Women Offenders
The next item of business is a debate on Scottish Government recommendations from the commission on women offenders.
14:55
I am pleased to open the debate. I welcome the opportunity for the Parliament to discuss the report that the commission on women offenders published last Tuesday. The report is a powerful piece of work that sets out a compelling vision for the future of the criminal justice system in Scotland. It is clear that, even in the short space of time since its publication, the report has attracted a groundswell of support from large sections of the criminal justice sector, the wider public sector, politicians, the media and beyond.
I take this opportunity to place on record my sincere thanks to Dame Elish Angiolini, Dr Linda de Caestecker and Sheriff Danny Scullion for the immense personal and professional commitment that they invested in undertaking such a thorough review and producing an important report.
It will not be news to any member that since devolution the number of women in prison in Scotland has more than doubled, nor will it surprise them to hear that 76 per cent of custodial sentences that are handed out to women are for six months or less—despite our knowing that short prison sentences do nothing to reduce reoffending or address the underlying causes of criminal behaviour. Equally shocking is the fact that as many as a quarter of the women who are in Scotland’s prisons are there on remand. Only 30 per cent of those women go on to receive a custodial sentence.
We know that many women in the criminal justice system in Scotland are frequent reoffenders who have complex needs and issues, which are often to do with their social circumstances—for example, they may have a previous history of abuse and mental health and addiction problems. Let us not forget that in many cases the women are themselves victims of crime or—this is crucial—that they are often parents of our next generation of young Scots.
Despite the best efforts of many able and dedicated people, how females are dealt with in the criminal justice system is one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time. That has been the case for some considerable time. The situation cannot go on. A modern and just nation such as Scotland should not be prepared to let the situation continue in the 21st century.
That is why I established the commission last summer and tasked it with a challenging remit to find ways to improve the outcomes for women in the criminal justice system and to address the issue of women who offend in our communities. I am grateful to the commission members for producing far-reaching and, in places, radical recommendations, which set out a vision for how we can work more effectively with women to reduce their reoffending and ultimately reverse the upward trend in imprisonment rates. I intend to consider the report in detail over the coming weeks and to publish a formal response before the summer recess, at the end of June.
As I have said before, protecting the public will always be my top priority. To ensure the protection of the public and to mark the seriousness and gravity of their crime, prison will remain the only option for the women who have committed the most serious offences. However, the reality is that only 2 per cent of female offenders are involved in serious violent crime. The vast majority of the female offender population do not pose a serious risk of harm to the public. The sad truth is that in many cases those women are more likely to be a risk to themselves.
For most women, the best chance of reducing their reoffending is if they remain in their communities, where they can address the issues that need to change in their lives. Importantly, they can also repay the community for the crimes that they have committed and the harm that they have caused.
The commission made its position clear on the suitability and condition of Cornton Vale prison, as has the chief inspector of prisons in his inspection reports, the most recent of which was published yesterday. I accept the commission’s arguments on that matter and have tasked the Scottish Prison Service with considering in detail the recommendations about prisons. I assure the chamber that those points will be addressed in my formal response before summer.
However, it is important that we recognise that new prisons cannot be built quickly or cheaply. I accept the implications of the recommendations of Dame Elish Angiolini and her colleagues.
The cabinet secretary said that he intends to give a formal response by the summer. Will he be a little more specific about the timetable for that formal response, and will he indicate today which of the recommendations the Government supports?
I am happy to make it clear that we will produce a formal response before June, although I do not have a set timetable.
There is nothing in Dame Elish Angiolini’s report that causes us significant concern. There are matters that we may have to tweak, and there are issues over the timetable. This is a report to be taken in the round. In the same way, we followed, and continue to follow, the direction of travel of the McLeish commission, which the Angiolini commission considered.
On Cornton Vale, work on some aspects is in progress. As Mr Macdonald will know, the new prison in Grampian is a community-facing prison that will have accommodation for female offenders. On its own, that does not address the issue of Cornton Vale, which is why I await advice and options from the Scottish Prison Service before responding.
