Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Official Report 685KB pdf

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Prison Operations

Welcome back. Our third item of business today is an evidence session on prison operations. This session will build on evidence that was previously received from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland, the committee’s recent visit to HMP Low Moss, and subsequent correspondence received regarding prison pressures and operational challenges.

We are grateful to welcome David Mackie, convener of the Howard League Scotland; Linda Pollock, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service; and Jim Watson, chair of the HMIPS prison expert group. You are all very welcome, and I am sure that we have a number of questions for you.

I will start off by directing a question to Ms Pollock. In the penultimate paragraph of your letter to the committee of 14 August 2026, you say:

“People on remand also account for around 26 per cent of our population, but 46 per cent of all suicides. People in their first 72 hours are also at a higher risk, accounting for 11 per cent of suicides. For this reason, we have put additional support in place for young people in their first 72 hours in custody.”

When the committee visited HMP Low Moss, we noted that there was no dedicated first night in custody unit, and I know that that was also picked up in the inspectorate’s report. Can I ask you to comment on that and to also tell me how many other prisons in the SPS estate have no dedicated facilities for first-night care, given that you have acknowledged the massive risk and vulnerability there?

Thank you for the invitation to meet you this morning. I give my particular thanks to the committee for coming to visit Low Moss prison the other week.

We really welcome the committee’s focus on prisons. I know that you are well aware of the pressures that we are under across the prisons estate. The number of people we currently have in custody across Scotland puts pressure on our support for people who are in our care, including the support that we can give to them for their rehabilitation and to help them on their journey. We welcome that focus and we are happy to continue to engage and organise more visits if that would be helpful for the committee.

A lot of work has been done around the number of deaths in custody in Scotland, which is far too high. The issue is tragic, and a lot of work has been done to look at the causes of it and what we can do as an organisation to support people when they come into custody, with a particular focus on deaths by suicide, which are really concerning.

As you will understand, a lot of work has been done with young people, given the recent fatal accident inquiries and the tragic deaths that we have had at Polmont. In the Polmont establishment, we now have what is called a 72-hour adapted cell, which enables there to be additional monitoring of people coming in, particularly young people. From the work that has been done around young people, we understand their impulsive nature, and the operation of that adapted cell is under review, so that we can see its impact.

As you rightly noted, deputy convener, across our prisons we like to have a first-night custody suite, so that we can give people additional support when they first come into custody. We recognise that that experience can be overwhelming and scary. We have a lot to learn, and we want to help people in that situation.

There are issues relating to the overcrowding pressures that we have across our estate. I know that, earlier, the cabinet secretary noted that the design capacity of our prisons is 7,805 and that there are currently more than 8,000 people in custody. Today, the population is 8,572, and on Friday we had the highest number of people in prison that we have ever had on a Friday in Scotland. That situation has had a knock-on effect across all of our establishments and, unfortunately, that has meant situations such as the one that you have seen in Low Moss. We have to be able to receive prisoners from the courts and, although we do not know the numbers that we will receive on any given day, we have had to make space available. That has resulted in overcrowding and doubling up. In some areas, it has meant that we have had to change the regime.

Just to be clear, my question is, how many prisons within the SPS estate do not have first-night facilities?

I would need to get the exact figures on that for you. We try to prioritise that provision, but the situation changes regularly and the provision sometimes has to be taken away. That had to happen in HMP Edinburgh, but we have been able to reintroduce it. Where we can move towards doing that, we make it a priority. However, we have to be able to receive from the courts, and that means using all available space.

It is widely acknowledged that we have an increasingly complex prison population with, among other things, higher levels of neurodivergence. As a result of my written parliamentary questions, it has become quite apparent to me that we could be doing more to screen for, better understand and better support those in the prison system who are neurodivergent. Can you outline what support is currently available and where you see good practice being developed? More important, will you undertake to develop a proper and full strategy for responding to people in your care who are neurodivergent?

That is an area of growth in our understanding and in the support that we can provide across prisons and with our partners. We have done work with the Scottish Government around its neurodiversity strategy and the proposed bill on neurodivergence to look at our levels of understanding and the support that we can provide, working with others.

I hope that, when you come to visit other prisons, you will see areas where we have been adapting and learning from that work. Polmont is a really good example, because, while working with the young men that are there, we have seen quite high levels of neurodiversity and have worked on aspects such as having quieter spaces for them and helping them to be able to communicate in a different way, and we have put in place services to support that.

We have also done a lot of work with our staff, putting in place training not only around working with people who are neurodivergent but in relation to our staff who are neurodivergent. I can confirm that work is under way and that there is joint work with the Scottish Government on its strategy and how we can give it greater support across prisons.

I would add again—this will be a feature in almost every question I answer today—that everything is impacted by overcrowding. At the moment, our staff are trying to meet people’s basic needs, but we should be doing more than that, and we would be able to do so if we had the design capacity that gave us the correct ratios to enable us to work with people. If that were the case, we could do more.

I have questions for others on the panel, but I will ask one more question of you before I hand over to colleagues.

I have heard some worrying testimony from prison officers regarding the impact of illicit substances, particularly spice, which can turn ordinarily perfectly normal and relatively well-behaved inmates into volatile, dangerous and unsafe individuals. What is the Scottish Prison Service doing to stop the flow of illicit drugs such as spice into prisons? Supplementary to that, how much of the illicit substances entering prison are coming in via drones?

That is a real challenge across the Prison Service, as it is in communities, and I know that the committee previously held an inquiry into that issue. We welcomed that enquiry and the recommendations that came from it.

We have taken a number of steps and will always work with our partners, particularly Police Scotland, on what we can do to prevent substances coming into establishments. One thing that we have done is start photocopying prisoners’ mail, to stop one route by which drugs were coming in. When you visited Low Moss, you saw the body scanners that are another way of stopping that happening. Every time we understand more, we will put in place what we can to stop things coming in.

As you rightly pointed out, deputy convener, we have a significant issue with drones. Scotland is not alone in that, because the issue of drone packages coming into prisons is seen across western Europe and more widely. We are working with Police Scotland, the National Crime Agency and the UK Prison Service, as well as across Europe, on the technology that can be used to detect and divert drones. That work is being advanced. Within the Scottish Prison Service, we have put additional grilles on windows in a number of establishments because we learned and understood that drones were making deliveries to specific windows and that people were able to remove part of the window to receive them. By putting grilles on windows, we have helped to prevent drones accessing establishments. That has been done in a number of prisons, and we have a programme to keep rolling that out. It will not surprise you to hear that there are other methods of trying to get packages in. We have seen an increase in what we call “throw overs”, which is when things are thrown over a prison wall, and we have also, unfortunately, seen an increase in visitors bringing things in.

Whenever we see an avenue being used to bring in drugs, we will stop that, because, as you say, they have a devastating impact on people in custody. A small amount can go a long way in a prison. You have heard from our staff that people we work with and care for who can be very reasonable will become quite unpredictable and challenging when they take a substance. We now have body-worn cameras in some of our establishments and will be rolling those out further so that we can show people what is happening. People are shocked when they see that, because it is devastating and the health concerns are worrying. I know that you have Tracey McFall coming here later. We will continue to work with partners to prevent substances coming in and to tackle why people are actually taking substances and how we can help them with recovery.

