in relation to reducing or preventing reoffending involves repairing relationship damage. In throughcare, it seems to be important for them to be able to develop a consistent and trusting relationship with the service—ideally with one person who can transcend the boundaries between community and prison. It is important that they get the opportunity before they are released to meet people from organisations such as Routes Out of Prison. I suspect that the reason why that organisation and the 218 centre in Glasgow work quite well is that they create opportunities for people to develop trusting and supportive relationships.
Could you repeat the question, Malcolm?
It has been suggested to the committee that some people stop offending not because of intervention by the criminal justice system but simply because they grow out of it. However, more than one person has suggested that some people never change their offending behaviour. To what extent do you think that those scenarios ring true, and what do you think the implications of each of them might be for public policy?
The sad reality is that a lot of people do not commit crimes as old people because they die before they get old. People who have a prison background tend to die much younger than other people. That is not just because they have been in prison, of course; there is a complex of issues. However, that significantly affects the average age of offending.
A lot of the evidence that we have received so far has questioned the purpose and effectiveness of short-term prison sentences in view of family disruption and separation from children, in particular for female offenders. There is a widespread view—in the population, if not in the media—that such short-term sentences do not always take into account the harm that offenders have caused to other individuals or communities. Do you have a view on that matter?
My view is that prison is an expensive option and that it should therefore be reserved for people who need to be there, not people who are ill and vulnerable. Andrew McLellan mentioned the level of physical illness that exists in the prison population. I have never come across so many people who are acutely physically unwell as I did in Cornton Vale. We received women in wheelchairs and women who were terminally ill. Prison is not a helpful place for such people, who could not possibly have posed a risk to the general population in that kind of condition.
Do you feel that people in society think that the only way to remedy a situation involving someone who has committed a crime is through the imposition of a prison sentence? If so, do we need to educate people to show them that that might not be the best route to go down?
It might be a media problem. Problems are portrayed in a variety of ways and, if you ask a member of the public, "Do you want this amount of money to be spent on keeping someone in prison for a couple of weeks, or would you rather that it went into health care and education for your children?" I suspect that they would go for the latter option—I know that I would.
I welcome the discussion about restorative justice. There is no doubt that the primary concern of most decent people is the needs of victims, and that concern is hardly met by our present criminal justice system. Whenever a system is described that in some sense takes account of the needs of the victim—whether that victim is an individual or a community—it always engages the sympathy and support of people. I hope that there will be an emphasis on restorative justice in the future.
I want to tease out the debate on short-term sentences given that one of the most shocking pieces of evidence the committee heard was that some women willingly seek to go to prison for a short sentence as respite because they get help there and time to themselves. To what extent are they contributing to the short-sentence population because they see value in prison for those reasons? Can anything be done in a short-term sentence—anything up to six months in recent thinking—to enable someone to identify at least on the surface what the issues are and at the very least to signpost to them some help that is available when they leave prison?
We certainly offer services to women who are in prison for short periods of time. Female offenders have openly said to me that they requested in court to come to Cornton Vale and that, had they not done so, their addictions would probably have killed them.
Thank you—that is helpful.
Not only have I met prisoners who wanted to be in Cornton Vale and so committed crimes, I have met prisoners who were determined to prolong the judicial process as much as possible, knowing that at the end they would be found not guilty but that being on remand was safer. We spoke earlier about the need for supervision in the community: there might be a gender specific issue but sometimes women need protection in the community more than supervision.
On average, what percentage of women in Cornton Vale have literacy and numeracy difficulties?
I cannot remember the exact percentage, nor can I remember whether it is significantly different from the male population, but I have no doubt that we can provide those statistics.
That would be very helpful.
Will you say more about non-custodial versus custodial disposals? That debate is taking place at the moment. Do you think that it is more effective to deal with such disposals in the community? If you have supporting evidence to back up what you say, will you offer it to the committee? From some remarks that Sue Brookes made earlier, I have an inclination as to what she thinks.
I particularly like the 218 centre in Glasgow. I do not know whether you have had the opportunity to visit it, but it is a fantastic facility, although I do not know if there is real evidence to show that it has reduced prison numbers overall.
Three factors skew the argument. One is the determination of those who oppose a greater use of community sentences to pretend that they would be used for people who commit crimes of violence. Very few people think that people who have committed serious violent crimes should not be in prison.
Has anybody looked at the on-going impact on the wider community—such as the victims, as you mentioned—and at whether the community is ready to accept the principle of more community disposals?
I do not know about more community disposals; it would help if there was perhaps more consistency. I will try to explain that as best I can. In the service level framework for prisons, there is a one-page document that refers to the core plus model and sets out the different sentence lengths for offenders and the minimum standard of service provision that they could reasonably expect. There is an adaptation of that for women, because during my time at Cornton Vale I insisted that we add some things to it that were specific to female offenders.
Yes. That is helpful. My final question will put both witnesses on the spot. I would like it if everything that you mentioned could be done. Realistically, though, on what would it be most effective to target our resources in order to reduce reoffending?
I would target them on pre-school education, parenting, young children and helping society understand the impact of abuse on offending. My mother was an infant teacher, and she said that, when they walked into reception class, she could tell which children would, sadly, end up in prison—it can be recognised that early in life.