I accept the logic and direction intimated by Dame Elish Angiolini. A prison cannot be magicked out of the air, in terms of its cost or construction. However, I accept the clear implication that Cornton Vale is not fit for purpose—notwithstanding the outstanding service of those who work in it—and that ultimately it will have to go. That is a matter that I will discuss with the Scottish Prison Service. In the interim, the new prison in Grampian will provide options. We will continue to address the issue through the removal of prisoners to Bruce house in Edinburgh and through the units that we have opened at Inverness and Aberdeen.
We must ensure that there are robust and more effective and cost-efficient ways of dealing with women who offend than simply locking them up. The commission’s report highlights a number of excellent community-based projects that do just that, such as the 218 centre in Glasgow and the willow project in Edinburgh. I went to see another such service in Falkirk yesterday.
When visiting those projects, I have seen for myself—as did the commission—that they demonstrate positive outcomes for some of the most chaotic women in the system. That is why I join the commission in paying tribute to the work that goes on in the projects and in many other parts of the criminal justice system to ensure that the often multifaceted problems of the most vulnerable and chaotic people in our society are identified and addressed in a holistic and effective way. I believe that the commission is right to insist that we learn from such examples and build on their successes throughout Scotland.
The Government firmly believes that the best way to address the revolving-door syndrome of short-term prison sentences and reoffending is with tough and effective community-based penalties that force low-level, repeat offenders to repay their debt to society through hard work in the community, through which they can address many of the challenges, obstacles and difficulties that they face.
It is important to say that the report is not and cannot be just about additional money. Indeed, at a time of financial constraint in the public sector, it is encouraging that the commission itself believes that many of its recommendations can be achieved largely through the reconfiguring of the significant resources that are already invested in the area. Prison is much more expensive than community disposals in financial terms and we know that the social cost is much higher still.
If we find effective ways of addressing the cycle of low-level reoffending now, we will save money in the longer term. Much more important, however, is that that approach will also ensure that it is not inevitable that the children of today’s offenders become the next generation of offenders. We owe it to all Scotland’s children to give them the best possible start in life and as many chances to succeed as we can.
The issues of how women are dealt with in the criminal justice system and the rising prison population are of course not new. This Parliament has debated them on several occasions over the years and, as Dame Elish Angiolini pointed out when she launched the report, there have been 10 previous reports across the United Kingdom on women offenders. It is up to all of us to ensure that the report does not pass without bringing about real and substantial change. It would simply not be acceptable if in 10 years’ time we were in the chamber debating a prison population that had doubled once more. Indeed, as the former First Minister Henry McLeish said in his 2008 report on Scotland’s prisons,
“it is not inevitable that Scotland should have one of the highest incarceration rates in Europe. Scotland can do better.”
I echo that sentiment.
During his deliberations, will the cabinet secretary consider the outcomes of the Equal Opportunities Committee’s 2009 report?
Yes. I am happy to take these matters in the round. I welcome the wisdom and advice that has come from the Angiolini report, but, as I said earlier, 10 such reports have been produced throughout the UK. It is incumbent on us now to act on the Angiolini report, which is why I look for support around the chamber for that and, indeed, as we work across agencies. That is why we had on the commission not only a former Lord Advocate but a senior public health official and a serving sheriff. At the end of the day, the solution rests not with a single report but in working and delivery.
The commission makes a number of very clear and practical recommendations that will require substantial input and effort from across Scotland, including from across the political spectrum. Delivering on the vision that the commission set out will require courageous and determined responses from all of us. Today, I invite members to work with me to deliver the change that is desperately needed so that we can make a real difference. I believe that the report presents us with a valuable opportunity to work together in the best traditions of politics and of our nation to create a fairer and more just society. I look forward to members’ speeches and I will be more than happy to work with them as we seek to implement the Angiolini report and change something that is manifestly wrong in our society.