I would really like the committee to come and see the recovery work that we do, because it is so powerful. We work with people in our care and in their communities to support them.

I have one last, brief question. HMP Pentonville and HMP Wandsworth have similar problems with overcrowding. Are you following the pilot that they are undertaking with what is known as Scandi wings?

I have been reading about that with interest. We will learn from wherever we can and will take all the advice that we can from other nations and jurisdictions. We are members of the EuroPris network and learn a lot from other European nations. We work closely with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in England and Wales, the Northern Ireland Prison Service and the Irish Prison Service. We will happily learn anything that we can from others. Likewise, we share a lot of information with them. We are all there to help the people in our custody and want to do anything that we can.

I will have some questions for Sheriff Mackie and Mr Watson towards the end, but I am now going to hand over to colleagues, beginning with Ms Bland.

Ms Pollock, the Scottish Prison Service has a responsibility to keep prisoners and prison officers safe. Do you currently have enough front-line staff in every establishment to operate prisons safely and to deliver the regime that you say you want to provide? If not, which prisons are under the greatest pressure?

Thank you for taking an interest in our staff. I heard the cabinet secretary speaking positively this morning about them and about the work they do, and you saw that at first hand when you were at Low Moss recently. They provide outstanding care to some of the most difficult and vulnerable people in our communities.

We would always welcome more staff. I do not think I would ever sit here saying that we have enough; we could always do with more. There is a difference between safety and what we would like to do in the regime. Our prisons are overstretched and over capacity, but they are as safe as they can be just now. When prisoner numbers increase, we really struggle with safety in overcrowded situations. I have significant concerns about overcrowding and the risks to people in custody, our staff and the other people who work in prisons—including third sector workers, national health service staff and social workers—many of whom you met at Low Moss.

10:15

Safety will always be our number 1 priority, but that sometimes comes at a cost to the regime and affects other things that we should and want to do to support people. You saw that at first hand in relation to neurodiversity, which we have already spoken about. We would always welcome more front-line staff, because we know the power of what we can do comes through having relationships with people in custody. The more we have, the more we can do.

On your specific question, the largest establishments are the ones that are under the greatest pressure. Barlinnie, Edinburgh, Kilmarnock, Grampian and Low Moss are the prisons that are at maximum capacity and that continue to be overcrowded. The struggle is with the prisons that have to receive people directly from court, but our organisation works to support that. For example, we have tried to get additional staffing in Edinburgh, and we will keep doing that work. However, we would always welcome more staff so that we could do more with the people in our care.

You talked about the recommendations relating to fatal accident inquiries. Quite rightly, that puts a lot more pressure on monitoring, equipment and responsibilities. Is the Scottish Prison Service provided with the resources that are needed after a fatal accident inquiry? Do the recommendations come into play?

I invite Sheriff Mackie and Jim Watson to comment on that, too.

We work very closely with the Scottish Government on the funding that we receive. As a public servant, I am well aware of the pressure on finances across the whole public sector. With our operational responsibility, we then allocate our funding to the running of prisons.

I can speak to the joint fatal accident inquiries into the tragic deaths of Katie Allan, William Brown and Lindsay and Jack McKenzie. On the back of those inquiries, significant work was done on what we can do to support and improve facilities—particularly at Polmont for young people, but we also thought about what we can learn for the rest of the estate.

We have been working closely with the Scottish Government on additional resources. I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice spoke earlier about, for example, the overhaul of the talk to me strategy, which relates to suicide prevention. We have also done work on tackling bullying, and we are doing a lot of work to remove ligature anchor points. All of that costs money, and we work with the Scottish Government on funding to support those measures.

I will always say that, if we had more funding, we could do more. I am not sure that you would find any body that would not say that.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this morning’s business.

I cannot comment in any subjective way on the matters that have been raised, but I can make the observation that there should be—and, I think, is—a growing awareness not only in the prison estate but among decision makers of the risks of suicide. Sheriffs, who are most often confronted with the choice between custody or community-based disposals and questions of bail, cannot keep turning their heads away and pretending that they do not see. The decision to remand somebody or to impose a custodial sentence has the capacity to initiate or reinforce suicidal ideation or even a decision to attempt suicide. Those making such decisions cannot then sit back and say, “It’s not my problem; it’s the Prison Service’s problem.” We hear of the sterling work that the Scottish Prison Service does in extremely difficult circumstances, with overcrowding and everything else that we have heard about, such as first-night rooms having to be taken away and used for custody.

We cannot ignore that, so I simply wish to make the point that the issues relating to suicide and suicide prevention do not rest only in the hands of those in the Prison Service. Every decision maker in the process—prosecutors, police, sheriffs, judges and social workers—should be alive to them.

The key point for me, in any prison environment, is that of relationships. If officers develop a good relationship with people who are serving a sentence, it goes well for both sides. That can be constructive and productive and it is not necessarily just a waste of time locking somebody up. If there were more staff who were trained to a better extent in how to develop those relationships and make sure that people’s needs were met, I think that prisons would be doing a lot more on rehabilitation. Overcrowding is the key issue. There is now a transactional basis, and a lot of the rehabilitative work is being put to the side.

I have another question, but I am happy to leave it and pass on.

At this juncture, I will bring in Ms Chapman, because she has questions about vulnerability, which follow up on what Sheriff Mackie said. I will hand over to Ms Chapman and come back to you, Ms Bland.

Good morning, all, and thank you for your contributions so far.

I want to go back to David Mackie’s point that every decision maker needs to take some responsibility and recognise the impacts of the decisions that they make. How do you see the different elements of the justice system? Are there significant gaps or breakdowns of relationships that mean that conversations on impact and the recognition of impact cannot happen? Where do you see weak spots?

It is difficult to approach that in the sense of identifying weak spots. The process is highly subjective. Usually, each individual is the subject of a criminal justice social work report, and the content of that report is the product of that individual’s life and life circumstances, so it is difficult to generalise on issues of this nature.

However, in any given case, the challenges facing an individual will be apparent. They will be manifest, first of all, at the start of the process when decisions on bail are being made. In the committee’s next evidence session today, members will hear more about that and the desire for better risk assessments, but most of all for information for decision makers.

By virtue of human nature, a prosecutor or a sheriff will err on the side of caution. When the only information available is that an individual has a record as long as your arm, and not much else, it is hardly surprising that a decision to remand them is then made. If, however, the same sheriff has information that the individual is, in fact, already on a community payback order or a drug treatment and testing order, and that remand would undermine work that is already under way to enable them to lead a more law-abiding life, a different decision might be made. That is an illustration of an area where the information that is available to the decision maker can be crucially important, and that is where the business of the witnesses on this panel and that of those on the next one overlap.

The point that I made earlier about the sheriff’s awareness of prison conditions is not made lightly. In Ireland in 2022, Mr Justice Paul McDermott refused to extradite a Scottish prisoner to Scotland because he had seen the 2022 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in Scotland that talked about overcrowding and the inadequate accommodation in prisons. He decided not to extradite that person because the individual’s article 3 rights to dignity and good treatment would be breached.