Not for the first time, Mrs Brookes is right. There is startling evidence that children who are deprived of love and care, particularly in families that are the second or third generation to have been so deprived, never get over that. It is therefore key to make interventions as early as possible in children's lives.
There seems to be consensus here, which should be good but is in fact depressing. If there is consensus about how good the 218 centre is, why do we not have another one or even plans for another one? We seem to agree that prisons are harmful for women offenders who are not a danger to society. Mrs Brookes suggested replicating Glasgow's 218 centre in Edinburgh and—I am just checking whether I have got this right—perhaps using the same kind of ideas and practices in other areas, too. I believe that it would be right to do that, but I am still concerned about whether an evaluation of the 218 centre can prove that it is significantly better at preventing women from reoffending. There seems to be a statistical vacuum in that respect.
The 218 centre is being evaluated, but it takes a long time to do longitudinal research. From what I have seen of the initial evaluation, the women say that the centre helps them. We will need to look at statistical data to ascertain whether that has affected the spread of Cornton Vale's population, but anecdotally it seems that a smaller proportion is coming from the Glasgow area, which perhaps indicates how effective the 218 centre is being. As Andrew McLellan said, sending to prison women who are not a danger to society is unhelpful and a waste of money. From my point of view, that is the bottom line: society should spend its money more wisely than that.
I think that we agree, too, that we need proper funding for community placements and that there are insufficient placements for women.
I thought that the Turning Point people gave the committee good, persuasive evidence about the effectiveness of the 218 project. In a world in which people like to be cynical and critical, I have never heard anybody say, "The 218 project is rubbish." The reason why we do not have more centres is that, in the short term, they are an expensive way of dealing with people—but how expensive is reoffending?
One argument that I have heard advanced relates to community support—people say that the 218 project cannot be replicated because there are not enough women in other areas to make it viable. I do not see why a 218 centre should be restricted to women who offend. If we had centres for women in the community who need support, whether or not they have offended, we might do a lot of preventive work, both for women as individuals and for families. If centres were not limited to offenders but were community resources more generally, we might reduce the stigma that is associated with women approaching and accessing services. CJAs could pursue that option.
The 218 centre is used in cases in which everything else has failed and for offenders who have been in and out of prison—the revolving-door syndrome has been mentioned. The centre seems to work but, as Dr McLellan said, people know that they must participate in the programmes. Instead of mixing things up, should we not look at 218 on its merits for the section of prisoners that I have described? Should we not consider establishing some other kind of secure unit for people who face a prison sentence for the first time? Such units exist in other countries. I would like to tease out what facilities are missing in the community. I am referring not to community sentences but to secure accommodation other than the 218 centre. Is there a gap?
If women are such a significant risk to society that they require secure accommodation, an appropriately designed prison is probably the right place for them.
I am referring to women who are not necessarily a risk to society but are a risk to themselves. As Dr McLellan said, everyone agrees that prison is the appropriate place for people who are a risk to society.
There are different ways of addressing the issue. Earlier I spoke about mentoring support. We could have properly structured and supported bail hostels that are specific to the needs of women but not as intensive as the 218 centre. There are other opportunities. We no longer have a big secure facility in Carstairs, but we have a lot of additional hospital-type provision that is not as secure and could be used differently if women require it. One of my main concerns is that the more secure units we build, the more we will fill. That is one issue for Cornton Vale—the more people think that it is a place of safety where women can get services, the more women we will get there. History and tradition tend to show that that is why the numbers are climbing.
I am more supportive of your suggestion than Mrs Brookes is—for two reasons, both of which were mentioned earlier. First, many women in prison do not need high security. The last thing that they will do is run away—prison is where they want to be—so they do not need all the hugely expensive apparatus that goes into a prison. Secondly, I have tried to suggest to the committee more than once that it is beneficial in itself to people for them to live in a small unit.
I want to pursue that point. We do not want to go back to having small units that are not properly resourced, but I am interested in the comments about relationship building being key and it being really important for women to have a relationship with one person. If we do that at Cornton Vale, what happens when the women go out to the 32 local authorities, where there is no such relationship? Would having smaller units spread around Scotland be a good way of addressing the issue?
We will get that, in part, when we start to build new prisons such as Grampian, where there will be a facility for female offenders. Clearly, the number of women held there will be smaller; it will not be a small unit in the community, but the women will be based in the north and will have access to CJAs in the area.
There are questions about the prison's location. It is in the north, but it is in the extreme north-east. That is a long distance even for someone from Dundee to travel.
We can probably disperse women around the system more generally. It is unlikely that we will be able to disperse them in very small numbers in every prison because they require particular services. It may be that options such as 218, which puts more people in a community setting, are a better way of providing a small unit experience or environment.
Do you wish to add anything, Dr McLellan?
I hope that I have made my support for the dispersal of small units as clear as possible.
We have heard quite a lot about mental health this morning. Last week, Dr Andrew Fraser, who talked at great length about the matter, said:
It certainly would be better for them to be elsewhere. The Prison Reform Trust is absolutely right to say:
This is indeed a real issue for the committee. After all, the report that I published last year on mental illness in Scotland's prisons highlighted that twice as many female prisoners as male prisoners pro rata suffer severe and enduring illness.