15:09
For our part, we welcome the recommendations made by the Angiolini commission and, like the Government, we acknowledge the hard work and insights provided by Dame Elish Angiolini and her colleagues in taking the report forward. Staff who work with women offenders do the best job that they can in difficult circumstances, but I do not think that anyone in the chamber will be surprised that the commission has found so many opportunities to make improvements and changes to what is a troubled system.
Laurie Russell, the chief executive of the Wise Group, said at the weekend that he believed that the criminal justice system was broken when it came to supporting initiatives to reduce reoffending. He leads one of the agencies that work to support male and female prisoners to get back into the community and out of the cycle of reoffending. He knows from his agency’s direct experience what is wrong with the system.
What Laurie Russell says of the system as a whole is particularly true of the way that our society deals with women who break the law: even more female offenders go to prison on remand; even more of them go to jail but do not have access to meaningful rehabilitation programmes while they are there; and even more get stuck in a cycle of offending and reoffending when effective intervention could help them to build better lives.
Kenny MacAskill said today, as he did last week, that the Scottish Government welcomes the thrust and vision of the commission’s findings. Building on that, we now need timely and decisive actions from ministers to address the various challenges that are identified in the report. Many of those problems will take time to resolve, but we look to ministers to come up with a timetable for the introduction of changes and reforms not only to Cornton Vale—important though those are—but to the way that the justice system as a whole deals with women offenders.
The report highlights some successful examples of local projects, such as the 218 centre in Glasgow—for which my colleague Dr Richard Simpson deserves particular credit—and the willow project in Edinburgh and, of course, successful units within prisons, such as the community integration unit at HM Prison Aberdeen, which I visited recently and which I am sure that the cabinet secretary has also visited.
Building on such best practice can make a real difference to the lives of women who find themselves unnecessarily trapped in the justice system. However, to delay action for months or years when many lives will have been damaged already by the failings of the current system is surely not an option. It would fail those offenders who want to change the circumstances in which they live and to improve their life chances and those of their children.
Kenny MacAskill mentioned short sentences but, despite the scrapping of sentences of less than three months and claims that crime on Scotland’s streets is falling year on year, the female prison population continues to grow. Many of the women who are behind bars are the offenders whom the abolition of very short sentences was supposed to benefit.
As the commission affirms, only a small proportion of women in prison are hardened or violent criminals or a danger to their communities. Most are more of a danger to themselves. They are exposed to drugs and to the negative influence and bullying of high-risk offenders with whom they are in prison. They are often mentally unwell and, at Cornton Vale, they are likely to be detained in highly inadequate conditions.
The commission recommends smaller local units like those at Aberdeen prison and elsewhere. Such units will give women offenders the best possible chance of turning their lives around on release—as long as the Government backs its praise for the commission’s report with action to implement it.
Changes are also needed to cut down the unacceptably high number of women prisoners who spend their time on remand. As Kenny MacAskill highlighted, many of those women are not thereafter sentenced to imprisonment, so the logic of their being remanded in prison is clearly exposed as inadequate. There are already several schemes that could be used not only to reduce overcrowding at Cornton Vale but to provide counselling and drug therapy to women on remand while they await trial. In many cases, that would make more sense .
The flagship proposal in the report is to replace Cornton Vale with a new facility for offenders whose crimes warrant custodial sentences, but it is equally important that the Government properly explore all the options when it comes to finding long-term solutions for low-risk offenders. If it does that, it will have support from the Labour Party.
Such women certainly need to be punished for their crimes, but they also need support and help to be successfully reintegrated into the community, to deal with their mental health or drugs issues, to find a home and a job, and to look after their children. Those are the best ways to assist those women and to prevent the cycle of offending and reoffending from continuing.
The cabinet secretary told us a few moments ago that he would make a formal response to the commission’s report before June. I am sure that he will acknowledge that the report gives the Scottish Government a six-month deadline. That means a progress report—an opportunity for ministers to report to the Parliament on what progress they have made on the recommendations that are detailed in the report—by October.