That is only part of the story. That same man came to Scotland two years later, when a different judge decided that he could be extradited, but only after—as I understand it from publicly sourced information that I have drawn on—a package was put in place to address the individual’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other neurodivergence issues. I make that point because that judge in Ireland was not being performative. He made a serious decision, based on the information that was publicly available to him, and no doubt he was addressed on it in court. However, when will it be that a judge in Scotland will decide, “Well, I cannot send this person to prison because I know his human rights will be affected”?

I cannot think of any time in my 25 years as a sheriff when I have heard of a prison providing a care package for an individual prisoner. We would be in a perfect world if that were available, but it cannot happen because we just do not have the resources to allow it. It would be a good aspiration. That reinforces my earlier point those who are making the decision to impose a custodial sentence cannot ignore the realities. If it is a factor that might lead towards a different, community-based solution in addition to other factors, it should be taken into account.

I am departing from the specific point in your question, because it is difficult to say that there is a weak point anywhere along the line. I am more inclined to approach it by way of raising awareness throughout the system, because the change in an individual that causes them to lose hope—which is often at the heart of suicidal ideation—and move towards suicidal ideation may not occur until they are in prison or further down the line. The issues that we are addressing may not have been apparent at an earlier stage. I am more inclined to think about ensuring that every practitioner and decision maker is aware of the risks, down to the practicalities of ligature points that were highlighted so much in Sheriff Collins’s determination in the Polmont cases.

Thank you. That is helpful. Making the link to our next panel is useful as it gives us a strong foundation for that conversation.

Jim Watson, I will come to you with a similar approach. From the perspective of people with lived experience, how are prisoners’ needs, which are increasingly complex in nature, being met? Where are support mechanisms, structures and programmes failing the most, if I can put it like that? Can you identify any significant or particular pressure points?

There are lots of them, and it is very easy to pick them up. For short-term prisoners, the lack of rehabilitative efforts is significant. That might be due to overcrowding, or just in the nature of how things have developed. I remember that, when I first went into custody, no real rehabilitation was done with us prisoners. At no point were we offered a programme, and it was not talked about. Some unofficial stuff was happening through education that was beneficial, where we talked about why we were there and what led us there. The guy in education was really good at that, and he had a big attendance in his class. For some reason, it was one of the few classes for which attendance outnumbered the people in the art class. He was great, until he was chastised for not getting the required number of higher national units, so he then reverted to talking about the causes of the first world war or whatever, and attendance dropped.

There is a lot of scope for a dialogical approach, where officers and other third sector providers come to prisons to look at what causes offending and at criminogenic needs, which can be done in groups. One of the questions posed to the earlier panel was about how we are being creative with community payback orders. The University of the West of Scotland is engaging with South Lanarkshire Council. We are looking to develop a level 6 programme that will fulfil 50 hours of somebody’s CPO. The criminal justice team will deliver information, and participants will be assessed and receive a certificate from UWS that will count towards their rehabilitation. A lot of our focus is on including content that will make participants think about where they are at, what they have done and how things could change; it is about the secondary desistance process. That is an innovative programme that is still in the development stage. If it comes off, I will drop the committee a note and let you know how good it has been.

The other side of it is progression. I do not need to tell you how bad that is—members could go and read the HMIPS’s report on it. The whole system is a shambles from start to finish. There is a lot of concern about overcrowding being held up at the back end, because people are not progressing to the national top end. When they get there, they are held for too long and they are not getting to the open estate quickly enough. That has implications for overcrowding.

Could the system be made better? Again, it is a question of resources: we need more forensic psychologists to get into the service and work there; we need more prisons offering programmes that are known to work; and we need to get those programmes delivered to people who are waiting on those courses.

Last year, prisons stopped using constructs, which is a basic cognitive behavioural therapy programme, and also stopped putting people on to pathways, which is another offender behaviour programme, because they were trying to address the waiting lists for programmes. Between January 2024 and March 2025, there was an increase of about 97 people on a list of 700 folk waiting for programmes. I do not know how that list stands at the moment, because the data is not there for me to look at, but I would imagine that it has probably got a bit worse with constructs and pathways not being available.

The focus has to be on facilitating progression through the system, which should start from day 1. It would make a significant difference to get that started as early as possible and not leave people hanging about for three or four years just because they have a big sentence and so it is thought that there is no rush.

10:30

That is really helpful. I will stay with you for my next question, which is on segregation and the use of restricting contact with others. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has called for meaningful human interaction, an end to yo-yo segregation and better step-down facilities. In the view of the prison experts group, what needs to change immediately in the use of segregation in our prisons?

Some of our members have been subjected to segregation, and they have very interesting views on what its purpose was and how they ended up in there. There was too much of a rush to separate them for something that had happened; and they felt unfairly treated because they had not started it—you are back in that playground.

When I shadowed the inspection at Barlinnie, I went into the segregation unit and it shocked me quite a bit. I have been in and out of prisons—while working, I might add; not serving a sentence—and I have been shocked by the way the seg unit worked. It needed three prison officers to open the door, which I felt was really oppressive and intimidating. It was possibly worse if you were on the other side of that door: one guy in one of the units was completely not there and I do not think that the seg unit was the right place for him—he needed other support and mechanisms—but the prison staff’s hands were tied in relation to where they could put him, because he seemed to present a bit of a risk to others as he was completely nowhere. Those issues need to be monitored and watched.

I know that the inspectorate always visits the seg units at every inspection. Monitors, too, sometimes go into them, but, again, it is about ensuring that the monitors, who are volunteers, are aware of the purpose and nature of the segregation and reintegration units and of why people should be taken there. Then, it is about ensuring that those people are not there for too long.

I will come back to you towards the end, Ms Chapman, because, due to time constraints, I need to get other colleagues in. Ms McNair, I will come to you next for your questions to the witnesses.

I want to go back to rehabilitation. It is my understanding that one of the main issues affecting prison population numbers is prisoners’ inability to access rehabilitation courses, due to overcrowding and the operational issues connected with that. Could you share your observations around that issue, the challenges, and the impact that it is having? What more can we do to address it? I give you the floor, Linda.

Thank you for raising that point. It is right that we look at what we can do on progression, and Jim spoke powerfully about the challenges that we have had. A lot of work has been done on that despite all the challenges that we have on overcrowding.

I know, from our conversation this morning and from the earlier evidence session, that there is sometimes a misconception that Castle Huntly, the open prison, is sitting half empty, but it is at 101 per cent capacity—it is full.

That is because we have redesignated the number of beds. Is that right?

That is because we have a single cell in there to support people’s rehabilitation. I would really encourage and invite the committee to visit Castle Huntly, because it is a powerful model of what we can do when we work with people in that phase and allow them home release. The statistics from Castle Huntly about the people who do not return to custody after having been there are incredible.

Our national top ends are full just now; the open estate is full; and the Bella and Lilias centres for women are sitting at 70 per cent and 75 per cent occupancy respectively. We are continuing to prioritise rehabilitation, and a recovery programme has been put in place for support programmes.