Let us move on to the issue of speech and language therapy. This is the third time that I have quoted Dr Fraser—he will wonder what is happening. He said:
I agree with Dr Fraser that speech and language therapy would be a great thing to have, but so would lots of other things. In a prison of 400 women, there are other basic priorities.
Have you dealt with the matter in any of your reports, Dr McLellan?
Mrs Brookes is right to draw attention to issues for people who come into the prison. However, there are two gender-specific issues about speech therapy that make me glad—and, I hope, make you glad—that the Scottish Prison Service wants to make it a greater priority. The first is to do with confidence. Being able to express oneself does something for one's self-confidence, and if there is one quality that women in Cornton Vale lack in huge amounts it is self-confidence. The second issue is about being listened to. These are women whom, all their lives, no one has listened to. If they cannot express themselves, no one will ever listen to them. Those issues make speech improvement important for these particular women.
I have a question that is related to what Dr McLellan has just said. I do not know what proportion of prisoners are deaf or how frequently deafness has to be dealt with at Cornton Vale. Is there any provision for people with deafness or limited hearing to maintain everyday communication? For example, are any staff members trained in British Sign Language? What is done to ensure that prisoners' difficult time in prison is not made worse by the fact that they are limited in their everyday communication with other people?
There were no specifically trained staff at Cornton Vale in my time, although there may be now. I am not up to date with that area. To be honest, in my time we did not have a lot of prisoners who were so hearing impaired that they faced real difficulties. The more extreme difficulties tended to be faced by those with physical illnesses that had to be dealt with. We certainly had interpretation and understanding issues in relation to people from ethnic minorities. At the time, we had a high proportion of women from other jurisdictions, who had usually been involved in drug trafficking of some nature. We had interpretation facilities for them, but we could probably do a lot more.
Is the balance correct between programmes that are aimed at getting women back into employment and those that are aimed at developing life skills, such as cooking skills, which help women to deal with a chaotic lifestyle and give them confidence?
While men on release are not likely to seek employment, women are even less likely to do so. I wish I was persuaded, as you are, convener, that work programmes in prison are designed specifically to prepare people for employment, but I am not persuaded that they are always as useful as that. However, I pay tribute to one programme in Cornton Vale that we commented on recently: the hairdressing programme, which specifically prepares people for release. I would welcome a greater emphasis on preparation and training that does not make people feel that they are failures yet again. Much of their experience of school will have been of being unable to do something, and much of their experience of work programmes might be the same. The convener identifies things that women, and all people, have to do, such as cooking, budgeting and shopping. I am always clear that the more programmes that we have on such issues, the better.
Should the importance of the parenting role and self-esteem in prison be underlined? Surely there can be no greater role than being a parent, and mothers have a key role.
Parenting services are provided in Cornton Vale. It has three family contact development officers, which is a significantly greater number than in any other prison in Scotland. The prison runs parenting programmes, although not as many as we might like. When I was there, we developed a family centre in the prison with chaplaincy support, to try to engage families more in individuals' sentence management. There is a range of measures.
And literacy and language skills.
Yes, we could build literacy skills into it, too.
That is helpful. Thank you.
I have a specific question on drugs in prison, which has been mentioned a couple of times. We have received evidence from Cornton Vale that 71 per cent of prisoners come in with illegal drugs in their system. A recent study revealed that 32 per cent of prisoners tested positive on leaving prison. However, we were told that
Women do not respond particularly well to disciplinary interventions. When I was the governor, we spent quite a lot of time trying to take addiction issues out of what we called the orderly room—the prison's disciplinary system—and into what we called the care orderly room, which was much more about bringing the addiction expertise in the prison together with the women to talk about why they were still taking drugs. The aim was to discover the issues around that, to find out how we could help them to come off drugs and to establish what information they needed to support them.
I agree with everything that Mrs Brookes has said. People who have easy recipes for ending Scotland's drug addiction do not understand how powerful and compulsive addiction is. A tighter regime in visiting rooms would perhaps reduce the amount of drugs that come in through visits, but that is only one way in which drugs come into prisons. Mrs Brookes is absolutely right to say that women bring drugs in inside their bodies. That is a key way in which drugs get into Cornton Vale, in particular.
That was helpful. Thank you very much.
What part do mobile phones in Cornton Vale play in making drugs available there?
I do not know the recent statistics. For obvious reasons, a range of intelligence and security procedures are employed to ensure that mobile phones and drugs do not come into prisons, but I do not think that I should give direct evidence on that today. However, those procedures are employed in Cornton Vale in the same way that they are employed in adult male establishments to reduce the possibility of mobile phones and drugs coming in.
Are you aware of the problem, Dr McLellan?
I certainly am, but I am not aware that there has been more of a problem in Cornton Vale than in other prisons.
If we do not have a stricter regime to deal with drug abuse and the availability of drugs in prison, might someone go into Cornton Vale drug free and came out as an addict? That would be an absolute travesty.
That argument is often used. One of the difficulties is that many women who go to prison have an intensive drug habit—more than 90 per cent of women who go to prison do so because of a drug-related issue. Their offending is often drug related, and that cannot be stopped overnight. Cornton Vale is not divorced from the outside community. There is only one fence around it. Women can take drugs into it in all kinds of ways, and we employ all kinds of ways to try to prevent them from doing so. We give them education and offer them programmes, and we have all kinds of security measures, but drug use will never be prevented absolutely, and it is a mistake to try to do so. We should invest more in supporting women with drug problems in the community, so that they do not need to go to prison in the first place.