I am sure that, in setting June as the month by which a formal response will be made, Mr MacAskill is aware of the recommendation in the report that he come back to Parliament in October to tell us what progress he has made. In Mr MacAskill’s response to my intervention, he made it clear that he supported the recommendations as a whole with, perhaps, as I think he suggested, a need for a little tweaking around the edges. Other issues are priorities—which recommendations the Government will seek to implement first—what the milestones of progress will be and what resources ministers will deploy in developing new projects and schemes for dealing with female offenders.
Of course, the reality is that this is not the first opportunity that this Scottish Government has been given to do something to improve conditions for women offenders in the justice system—to be fair, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice acknowledged that in his speech. For example, back in January 2010, HM chief inspector highlighted in a report the mother and baby unit at Cornton Vale, with a recommendation that a new unit should be constructed and a family visitor centre built. The lack of progress was highlighted in the chief inspector’s follow-up report in February 2011 and in his latest follow-up report, which was published yesterday.
Brigadier Hugh Monro’s comments on his latest findings at Cornton Vale could not have been clearer. He says that Elish Angiolini is absolutely right that the existing prison is unfit for purpose and should be replaced, but that waiting for a new jail to be built is not acceptable and that, until a new jail is in place, improvements to the fabric of the existing prison at Cornton Vale will have to continue to be made. That is the view of the chief inspector of prisons and I hope that that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and ministers will support it.
I am sorry to say that there has been a lack of investment at Aberdeen prison since a decision on closure was made; I hope that the same will not happen at Cornton Vale. Kenny MacAskill told the Justice Committee in the autumn that the Scottish Government did not have the money to pay for a new prison to replace Cornton Vale. I acknowledge that today he recognised that the report changes the environment in which decisions have to be made, but I hope that, in the meantime, he will affirm his commitment to maintaining conditions as far as he can at the prison until such time as he comes forward with a plan for a replacement prison.
The commission’s report criticises measures and actions taken by the Scottish Government in a number of other areas, for example around the electronic monitoring scheme and bail supervision orders. Those are examples of good initiatives that have been endorsed by the Government but which have not been fully followed through.
We look for a different approach in the Government’s response to the report. We seek a clearly defined timescale, measurable targets and action to ensure that women are given the support that they need to escape from the cycle of crime and prison.
Hard work has been done by the commission. It is now the turn of the Scottish Government to do hard work in preparing a response and setting out a measurable timescale. If it does that and comes up with a set of proposals that are measurable and resourced, it will have our broad support.
15:18
Like the cabinet secretary and Mr Macdonald, I welcome the report that the commission has published. I was pleased to make a modest contribution to its work by way of oral evidence.
Before I comment on some of the specific recommendations, it is worth emphasising some key statistics concerning crimes committed by women, which should provide a context for our consideration of them. The first point to note is that women commit approximately 16 per cent of all crimes. That figure has remained remarkably consistent over time. Their rate of offending varies from 13 per cent of non-sexual crimes of violence to nearly 25 per cent of crimes of indecency and 20 per cent of crimes of dishonesty.
To give members an indication of the seriousness of some of the offences, in 2010-11 alone, women committed and were convicted of 321 serious non-sexual crimes of violence, 359 cases of fire-raising and vandalism and 177 crimes involving the handling of an offensive weapon—most probably, I imagine, a knife.
That contribution to overall criminality notwithstanding, women make up less than 6 per cent of the total prison population, a figure that, again, has been fairly steady over a long period of time. Accordingly, by reference to their criminality, it is arguable that women are underrepresented in the Scottish prison population. Moreover, figures for crimes committed by gender show that a man is twice as likely as a woman is to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, for comparable offences. Of course, that suggests to me that, up to the point of sentencing, women are given special consideration by our criminal justice system.
Does Mr McLetchie accept that the impact of going to prison is much greater on women than it is on men, given that women have care of the children and they can lose their homes and their social support? That is much more the case for women than it is for men.
I happily acknowledge that that is the case for many women offenders. However, for those who end up in jail, we should not forget that the size of our prison population arises from the judgments that are made by our independently appointed judges who, taking into account the crime committed and the history of the criminality of the particular offender, have reached a conclusion that a sentence of imprisonment is appropriate.