One of the points that I picked up after the committee’s visit to Low Moss was the need for greater articulation of what we do for rehabilitation in total. I think that we were all struck by the figure that England and Wales could point to as the money that is spent on rehabilitation. However, we do not have a specific figure here, because we see every part of the work that we do as being about rehabilitation. When people come into custody, right from that starting point, we should—and we want to do so—work with them around all their needs, wherever those might be.

For those on longer-term sentences, there might be a programme to address that, but we also look at what we can do to support people through education, work parties, recovery, family support or psychology. There is a range of measures to support rehabilitation.

Again, I wish that we were doing—and were able to do—more, but there has been significant focus on rehabilitation, in particular for the reasons that Jim Watson raised. We are not getting the right throughput, despite what we have been putting in, and we need to try to increase the numbers and make that support available. We are working in particular on the backlogs for programmes. For example, there is a lot of work on recruitment for psychology and the programme that we have in place to support staff and encourage them through that process.

Thank you for facilitating our visit to Low Moss. I found it really informative, as did other members of the committee.

Sheriff Mackie, you can obviously see the impact on reoffending levels if folk can get the rehabilitation that they so need. Do you want to say a wee bit about that?

I can only reinforce the desire to achieve rehabilitation. It is as relevant to anybody entering the prison estate as it is to somebody who is placed on a community payback order—the ultimate objective is to help people return to a more meaningful way of life. I can only add my voice to those of many others who hope that we can achieve a sustainable prison population that will enable the Scottish Prison Service to do its job in doing that work.

Earlier there was a question to the minister about what the prison population should be. I was a commissioner on the sentencing and penal policy commission, and we said that the figure was 5,775. It is a figure that places us, on average, in line with our fellow European countries. It is not scientifically based—it is an aspirational figure that happens to be very similar to the one that was suggested in 2008, when Henry McLeish produced his report. Something of that magnitude would seem to be appropriate if we were to achieve the same level of prison population and prison use as other countries in western Europe. It is not an unreasonable aspiration to work towards. In our report, we suggested that that be done over a 10-year period. That is a sustainable population; it will not happen overnight, so it is not a short-term solution, but all the recommendations in the commission’s report are based on the best evidence that we had, and they would produce a balanced system.

That entire system works towards achieving rehabilitation. Something that we have not yet touched on, but which I would like to bring into the conversation, is improving the links between the prison and the community, and improving the support for families. The rehabilitation of an offender has as much to do with their relationships at home, their home circumstances and employment as it does with their immediate day-to-day circumstances.

We are beginning to understand better the impact on families and children. If committee members have not already seen it I recommend that they have a look at a report by Dr Briege Nugent, entitled “Paying the Price: The financial cost to families of imprisonment and release”, which was published 34 years ago through Families Outside. It highlights the financial impact on families and the ways in which having a family member in prison can drive some families towards extreme poverty through meeting the challenge of travel, visiting and things like paying for snacks. Apparently, in a prison visitor centre in Scotland, a can of Coke costs three times as much as it does in a corner shop.

That is to say that rehabilitation is a wider issue than the immediate circumstances of the individual in prison. We should be aware of that and address those wider issues as much as possible to support a better climate for rehabilitation.

Thank you, Sheriff Mackie. Jim Watson, do you want to add anything to your earlier comments—or had you finished?

There is a bigger question about what the purpose of prison is. We need to ask whether it is about being a place of punishment or a place for rehabilitation. In Scotland, that balance is very much swinging to, “Let us lock them up and chuck away the key, because the things that these bad people do is outrageous”, and the idea of rehabilitation isnae something that we speak about in public, but it is crucial, and it should be the focus of everything that we are working towards.

On the point about numbers, I agree with David Mackie that it seems almost impossible to aim for a prison population of 5,700, but we can look abroad in that regard. Some 40 years ago, Finland—which is similar in size to Scotland—had similar crime rates to Scotland, but Scotland had a lower prison population. In more than 40 years that has completely reversed, because Finland took forward a policy of decarceration in which they said, “We are gonnae use experts to run our jails, and we are gonnae take the politics out of it quite a significant bit.”

The other advantage that Finland has is that it does not have tabloid newspapers. The media have a huge impact and input, not only in directing how people think about justice but in misdirecting them on many occasions. I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of reading headlines such as, “Man walks free from court”, but, when you read down to the second-bottom paragraph, you see that he was given a heavy community payback order, which is structured and makes more sense to me. However, the headline is still, “Man walks free from court”, and everybody cracks up about it.

At the other end of the scale, it is only recently that, when someone is given an order for lifelong restriction, tabloids have said that it is an indefinite life sentence. They used to just say things like, “Triple rapist jailed for three years,” and then there would be a whole social media storm about how that is outrageous: they would say, “He will be out in a year and a half” and all the other sorts of misinformation. The Finns are lucky that they do not have that.

I certainly share your concerns. Thank you.

We will pass to Stephen Kerr for the next question.

I am not sure that we can do anything about the free press, Jim, but I hear what you are saying about misrepresentation and misinformation, which is an issue for all of us.

When we went to Low Moss, I was struck by the time that we spent in the segregation and reintegration unit—I think that we all were. We heard enough to tell us that there are people in there who really ought to be in a different sort of institution. I am talking directly to you, Jim: what does that tell us about the nature of the estate that we currently have?

It does not say much about the nature of the estate; it says more about how society in general punishes people. It is easy to warehouse social problems and disappear individuals who create those problems, rather than address the underlying social environment and the rest of the problems that put them in the estate.

Sure, but if someone is clearly mentally ill in prison and they end up in the segregation unit, surely we can agree that we should attend to the provision of facilities that are more appropriate to the care of those individuals.

Yes, but that comes back to the question of where that person was originally sentenced, what the offence was and stuff like that. That individual ends up in prison and the prison then has to deal with the disruption that they cause. The way that they have gone about—

Yes—sorry, Jim—that is the point that I am making. We do not have a range of options that would properly service the needs of that population.

The options are there for sentencers, but it is a matter of whether they are used efficiently and effectively in all cases. There will always be individuals who should be elsewhere and getting help in the medical environment. However, the number of places at secure hospital units is restricted. The question of where we put those people is an ongoing problem.

That is the very point that I am trying to make. Do we not create those restrictions?

I get your point, but the problem that the Prison Service has is that it seems to be the default dumping ground for those issues. Where people cannot be managed more effectively and better elsewhere, they end up in the jail.

10:45

That is the point that I am trying to make, and I think that you are agreeing. The range of options is restricted—I think that you used the word “restricted” in the context of the capacity of other potential destinations for individuals who ought not to be ending up in the segregation unit at Low Moss prison.

I am sorry to say this to Linda Pollock, but I was not impressed with her answer about the need for more staff resources. How many staff do you have?

We have more than 5,000 staff.

How many of them are available for prisoner-facing operational duties?

More than three quarters of our staff are front-line staff working in establishments.

Are they all available for the front line? The reason why I ask is—

They work on a shift basis, obviously.

Sorry—could you say that again?

They work on a shift basis, obviously.

Like David Linden, I have just become acquainted with this portfolio, and I recently had an education about the number of available police officers. When I asked questions about front-line availability in the police service, I was given a number. It turns out that that number was not true, because there are modified officers and people who are off ill. My question is: how many of the 5,000 are actually available to do the front-line shifts that are needed?