Is the ultimate aim for the women to be drug free?
Yes, but the best that many women can attain in their lives is some form of stability. That can often be achieved by being on methadone for long periods of time, which enables them to function perfectly and look after their children. However, in my experience, it is not possible for some women ultimately to become drug free.
Dr McLellan, I refer to the findings of your various reports and inspections. What more could Cornton Vale do to prevent reoffending? To what extent have Scottish prisons acted on your suggestions and recommendations? If they have not done so, why have they not done so?
I had hoped that I would have an opportunity to say to the committee that the number 1 gender-specific issue relating to the imprisonment of women is the lot of women under 21 in Cornton Vale. Compared with men under 21, those women are significantly disadvantaged. Earlier, we discussed where the emphasis should be. If the emphasis is on early intervention, it should apply particularly to those in prison who are under 21.
We need to place a lot of emphasis on young adults. The distribution of young adults in Cornton Vale has changed over the years. In my time, they were accommodated in Skye house on their own. When I say "on their own", I mean that they were on their own at night time, in their own accommodation block. However, they mixed with adult women during the day. At the minute, the young adults are distributed into two other blocks, Bruce and Younger. They are in separate sections of those blocks, although adult prisoners are also accommodated in them.
Marlyn Glen complained earlier that we were agreeing too much. Sue Brookes and I do not agree on this point. Sue has to take account of the fact that it is not normal to compel young people to mix with adult criminals. She has to ask why what is right for young men is not right for young women.
That is interesting. Sue Brookes argues that young men should also have some mixing with adult male prisoners.
They do, in some establishments. The issue is perhaps a slightly different one. Perhaps it is partly to do with the design of Cornton Vale, but there is a relatively small number of young adults there—there are about 30 now, compared with 50 during my time—and there are practical difficulties with holding them in the one establishment and giving them equal access to services if some level of mixing is not allowed. Perhaps the issue requires pragmatism. I am trying to reflect the views of some of the young adults as they were expressed to me.
The situation is worse than that. These are not simply young women who have been convicted of crimes; they are also young women who are on remand. The environment of Cornton Vale compels them to mix with convicted adults.
The evidence that we have just heard leads on to the final issue.
Remarkably enough, you mentioned design, and here we are. In your experience, to what extent are prison design, prison building programmes and the movement of offenders between institutions, for example, based on the specific needs of male and female offenders as opposed to, say, economic factors? What are the main differences that you have observed in the treatment and conditions of male and female offenders?
I have made my views clear about the movement of women, which has been entirely in one direction, and has been an unhealthy movement from various prisons in different parts of Scotland to Cornton Vale.
I have a quick follow-up, before Mrs Brookes comes in—
I am afraid that we have gone very much over time. It has been an interesting session—some of the evidence has been superb. If you would like to send us any more information, we would very much like to have it. I thank you both for your evidence, which I know committee members have found extremely worth while.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
It is my pleasure to welcome our second panel of witnesses: Provost Pat Reid, who is from Cornton Vale over-21s visiting committee; Jim Scott, who is the chairman of Cornton Vale under-21s visiting committee; Dr Nancy Loucks, who is the chief executive of Families Outside; and Dr Willie Black, who is a consultant forensic psychiatrist with the forensic network. I understand that Dr Black will also be able to answer committee members' questions on the effectiveness of the support that is available for female ex-offenders as well as for those in the prison system.
Basically, what I said is what is happening. We had a good relationship with Phoenix Futures before new throughcare cases were referred direct to local organisations outside. Young offenders are a different breed from adult offenders: they are not inclined to want to go to things—if that makes sense—and we almost have to persuade them to go. If we say to a young offender that we would like her to go to drugs throughcare, she will say that she cannot be bothered to go, whereas as an adult may take the suggestion on board and go. That is perhaps part of the problem, and it ties in with what I said in a previous submission, which is that the young ones really do not want to know. There are two different classes in that respect: the over-21s and the under-21s have different approaches.
I agree. There are marked differences in attitudes towards taking part in programmes. It may be that, the older one gets, the more cynical one gets; I am not sure. Perhaps by the time one is of a certain age, one is so bound to one's way of life that it is difficult to change and one goes on drugs courses simply to fill up time. As Dr McLellan said, life in prison can be full of moments of inactivity, and the older prisoner probably goes to such groups simply to do something other than lie in her cell, to be honest.
Is there a resource problem, or is it purely a matter of the offender's attitude?
There is a resource problem. The final question to the previous witnesses was about increased supervision for drugs activity. That has been instituted in Cornton Vale in recent weeks, but one result is that officers are no longer available to carry out other, perhaps more fruitful, duties. There is a finite staff resource so, if the staff are watching the prisoners more than they used to, they are not available for other purposes.
If there were unlimited resources, what changes to the way in which the criminal justice system deals with young offenders would have the greatest impact?
We must have separate accommodation for the under-21s. The chief inspector reported on young offenders in January this year, and we gave him the bones of that report in our evidence to him. In fact, he took on board most of what we said.
You are talking about life skills.
Yes. We are very short of life skills programmes for the young ones.