I think that your question is around deployable staff and those who work in establishments and who can work on any given day.

Yes.

We will always have a number of people who are off sick and people who are off for other leave that they might have.

The pension age for prisoners might be of interest, as there is a lot of talk about that. You have seen at first hand what the job of someone at the front line in an establishment involves. It is very physical, and there is a question about the right retirement age for prison officers—

Sure, but that is not what I am asking about.

If I can finish, Mr Kerr—

Sure, but that is not what I am asking.

That means that we have a number of staff who we cannot deploy on the front line for physical reasons.

Sorry. I want to know specifically, of the population of 5,000, how many are available to do the physical job of being on the front line. I am not sure that I am getting an answer.

I can write to follow up with the exact number of front-line officers.

Can you, please? That is all that I am asking for.

When Amanda Bland asked whether there should be more resource, you said, “Oh, we would always take more people.” Have you asked for more resource?

Yes. That is a conversation that I have regularly with the Scottish Government, as I said.

How much additional resource have you asked for?

We provided evidence for the pre-budget scrutiny, in which I set out exactly what we had asked for and what the budget response was. That will be on the record. I can, of course, find what was submitted at that point.

Briefly, what is the basis on which that request is made?

I work through everything that is required for running establishments, the staffing levels and what more we could do. We spoke about drones earlier and what we could do on recovery. All of that goes into what we request. There is also the work on fatal accident inquiries and population pressures.

I was struck by Jim Watson’s earlier comment that there are not sufficient available staff who are trained to develop relationships. I see that Jim Watson is pulling a face, so I will allow him to correct that.

No, you are absolutely right, but I would not want to imply that the staff in the establishments are not doing the job that they are meant to be doing. As in any organisation with 5,000-plus staff, you will have some who are exceptionally good at what they do, and who build the relationships. There will also be, to quote a governor, a few bampots as well.

Okay. Bampots aside, you mentioned a range of qualified people who you believe are currently lacking in the system.

Certainly, if there were more people on the progression and forensic psychology side, people would get through the progression system, which would cut overcrowding and then allow other people to work on relationship building with the short-termers. There would then be that whole process of rehabilitation from day 1, which the SPS identifies as crucial.

You mentioned the waiting lists for programmes, and the fact that prisoners might sometimes wait for years before they begin any kind of rehabilitation programme, if they are willing to volunteer to be part of one.

Or, more worryingly, people are released without doing any programmes whatsoever.

With the presumption that we are debating in relation to earlier release, that will become a more pressing issue. People will be released only to be returned to prison, probably through the front door, shortly afterwards.

Many of the programmes that we are talking about are delivered by community organisations when people are back in the community, which is not ideal. When someone is locked up for a period of time, that should be when constructive work is done with them. We should not release people back into the community for them to do a programme when they are back in the community. To my mind, it makes more sense for that process to happen in prison.

What I am driving at is that there is serious work to be done on the estate and the workforce. I am not asking you to be defensive about the existing provision, because you have given enough evidence in this one session to indicate that we need to do better at providing qualified people who can do the positive work that you have described.

I am sorry to pick on you, Jim, but you hit the nail on the head when you asked what prison is for. Is it a place for putting away bad people, is it a place for helping people to recover their lives, or is it both? Can it be both? Fundamentally, I do not think that we can arrive at an answer to that. You might have a point of view on that. I am sure that David Mackie probably has a view on behalf of the Howard League.

Jim, do you want to comment on what I have just said? That is the question that you asked earlier, is it not?

I do not think that prison is necessarily a place for putting away bad people; it is a place for putting away people who might have done bad things. There is a subtle difference.

Well, there are bad people and people who have done bad things, are there not?

It is necessary to have a fundamental belief in rehabilitation. I believe that rehabilitation is possible with everybody, but some people reject that. They support whole-life tariffs and the like, which I reject fully.

I get that.

At a society level, we need to get better at understanding the nature and scope of prisons—what prison is about and what it should be about. In Scotland, we are still struggling with that.

In academia, people talk about Scottish exceptionalism. For years, there was talk about how Scotland was different, but it turns out that the numbers say otherwise. That is particularly the case when it comes to the number of people we send to prison: the Scottish rate of 149 prisoners per 100,000 people is significantly higher than that of a lot of other countries. There must be something behind that. I would say that it is just that the sheriffs keep sending people to prison, but I do not want David Mackie to get upset.

You will be not surprised to hear that I do not buy into the idea of Scottish exceptionalism.

I will allow David Mackie to comment on the issues that we have been discussing.

In our criminal justice system, some offences require punishment. We need prison in order to protect victims, whether individual victims—especially those who are in domestic abuse situations—or members of the public, from dangerous individuals. There is no getting away from that.

We punish people in other ways, though. Prison is the most obvious means of punishment, but the very fact of a criminal prosecution creates a certain stigma, which, by itself, is punishing. With community-based disposals, there are other levels of punishment that can be imposed that, to an individual, feel like punishment. For example, a community payback order keeps a person under observation in the community, where they have to work to rules, attend sessions with social workers, do unpaid work and perhaps participate in specific programmes. All of that comes under the general heading of punishment.

The question is well put. “What is prison for?” is a question that members of the sentencing and penal policy commission asked ourselves in our report. Fundamentally, the purpose of prison is to protect people—individual victims and members of the public—from dangerous individuals. Sometimes offences are so abhorrent that the incarceration of an individual by way of punishment is seen as the only appropriate solution for society.

If we focus on that, it becomes a bit more straightforward and logical to understand that there are many people in prison who do not meet those criteria and who do not need to be there.

I hope that, slowly but surely over the next decade, we can learn to understand that better, use prison more appropriately for those who need it, and provide robust and adequate supports in the community for those who do not need prison but need other forms of support instead.

I think that there are so many strands to this morning’s discussion that we are not doing justice—no pun intended—to any of the different subjects that we are raising.

I beg your indulgence, deputy convener, because I have a final question that I want to conclude with. The report “Crisis Point Reached: The Pressures Facing Scotland’s Prison Officers Uncovered”, which was published last year, is very unsettling in what it says about how prison officers feel about the work that they are doing.

Linda Pollock, how much notice have you taken of that report? Indeed, what have you done about it, especially its finding that the vast majority of prison officers did not feel that there were enough staff to manage the number of prisoners and that they were operating in an unsafe environment?

I would go back to my earlier comment to the question from Miss Bland on this matter: we would always welcome more staff, because we need more staff.

For those very reasons, I take the report very seriously; indeed, I work closely with the Prison Officers Association and our other trade union partners. I was really pleased to hear what the cabinet secretary said earlier, and I know that you commented on this, too, Mr Kerr, when you were at Low Moss. The work of our staff is outstanding, and we need to keep them.

Going back to the point about rehabilitation, I make it clear that our staff are there to support people. That is why people join the Prison Service—they work to support people, not just lock them up. We would absolutely want more staff; we want to help people do their jobs so that they can do them well, build those relationships and help people with their rehabilitation. I take the report very seriously and think that it speaks to everything else that we have been talking about.

Good, and I hope that, in future sessions, we will be able to focus more on and deal with the issues that we have only been able to touch on this morning.

I reiterate that, on the basis of my visit to Low Moss, I was very impressed with the people we were able to meet. I would like to have been able to speak to more of the prison officers in their work environment, because I am sure that, had we been able to do so, we would have collected a range of views.

Before I bring in Ms McNeill, I will call Ms Bland. We do have a bit of time left, and I know that she had some supplementaries.

I should also say that I intend to run the session a wee bit longer to allow colleagues to ask some wash-up questions.

May I go back to segregation?

You may.

Thank you. I have a question for Ms Pollock. With regard to the decision making on and the reviews of segregation, are you satisfied that the current regimes are adequate and acceptable and, if not, how do you plan to address that matter?

I am satisfied that we are adhering to the prison rules on the use of segregation and separation. I do not think—and you saw this at first hand—that what we offer is always in people’s best interests or what we could be doing. We have talked about people’s mental health in that respect, and I would much prefer to have either different facilities or different services to support people.

I know that this came across to those who were able to meet the staff who work in the segregation unit in Low Moss—staff who do an exceptional job in trying to work with the people who are there—but the facilities are not, as you saw for yourself, how we would want to work with people. I would much prefer it if we did not have to hold people in there, and if other services were available.

Just before the population increase, we had started some work on a step-down approach with regard to segregation, and we were about to start piloting it at HMP Perth. However, we had to stop the pilot, because of the increased numbers coming into the population.

There is more that we would want to do to support people through that kind of step-down approach and to try to reintegrate them, and it is certainly a question that we need to address. When the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was here, I was really keen to learn what other countries are doing. After all, the vast majority of western European countries have overcrowding, too, and I wanted to know what else they are doing to support that. All of us feel desperately sad about the conditions that some people are being kept in, and we all want to be doing more to help them.

Although I am satisfied that we are legally correct in what we are doing, it does not meet what we would want to be doing in terms of caring for people.

I should make it clear for the Official Report that what the committee learned that day was that human excrement gets smeared on the walls and has to be cleaned off every three days.

11:00

On those so-called dirty protests, I do not think that they happen only in that particular prison.

They happen in other prisons, yes.

They are kept in those conditions for three days, but are you saying that that complies with legislation?

Yes, that is the case under prison rules. Quite often, there will be two cells side by side and somebody can be moved into the other cell and moved back and forth while their cell is cleaned for them. The prison rule is that it must be cleaned in around three days—that rule will always be met, but we seek to do better than that.

So the prison rule is around three days.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Ms Bland.

Good morning. I will start by asking Linda Pollock about the prison population numbers projection. Looking at the cabinet secretary’s letter, I think that it is clear that, if we do not change the direction that we are going in, we will be talking about 9,100 prisoners by 2027. Further to that, there are projections that, with even a 1 per cent margin either way, up or down, there will be a prison population of 9,500. Until there is a change in direction, is the SPS having to plan for those numbers?

We work with the Scottish Government to look at the projections, and we have been before this committee on the issue previously. The emergency releases and the change to the STP policy—the change to the release date for short-term prisoners—were all intended to provide some relief and breathing space. I am very grateful for the work of the sentencing and penal policy commission, the suggestions that it has taken forward and the consultation that was held over the summer.

We have said on the record repeatedly that we could not look after that number of people in custody. We are already above our assessed capacity threshold. I will keep saying it, because it is important: the design capacity is 7,805. That is the point at which we are at our optimum when it comes to safety and the regime that we can run. Every time we go over that, we start to put safety at risk.

Are you saying that it is something that you physically cannot plan for? Does something have to change?

I cannot see where we would put that number of people, given that we already sit above our capacity of 7,805.

So, something has to change.

Yes.

We do not have a lot of time to do it—is that fair?

Yes.

I want to talk about the remand population. Howard League Scotland put it best: it is a national disgrace and an international embarrassment. I will not go over old ground about how we all feel about the issue, but where are remand prisoners placed? Do you have to just place them wherever you can, given the overcrowding? What is the policy?

The policy is that remand prisoners, who are unconvicted, are kept separate from convicted prisoners. That is a Mandela rule that we adhere to. There have been recent occasions when we had to place remanded and convicted individuals on the same hall because of space issues. That was temporary, and we do that only for a very short time, but it has happened recently because of overcrowding. We will continue to seek to hold people separately, because it is in their best interest to do so.

However, you are right: more than 26 per cent of our population are individuals on remand, and that period can range from a very short time to a very long period, particularly for more than a year, and up to two years.

Thank you. I will ask David Mackie about that, because he is the person who is most commonly quoted on the treatment of remand prisoners and the figures around acquittal. He will correct me if I am wrong, but a high percentage of people who are held on remand go on to be acquitted, which is utterly shocking. Something is wrong here, is it not? I am reading that the figure is 57 per cent, but that does not seem right.

I think that the figure is right, particularly in relation to women, because upwards of 70 per cent of women on remand never receive a custodial sentence, even when they are found guilty. That reflects the work that we have done in the commission. I sit here as chair of Howard League Scotland, but I also have an interest as a commissioner on the sentencing and penal policy commission, and it must be recognised that something has not worked well in relation to our decision making around remand and bail.

For example, a presumption against custodial sentences of under 12 months has now been in existence for two or three years. By definition, that suggests that it should be difficult to be remanded in custody for any summary crime. It is not impossible, nor is it impossible to be sent to prison for a summary crime, but the starting point should be consideration of a community-based solution rather than custody. Nonetheless, too many people who are the subjects of summary complaints are being remanded in custody for offences for which they are unlikely to receive a custodial sentence if found guilty. That is quite concerning.

However, there are multiple factors that contribute towards a decision to remand an individual. I am not putting blame on my sheriff colleagues, because those decisions are not made lightly. The early decision making by markers in the COPFS—the procurators fiscal who are marking papers—directing the court depute to ask for bail to be opposed is a starting point. The fact that the Crown opposes bail is a factor that a sheriff cannot ignore.

There is no meaningful risk assessment of individuals when a decision to oppose bail is made, least of all by the Crown. Often, the only indicator that the Crown has is the schedule of previous convictions. When I see a long schedule of previous convictions, I do not necessarily think of a prolific offender who is a dangerous individual who should be locked up; I tend to think more of somebody who is not coping in society, who just cannot cope on their own and who needs support. The fact that there is a long schedule does not necessarily assist decision making. However, it might be the only meaningful piece of information that is available, and the consequence is inevitable.

I will ask a quick supplementary question on what you said—if I am correct—about when the fiscal opposes bail, though you may not know the answer. There has been a lot of centralisation in the Crown Office over many years, and my understanding is that there was a lot more local decision making by the fiscals, so they could change the policy if they had more information. Is the centralisation of marking possibly contributing to what is, in some cases, a blanket approach to bail?

I hesitate to comment, because I am not involved in prosecution, and one thing that I am not very good at is management. The decision to centralise marking will have been made for good reasons, but you may well be right. I recognise that there is no ownership of a case until it is in court, so the person who is marking the papers does not have any real accountability. It is not surprising that the person who is marking the papers might take a cautious approach. They might see a long schedule of previous convictions and conclude that every indication on the paper is that the individual is likely to reoffend, whereas the person who is in court and other people locally may know or know of the individual.