Oh, to have infinite resources. That is everyone's dream, even if we know that it is not possible. If we had more resources, we would put far more money into early intervention, as the two witnesses on the first panel said.
Wider issues also arise—I am thinking of the earlier question on throughcare. The programmes that seem to be effective in engaging people in throughcare are the programmes that introduce people to an outside worker before they are released, so that they know the person they are going to be meeting and working with.
Is it part of the problem that 32 local authorities can potentially be involved?
It is a big part of the problem, but we also have to remember that many support services—especially ones that are designed specifically for women—simply do not exist in many places.
It is unfortunate that people who need basic life skills have to acquire them in prison. The fact that they are in prison in the first place is a major failure of the system.
My question is for Dr Loucks. In your submission, you mention an urgent problem—the lack of visitor facilities at Cornton Vale and the impact that that has on family contact and, thereafter, on reoffending rates. Will you tell us about that impact and explain why it seems to have such a devastating effect on family contact and reoffending?
In general, almost half of prisoners lose contact with their family simply because they are in prison. Transport, travel, cost and convenience difficulties can arise, and if visitors have a bad experience once they get to the prison, it might prevent them from maintaining contact.
I am shocked that, although Cornton Vale opened in the 1970s, it has no adequate visitor centre. Are we surprised that people want to visit family members in prison? I am appalled that such a facility has not been developed in the past 30 years.
That loss of contact can be sustained—that is a difficulty. People have a better chance of resettlement after release if they have family contact, because they will have a place to stay and social support, and will be more likely to have financial support—those are some of the reasons why reoffending is reduced when family contact is maintained, particularly during and after custody. It is difficult to know how easily such contact can be re-established once it is lost. We aim to ensure that such contact is not lost, if it is in the best interests of the family and the prisoner.
As a new member of the committee, may I ask whether the committee is considering improvements to the visitor area at Cornton Vale?
We are examining whatever we can do to improve the prison experience and help to reduce reoffending. All such issues will be discussed. That is one of many issues, which we thank you for raising.
Good—thanks.
A building at Cornton Vale used to house a cafeteria called Annie's, which closed. It is now used as a training centre, which is also to be closed. A building at Glenochil is to be flattened—it is to be pulled down—and nothing will be put in its place. That building is old, but it is capable of being economically refurbished to serve as a visiting centre—the same applies at Cornton Vale. However, finance is not being made available for that to happen. As Dr Loucks says, it is an issue that families travel from all over the place to visit the national centre and cannot even get a cup of coffee when they arrive. That is not right.
The Scottish Prison Service is aware of such issues and has established a national children and families development group to consider visiting and family contact. That group has discussed visitor centres. The Prison Service is more interested in having services for families within the main prison, but when such provision is not possible because of the building's structure, as at Cornton Vale, it is willing to discuss options such as visitor centres. The building outside Cornton Vale that Jim Scott mentioned has been discussed as a possible visitor centre, but that option has not been developed yet.
My question is mainly for Dr Loucks. Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People has asked for more attention to be paid to how children are affected by the imprisonment of women. What are the most significant barriers to considering the impact on children when women are sentenced?
No structure is in place for that to happen, other than through social inquiry reports, which are supposed to take that impact into account. However, the emphasis in social inquiry reports is on the person who has just been convicted, rather than the family. We would like a separate piece of work to be done—a child or family impact assessment, as Kathleen Marshall's report on the children of prisoners recommended. We have an intern from Portugal who is looking into how that could be done, who would conduct such assessments, how the assessments would be used, what their purpose would be and whether judges would take them into account. We hope to finish that work in the next few months.
That sounds good.
We mention that because of research in the United States on family addiction programmes. Rather than focusing work purely on the person with the substance misuse issue, such programmes involve the entire family, because the family usually have to care for that person while they deal with their addiction. The research is finding that, when the entire family is involved in supporting the individual through the process, not only does the family know what to do in the event of overdose or relapse but the individual is more willing, or more likely, to engage with the service and complete the programme. The success rates are about 80 per cent, in comparison with the much lower rates in more conventional addiction programmes.
We have heard quite a lot of evidence suggesting that there is difficulty with communication between the Scottish Prison Service and the national health service and that there are delays in getting information on addiction services and in getting basic treatment, such as for kidney problems. Do you share the concerns about the communication problem? Do you think that the problem exists? If so, how would you improve the situation?
There is a problem, partly because Cornton Vale provides a national service, so we potentially have to deal with every doctor in Scotland. The position in male prisons is different, because, by and large, men go to their local prison for a short sentence, so they have good links with local services. As well as working at the state hospital, I work in Lanarkshire. If I have a patient in Cornton Vale who is from Lanarkshire, I know how to get to the relevant computer systems and I can make a phone call to my secretary to get any background information that I need. If I am dealing with someone from a health board area with which I am not familiar, the situation is quite different.
Why would they not provide information?
I do not know. It is unfortunate. Prisoner patients are a rather excluded group who are not necessarily prioritised. Also, colleagues are busy elsewhere. Sometimes the legal requirements and data protection procedures and so on can slow things down a wee bit. However, it is unfortunate that some requests for information go unheeded. The system works well when we are dealing with people who have had contact with the services covered by the forensic network, but it would be fair to say that it provides services only for the most ill and most risky mentally disordered female offenders. The majority do not come within its ambit.
Can you think of any way to improve the situation? From every possible angle, it sounds rather bad.
We are talking about people who know when they are going to be leaving prison. If it was possible to find some way of allocating accommodation well in advance of their leaving, that would make quite a big difference. However, if it was done only in the last few days before they left, that would be no use to me, because in that space of time I cannot identify the community health team or general practitioner who might be involved.
Could community justice authorities look at that? Are there representatives from health boards on community justice authorities?
I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that.
That is a question for the community justice authorities.
Given the demands on its resources, what can the national health service realistically do to ensure greater engagement with female offenders and ex-offenders? Is it realistic to expect NHS staff to take a more lenient view if an ex-offender continually fails to keep appointments? We heard evidence that some women were concerned that if they missed one or two appointments they would find themselves knocked off the register.
It would be desirable if female ex-offenders were given more leeway, but the reality is that most services are very stretched as it is and they usually have fairly stringent non-attendance rules, which are applied across the board. The people with whom we deal fall foul of them more often than others.
It occurs to me that people with drug addictions—even if they have not offended—must be not only more in need of help than many other people, but more likely to fall foul of the rules because they have more irregular lifestyles.
Yes, and therefore they breach the "one missed appointment and you are out" rules that exist.
On the convener's question about community justice authorities, I cannot speak for other community justice authorities but the Lothian and Borders community justice authority has an NHS representative, Dr Phil Mackie, who chairs the health and wellbeing group that is specifically looking at engagement with GPs on prisoners' release from custody.
There are many generic questions and we may not get through them all by the time we aim to finish, which is 12.45 at the latest. If people want to be specific and brief, and if only one person wants to answer a question, that is fine. We will see how far we can go with the questions, on which we very much want to hear the panel's views.
I would like more questions to be asked on reception about caring responsibilities—whether it is child care or care for other relations—because that can be a particularly distressing aspect of custody. We have no idea how many families, and children in particular, are affected by the imprisonment of a primary carer. We can only guess, and all the figures are based on guesses at the moment. We should have more information on that.
Earlier, there was quite a bit of discussion—the panel probably heard it—about the impact of overcrowding and short-term sentences. Does the panel wish to comment on that? Who would like to start?
Short-term sentences for young offenders are very problematic. They cannot get on to the programmes that we offer in prison because they are not there long enough for those programmes to have any effect on them. I do not believe that some of the short sentence offenders should be in prison: they should be in secure accommodation that is specially designed for their needs.
My concern about my area—Falkirk—is that of late there has been quite a fall in the number of diversions from prosecution through the procurator fiscal system. We think that that can be attributed to the difficulties that the system is facing in terms of manpower, which has led to a large increase in the number of short sentences. There should be more emphasis on community service.
Is there sometimes an issue with temporary sheriffs who are not aware of the community disposals that are available?
Our written evidence refers to one particular sheriff with whom that was the case, although it was anonymised to spare his blushes.
I hope that we can take up that issue informally with the sheriffs.
I echo Pat Reid's comments. I started at Cornton Vale in 1999, about the same time as the publication of "Women Offenders: A Safer Way", which followed on from an horrendous spate of suicides. There was a recognition then that by and large the women in Cornton Vale did not need to be there and that far too many people were remanded in custody. Since then, the number of remands per annum has doubled and the number of sentence receptions has stayed roughly the same, but the sentences are getting a lot longer. The risk that those people present does not justify concentrating them behind a fence in one part of Scotland; they could be managed more safely closer to home.
We asked the previous panel of witnesses for their views on what causes women to commit crimes. Obviously, that is a complex and long-standing question, but it would be interesting to get Dr Black's view on it. The other witnesses may also comment if they wish.
Many of the crimes are acquisitive offences to fund substance use—that is a major factor for our prisoners. As has been alluded to, there are also those who, in effect, seek shelter and asylum. An alarming number of prisoners come to see—fairly early on—spells in prison as basically part of their lifestyle and something that they want from time to time. A small and not-very-well-studied group of individuals have been deinstitutionalised from learning disability establishments and, in effect, have swapped one asylum, in the form of a long-stay learning disability hospital, for another, in the form of short stays in custody.
I endorse what Dr Black says. We must consider alternatives. Although we have a great number of pronouncements about that, we are not considering why we stick people who get a four-month sentence into Cornton Vale jail, at the cost of £30,000 a year, when we could put them somewhere where they could learn something. They are not learning—they just go into jail and come out again. I think that that is where Dr Black is coming from, and it is certainly where I am coming from.
Could you go further into that, Dr Black? You were clear about the immediate issue, but many witnesses have talked about the women's backgrounds and life experiences. Perhaps you do not want to do that; perhaps you just want to leave it at drug addiction and related acquisitive crime. Could you generalise and give a picture of the background to the drug addiction and other issues?
I am aware from reading the Official Report of previous committee meetings that you have had a lot of information on that. The women are a disadvantaged group who have not been well treated in the lead-up to beginning their criminal careers. Unfortunately, the experience of being taken into prison at an early age further excludes them. I spoke about the inconvenience to professionals of people leaving without giving an address, but the experience is clearly very excluding.