I sat for 15 years in Alloa sheriff court, where I had the benefit of having a social worker in court. We had a supervised bail scheme and, with every case in which bail was opposed, I would get two sides of A4 on that individual. The social worker would have spoken to the individual and I might have had available to me the previous week’s criminal justice social work report that was produced in Stirling sheriff court for the same individual. There would be local information from the social worker, and we must also never underestimate the value of the defence solicitor’s advocacy in informing the court of an individual’s circumstances. Those are all sources of information that would enable me to make much more informed and balanced decisions.

That is a slightly long-winded answer to your question, but I think that you may have a point.

That is very helpful, especially what you said about the locality—

I will just add that, for a period in Alloa, we also had the benefit of having what was in effect a resident depute. A junior depute was allocated to Alloa for a set period of time, which produced huge benefits, because it enabled defence solicitors to speak with them and to get to know the court and the individuals. There is a criminal community that comes to court all the time and who we encounter all the time, so having the junior depute proved to be invaluable.

That is really helpful—thank you.

I have two further questions in two different areas. It seems to me that we are hearing about a crisis in the prison system. We cannot start with a clean sheet of paper, but it seems obvious that there is a need for some revisualisation of the estate. David Linden spoke about the number of older prisoners and we know that only too well, because chief executives have talked about the changing nature of the prison population. Jim Watson talked about the lack of progression through prison. It seems that we need an overhaul rather than just short-term management, but that would be a bigger question.

Would expansion of the open estate not be one obvious answer? I know that we closed Noranside prison, although I am not clear why. That is surely one issue that we should ask the cabinet secretary to revisit. There must be offenders who would, if they were given rehabilitation, meet the criteria for open prison. I liked the word “progression” that Jim used, because it cut to the chase. If the system was more free-flowing, could we get more people out and would that help you to manage the prison estate?

That is an interesting question. We have covered a lot of that. We are seeing the cohort of people coming into prison changing significantly. We spoke about that when you were at Low Moss. For the first time, more than 50 per cent of those in custody are long-term prisoners, which is a change. We are seeing a lot more sexual offenders in prison and a lot more serious organised criminals. The nature of who is in prison is changing and those prisoners are there for much longer, so it is right to look at our model. I am very keen to look at how we use the estate in the best way to support people who are in custody.

Overcrowding is challenging. First-night centres should be in place. I am grateful to be able to come back to the topic of the use of the open estate because there was a comment earlier about the redesignation of the design capacity of the open estate. That is for rehabilitation. There are impressive figures about the low number of people who return to custody once they have been through the open estate and have had that testing. Historically, the design capacity was based on a hot-bedding system with three people to a room. We know that that is not the way to support someone for rehabilitation, so we have redesigned our estate to give people the best support at the end of their sentence.

But fewer people.

There are currently 187 people in Castle Huntly and being able to give each of them their own room is part of that.

We would like to be able to progress more people through the open estate and that is one of the things that we have been focusing on as part of the recovery of the progression system.

What you are saying makes sense. There is no point putting someone in Castle Huntly—

—if we set them up to fail.

I understand that, but we closed an open prison, Noranside, and there are now fewer such places. That seems obvious. I have a simple question: do you think that the cabinet secretary should look at those numbers?

I do. There is something else that I would put into the mix regarding the open estate. We have spoken about it before and I know that you are aware of the challenges of different regimes within custody and that there are people who we have to try to keep separate. That is difficult when there is only one open estate and we are trying to move people around.

Can I quickly ask Jim Watson about orders for lifelong restriction?

Very briefly. Go for it.

I am not going to open that can of worms, but I notice that you spoke about whole-life tariffs. Were you talking about orders for lifelong restriction?

I was talking specifically about the media, which tend to cover orders for lifelong restriction in the wrong way. They focus on the punishment, which is the minimum bit that someone is meant to serve in prison. They say things such as, “That person was given six years.” That was a recent example and it creates a social media pile-on of people saying, “That is an outrage. How can that offence lead to only six years in prison?”

Do you think that that should be looked at?

Are you asking about the whole system for OLRs?

There is a question about whether we, as a country, want to have an indeterminate sentence. When that was set up, back in 2003, there was enough evidence to suggest that it was necessary. More OLRs have certainly been given out than was envisaged by the original committee, but that is not necessarily a fault with the OLR disposal.

11:15

Sometimes, I see people getting a very heavy extended sentence and I myself question why, given the nature of offending, they are not given an OLR. It is very difficult to get the right balance between too punitive a sentence and one that is effective and that works. The difference with an order for lifelong restriction is that it is actually lifelong. If you do a life sentence and you are out on licence, after 20 years of keeping your nose entirely clean, you can have your supervision removed. Technically, you are still on licence, but you do not have somebody on your back every other week, which is how it feels to some of the people who come out on life licence. An order for lifelong restriction is different because the assessment of your risk does not stop until you die.

I am going to exercise the chair’s prerogative to run the evidence session on a little bit longer, because we have a couple of colleagues who are guesting today who will ask a question each, and then I will see whether any committee members want to come back for a final bite of the cherry.

This is a short question, but it might be a long answer. Sheriff Mackie, I understand that you are a strong advocate of restorative justice. How can we make that work in Scotland?

We are trying to make it work. Community Justice Scotland is working on it now, and there are pilots happening here in Edinburgh. Restorative justice is a huge area. For us, the starting point is the guidance that was published by the Scottish Government in 2017, which focuses on a group-based discussion model that would allow a dialogue between the person harmed and the person causing the harm, ideally ending up with a straight conversation between those two people. It is sometimes called family group conferencing or a group conference, and it is closely aligned to family group decision making, which, in the realm of child protection, is a highly relevant issue.

Restorative justice should be available at every stage of the criminal justice system, so it might happen through the police or the prosecution service as a form of diversion from, or alternative to, prosecution, but it should also be available, as it is in many other jurisdictions, at the point of sentencing—after conviction, but before sentencing. In New Zealand, the entire youth justice system is based on restorative justice, through the use of group conferencing. The group will meet, the dialogue will happen and the group will make a recommendation to the court. The recommendation is not binding; the court still has exactly the same discretion that it has with any sentencing decisions, but it is a factor that it can take into account. However, I believe that, nine times out of 10, the court will accept the recommendation of the restorative justice group. That sort of regime is something that we could very easily set up in Scotland.

In Alloa, I came very close to establishing a short pilot, just before Covid and before I retired from full-time sheriffing. We had social workers trained in restorative justice, not to act as facilitators but to be able to identify suitable cases to make recommendations. The sheriff’s job was simply to make space for it, and, most likely before final sentence, simply to allow a period of months for the process to take place. Sacro was lined up to act as facilitators in conducting the restorative justice process. That is what would be involved. It is quite resource intensive, it needs a lot of preparation and groundwork, and it is not suitable for every case, but it is a tool that we should have in our armoury. Other jurisdictions have it, including Belgium, Germany, Italy and Georgia. Georgia has an amazing restorative justice establishment. We should have it too.