I want to follow up on what has been said about short-term sentences, which lead women to suffer exclusion from society, family disruption and separation from their children. Wariness of short-term sentences as a solution to criminal activity has been well expressed; witnesses have questioned whether such sentences serve a purpose. If we are to question the effect, should the Government try to change the public's perception of short-term sentences? Many people who perceive themselves to be victims of crimes—personally or as communities—want someone to take the rap, so for them a short-term sentence will do. Is there a way of changing that perception?
There is probably not, but we should not necessarily give in to it.
There is a way of addressing the issue. If the overall aim is crime prevention, we want to consider what will prevent future crimes. Mr Scott talked about the need to address the reasons behind offending behaviour. Short-term sentences do not have time to do that. If we are seeking longer-term prevention of future crimes, we need to consider for example options such as the 218 centre, the sole purpose of which is to address the reasons for offending behaviour.
To a large extent, the problem is fed by the media. Just this weekend, there was a rather unfortunate headline about Cornton Vale, which was described as the most dangerous prison in Britain. That is hardly the case: members have visited the prison, and I think that you would dispute that description.
Dr Loucks, is there any value at any time in short-term prison sentences?
The answer would depend on whom you ask. As we said earlier, there is value in making people feel that something has been done, that there has been a response and that there is a punishment. However, that is very short sighted. There needs to be more focus on what will stop crimes happening again. That is missing, at the moment.
Can anything be done during short-term sentences to support rehabilitation programmes or to deal with the—albeit complex—issues that women have when they go into prison?
There is scope for that if the issues are identified, and if support and encouragement are available in the community to enable women to address them. The process is resource intensive; it takes a lot of encouragement for people to take advantage of voluntary throughcare, for example. Often there is so much focus on statutory throughcare that the resources that would enable people who want voluntary throughcare to take it up are simply not available.
I want to pursue the question whether community disposals are more effective than custodial sentences. We have mentioned the 218 centre, which is, I understand, soon to be reviewed. What other body of evidence would you care to draw on in support of the principle that such approaches are far more effective than prison in tackling reoffending?
We should consider not just whether community disposals are more effective but whether they are less damaging. We have discussed at some length the damage that imprisonment does.
We must also consider the reality of what staff can do with people who are in custody for a short time, especially when so many people are in custody. It is literally about holding people until they can be let go. The number of staff and the physical facilities that would be needed to address the deep needs with which people come into custody are simply not available.
One problem is the lack of resources in the community. There are 400-plus prisoners in Cornton Vale. In Falkirk, there are around 600 people on bail, probation or supervised orders, but only 30 staff to deal with them. That illustrates the problem with community service. There can be a real lack of resources to cope with people who are not in prison but are under some form of supervision.
I return to short sentencing, because it is central. You cannot change a girl's basic life structure by putting her in prison. We are dealing with girls whose backgrounds include being beaten and thrown out on to the street. We have had girls of 17 at Cornton Vale who have never had a bed and who sleep rough. People are not aware of the background when a kid goes to jail. In the view of our committee, being sent to jail is not a punishment—the punishment is being deprived of your liberty. The basic logic of a sheriff putting somebody in jail is to deprive them of their liberty rather than punish them—the punishment is their being deprived of their liberty. We must make the community understand that a prison sentence is a deprivation of liberty rather than a punishment.
I want to talk about alternatives to Cornton Vale. The 218 centre has been mentioned. I get the feeling that everyone who has given evidence thinks that the centre, which is being evaluated, does good work. Everyone seems to agree that we should replicate that elsewhere. However, there is less agreement on whether it would be better to have smaller prisons for women dotted around Scotland rather than concentrating women in Cornton Vale. What do the witnesses think? Should we have smaller prisons, but retain Cornton Vale?
As Dr Loucks said, there would be an advantage in having smaller prisons. For example, women from Inverness could go to a prison in Inverness rather than to Cornton Vale.
As I might have mentioned in our written submission, the number of cross-border and non-United-Kingdom prisoners in Cornton Vale is an increasing problem. They take up a lot of time, space and resources.
As the committee knows, we support the idea of local establishments, where possible. Obviously, Cornton Vale operates on the premise that it is a concentrated and specialised resource to address women's needs. I can certainly see the benefit of that, but smaller units, especially the Scottish Prison Service's concept of community-facing prisons, should be able to draw on such expertise. However, I am concerned about the idea of having a women's section in a men's prison, as was the case at Inverness, Dumfries and Aberdeen. In such circumstances, the women tend to be sidelined and are able to use facilities only when the men are not using them, and it is not certain that facilities that are designed for men would be adapted for women.
There is no doubt that local units would prevent problems such as dislocation of services, and would improve all agencies' throughcare. However, their design would have to ensure that they were not just scaled-down versions of Cornton Vale.
We have heard a lot about the mental health of women in Cornton Vale and have been told that 70 or 80 per cent have mental health problems. We have also been told that 6 to 9 per cent have severe and enduring mental health problems. My questions are addressed initially to Dr Black. To what extent is Cornton Vale successful in addressing those problems, or to what extent can it be successful? To what extent would women be better placed somewhere else, such as in the community, or perhaps in some cases, in hospital?
We are quite good at meeting the needs of the more severely ill group. For instance, if a person is so ill that they require hospital treatment, I can usually manage to find a place for them in a low-security ward. It will not necessarily be that close to their home, however. Services are often oversubscribed and we need to phone around. Nevertheless, it is usually closer than Cornton Vale.
How does the mental health profile of women prisoners compare or contrast with the mental health profile of male prisoners?
One of the main differences is that the mental health problems of female prisoners are more out in the open. I work at Shotts prison as well as at Cornton Vale and, true to the Scottish stereotype, the men are much less forthcoming in emotional matters. The level of mental ill health is probably the same and there are probably the same types of difficulty, but male prisoners are less likely to self-refer.
I am on the management committee of Open Secret. I am not privy to cases, but the person who gave evidence to the committee submitted a report about two months ago, following her appearance here. I have copies of the report with me and could give them to the clerk. The report might amplify the evidence that she gave.
That would be helpful. We would appreciate that.
I also want to ask about speech and language therapy. Dr Fraser, from the Scottish Prison Service, said that
Even in the NHS, most of us get by without the assistance of speech and language therapists. They have a specific role in learning disability, which is not my specialist field. I imagine that they would have a useful role to play with younger prisoners, as well. You would need to get some speech and language therapists to advise you as to what they could do.
Polmont is currently the only SPS prison that uses a speech and language therapist. She works only part time there, but her work has certainly been extremely well regarded. Where speech and language therapists have been employed in prisons in England, they have done some tremendous work in identifying issues. Sometimes people cannot readily be identified as having a mental illness or other learning disability issue or as being a borderline case. For example, a prisoner might exhibit a particular behaviour that the staff cannot quite pinpoint. The staff might have known that something was wrong because a person was particularly annoying, but the speech and language therapist identifies the issues, helps to address them with the prisoner and helps the staff to know how best to work with that person. There is quite a bit of research on that from England. The Prison Reform Trust has just finished some work on offenders with learning difficulties and learning disabilities in which the benefits of speech and language therapy came out very strongly.
I think that all the witnesses heard the previous responses on how drugs are viewed within the prisons system. Speaking about Cornton Vale, a previous witness said:
Let me give an example. Following a drugs search of a cell in the young offenders institution yesterday, a girl was found to be dealing drugs. Clearly, the question is how the drugs got into the prison, but dealing in drugs made her more powerful.
In the evidence that we heard earlier, it was suggested—I am paraphrasing—that drugs are used in society in general so they do not, as long as they are not allowed to get out of hand, necessarily undermine the everyday regime in prison. Are you suggesting that the powerplay among prisoners necessitates a stricter policy in dealing with illegal drugs?
The powerplay among prisoners is one issue, but another is that attempts to get people off drugs and into rehabilitation are not helped when people are piling drugs into jail. That does not help Dr Black's work—he is trying to get people off medication and other things that damage the person's lifestyle externally. I am very much in favour of stopping drugs getting into jail by using alternative methods to those that are currently used.
Although there is an argument that there will be drugs in prison as long as there are drugs in society, we are talking about a range of drug use, involving different drugs that people use for different reasons. For example, a person's drug use might depend on what they are likely to get caught with and what is likely to show up in a drug test.
It is possible to have a relatively drug-free environment. All the Scottish prisons are pretty leaky as far as drugs go, but there is a very low level of drug use in the State hospital, despite the fact that around 80 per cent of our patients have a history of significant drug misuse. That is partly because our turnover of a few dozen patients per year is much lower than that of other institutions, which deal with a few thousand receptions per year. It is also to do with the existence among our security staff of a strong culture of stopping drugs coming in. Mechanical and chemical sniffers do away with the need for invasive personal searching or the use of scary things like dogs.
If the new technology that Mr Scott mentioned—the BOSS chair—were available, would that avoid the need to consider closed visits?
I certainly think that it would help. As has been said, there are relatively non-invasive ways of preventing drugs from coming into prisons. Shotts uses one of the BOSS chairs—I think it is the only prison that does.
Dumfries also use one of the chairs.
It is a question of considering alternatives to preventing people from having contact with their families that do not involve pinning people to the floor.
That is very helpful.
I would like to pick up on an issue that was discussed with the previous panel—the use of the 218 centre, who should benefit from such services and whether they should be available to women in general rather than just being a support for female offenders. At the beginning of its life, when access to 218 was wider, about half the referrals to the service were self-referrals. The women in question fitted the criteria in terms of substance misuse, need and previous involvement in offending. Self-referrals were stopped because 218 was 100 per cent criminal justice funded and there was a desire to ensure that all referrals came from a criminal justice source.
That is extremely helpful. We have explored the idea of using other centres and keeping 218 for the prisoners with whom it is intended to deal—those who suffer from revolving-door syndrome. Other secure accommodation and help are available.
It should be borne in mind that 218 is a community-based resource. Such services do not have to be residential. If they are not, they can have a broader reach.
Yes—that is right.
There is a wide enough range of alternatives to custody, but sometimes they are handled by different people in different ways and there is often a lack of co-ordination locally. I am not suggesting that we set up yet another quango, but there might be an argument at least for multi-agency working, if not for making one group responsible for dealing with alternatives to custody that could use the other agencies.
We hope to hear from the community justice authorities about how they fit into that pattern. That was certainly the argument that was made when they were set up. It will be interesting to find out to what extent they have satisfied that objective.
Meeting continued in private until 12:40.