I have been following what has been going on in the committee. I have the justice portfolio in my party, so this allows me to help people with what is going on. From talking to people I know, I have seen a pattern emerging of abusive ex-partners using the police as a tool—sending police to wake their ex-partners and making allegations so that they are arrested and thrown in a cell for up to 24 hours. There are a high number of deaths in custody. That pattern is really worrying.

I have had many people coming to me with the same pattern of the police being used as a tool for an abuser to go further with their abuse. People have come to me and have told me about what custody was like when they were arrested “for no good reason”—according to them—or for something that was alleged or where there was suspicion. They say that, when they arrive in custody, they have very little contact with people. They might have nobody to contact, or just one person, and they might have just one minute in which to call someone quickly. That creates a kind of trauma. When that is repeated over a period of months—it can be repeated several times between court cases—it creates trauma for them every time, as they will be arrested again. Also—

I must ask you to draw your question to a close. We are tight for time, and you are here as a guest.

People can have bad mental health; they can be fragile of mind because of the state that they are in, perhaps with post-traumatic stress disorder. There may also be a loss of faith in the police system. How can we bring some humanity to such situations, where people have been thrown in by themselves, with nothing? Could there be some time to organise arrangements for people—including for pets and for care—perhaps with some mild distraction to make the experience less traumatising for them, and to avoid those deaths and suicides. It is really scary to see that happening.

Could I ask you to respond briefly, please, Ms Pollock? I know that we covered deaths in custody earlier.

I am happy to. I cannot speak on behalf of the police about the initial arrest of people, or about people in that part of custody.

On the impact that remand has on people’s home circumstances, it is challenging to see what very short-term remands will do for the individual, for their family relationships and for everyone else involved.

We do a lot of work in supporting people who have been impacted when they come into custody. There are various entitlements when people come into prison custody—although I cannot speak about police custody. Everybody now has phones in their rooms, so they can phone. There are various people whose numbers we can give, who can try and help, whether as a listener or to provide other types of support. In all our establishments, we have been doing training to be trauma informed, so that our staff can have conversations and can identify people for those relationships. There is a wider question around the use of the justice system as well.

I will bring this evidence session to a close at half past 11, but I have two brief questions, which require brief answers, in the interests of getting a couple of other colleagues in.

Ms Pollock, the cabinet secretary seemed to suggest that you might have some information on modular accommodation. Where are we going with modular accommodation, which he announced before the summer recess?

We have considered it as an option before, and we will continue to consider all options that are available for us, particularly using modular. We are assessing how it has been used in England and Wales. There are security challenges with modular accommodation and how it can be used, which will have an impact on the level of prisoner supervision that could be applied. That could be considered in relation to the open estate or at the top end.

When, and at how many establishments?

That would require a further business case and a conversation with the Scottish Government.

I would really appreciate it if you could write to the committee and let us know where you are at with that.

On the Scottish Government’s announcement yesterday, Sheriff Mackie, about the move to legislate to make further provision on football banning orders—and I ask you to answer this with your previous sheriff’s hat on—it has been suggested to me in conversation that there is a role for sheriffs there, but do you have any anecdotal evidence that you want to mention regarding football banning orders, which the committee will no doubt take an interest in soon?

You are speaking to a sheriff who always resisted invitations to go to Celtic park and see the police in action. I would have loved to go, but I felt that it was inappropriate.

Football banning orders are in the armoury of sheriffs when dealing with sentences. There is no more specific role for sheriffs than that in relation to football. Cases come before the court involving public disorder or violence at football matches, and one of the obvious remedies, which might avoid something more serious, such as custody, is a football banning order, along with other community-based solutions. I have used them myself in my time as a sheriff.

The sheriff undoubtedly has a role to play there and football banning orders are an obvious resource in cases where public disorder and risk to the public generally is being caused by people who are attending football matches. In my personal experience, football banning orders are pretty effective at keeping those people away and keeping trouble away.

Speaking as a person who was the MP for seven years for the constituency that includes Celtic park, I can say that you are welcome in the east end any time, Sheriff Mackie.

I understand that one or two colleagues might want one last bite of the cherry. I am looking at Mr Kerr—if he can be very brief.

I have a tangential question. Currently, in England and Wales, the inspectorate has powers to enforce recommendations. It does not have those powers in Scotland. I raised that issue with the chief inspector of prisons recently, and I would like to have some opinions on it from Jim Watson and from the other members of the panel. Should the inspectorate have statutory powers of enforcement?

It is the wrong time to ask me, because I have just done a PhD looking at the legitimacy of the inspection process in Scotland from the perspective of prisoners. Prisoners think that the inspectorate is a tick-box exercise—it is a PR thing and is not independent; it is too pally with the SPS, and nothing ever changes. That is fine for them to say, but digging deeper shows that that is based on wrong expectations of what the inspectorate is about. Prisoners think that the inspectorate is an agent for change, when in fact it is not. The inspectorate—and particularly Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, when she was chief inspector—would argue strongly that it should not have the powers to enforce elements on the SPS, because that would only create an additional layer of management within the SPS, and then its whole independence and oversight function could be lost. That is the previous chief inspector’s view, and I would imagine that Sarah Snell very much goes along with that.

From my perspective, I see that it is difficult for prisoners who do not really understand the process. They do not see change happening, and that frustrates them. That is even more so the case with monitors, who are approached regularly with systemic issues, which they are not picking up on or addressing properly because, again, the powers are not there.

What is difficult about monitoring and inspection is related to the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment—the OPCAT. It is a preventative mechanism, and it is very difficult to measure something that has not happened.

I distracted you a couple of weeks ago when I made the outrageous statement that clearly independent monitoring works, because we have not had any major disruption in Scottish prisons since it was introduced. Go on—argue against that.

I would not invite you to argue with Mr Kerr.

I can see that I asked the right man the question, though.

I have many years of experience serving in another place with Mr Kerr, and he can argue, so we will not indulge him.

Before I bring discussion with this panel to a close, I want to give Ms Chapman a final opportunity for the last couple of minutes.

Thank you very much, David—I appreciate that. First, I thank you all for what you have said. I am glad that Colm Merrick got the question in about restorative justice as well. Jim, if I can give you the last word, what, in your view, would successful penal reform look like?

Two minutes, Maggie.

You have 95 seconds.

I think that we should have a system that is based on rehabilitation and focused on the needs of individuals—because we are talking about individuals here, and we sometimes get lost in the abstraction of numbers and the problems that that can bring up. If we focused on individuals, we could get them to engage in a desistance process. The SPS’s organisational review document talked about desistance on 80 occasions—on 79 of which it was spelled correctly. If we could get desistance to be made an operational objective of a prison sentence, that would be a fundamental reform, as we would be focusing on reducing reoffending and therefore creating fewer victims. That is how I would try to measure it and what I would argue in favour of.

Colleagues, I appreciate you allowing me to let this session run on a bit. There was a fair bit of rich evidence in it to be picked up. It might also be the first time that “bampots aside” has entered the parliamentary lexicon. I thank all three witnesses for their evidence.

I will suspend the meeting for 10 minutes, and then we will resume with our final panel.

11:29

Meeting suspended.

11:39

On resuming—