Reading the Angiolini report, I was struck not so much by the differences between male and female offenders but by the similarities in terms of illiteracy, abusive backgrounds, drug and alcohol addictions and so on. Although, as Elaine Smith rightly pointed out, there are clearly special factors relating to family dependency, many of the recommendations that are made in the report would apply equally well to male offenders and I wonder whether, rather than looking at female offenders in isolation as a special category, we should be looking at the whole. For example, the report makes various recommendations on alternatives to prosecution and remand, and I am not clear why those recommendations should be unique to women offenders.
I welcome the recognition in the Angiolini report that a national prison for women offenders is required, because there are women who should be in prison, to protect the public and mark the seriousness of their crimes. In that context, much publicity has been attracted by the recommendation that a new national prison should be built for such offenders. The issue for consideration is where one would build such a facility and whether the implementation of the recommendation would not be better fulfilled by a reconfiguration and improvement of facilities at Cornton Vale.
In his recent report, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons identified some significant improvements since his previous inspection a year ago, largely as a result of the transfer of a number of women prisoners to other facilities and a corresponding reduction in the Cornton Vale population to below 300. That is welcome. However, it has to be said that the previous, glacial progress in implementing recommendations of the inspectorate in relation to Cornton Vale reflects no credit on the Scottish Prison Service. Indeed, one of the most important recommendations of the report is that a non-executive member of the SPS board should be appointed with the specific responsibility of driving through change in the treatment of women offenders. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the overall governance of the SPS needs a good shake-up and that, perhaps, the appointment of its fifth chief executive in five years will provide the cabinet secretary with an opportunity to do that.
We welcome the report and look forward to further discussion of its recommendations. As the cabinet secretary has identified, there are significant spending implications, which we will have to assess and accommodate within a tight budget settlement, which, of course, reflects other spending choices that we have made and which we would support. We also need to consider more fully the role that rehabilitation, addiction and education programmes in prison could play in reducing reoffending.
We move to the open debate. Speeches should be of a tight six minutes, please.
15:24
I commend the cabinet secretary—he will not be surprised to hear—for initiating this important inquiry. Sometimes, we as parliamentarians and those in government have to face difficult situations. An example is how we deal with people in our society who offend and reoffend and, in the case of the report that we are discussing, women who have entered the criminal justice system. The cabinet secretary was brave to accept that, compared to men, women are getting longer sentences for lesser crimes, and he was brave to set up the commission to tackle that inequality—an inequality that seems to be unrecognised by David McLetchie.
I also take this opportunity to commend the team who made up the commission. It was ably chaired by the former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, who has a long and distinguished career in our Scottish justice system.
It is worth while restating the commission’s remit. It was:
“to consider the evidence on how to improve outcomes for women in the criminal justice system; to make recommendations for practical measures in this Parliament to reduce their reoffending and reverse the recent increase in the female prisoner population.”
I was astonished to learn that the female prison population has doubled in the past 10 years. I believe that a solution needs to be found that not only breaks the cycle of reoffending but prevents people from entering the criminal justice system in the first place.
Notwithstanding the percentages that David McLetchie gave us, it seems that only 2 per cent of female offenders are involved in serious violent crime. That means that 98 per cent do not represent a serious risk of harm to the public. I reaffirm my position that, if someone is a danger to the public, a custodial sentence is the only option. Some women will still require a prison sentence.
I welcome the recommendations in the report, especially the call for more community-based disposals. I believe, as does the Association of Directors of Social Work, that the key to better outcomes for these women, and in many cases for their children, is better joint working and preventative work with an emphasis on greater collaboration and the involvement of universal and mainstream services alongside the criminal justice services.
The involvement of joint services is essential if we are to ensure that vulnerable and hard-to-reach women are enabled to access appropriate services in their communities. That is usually where their support network is, and that is where we can get the best outcomes. The need for preventative and early intervention services is overwhelming. Services that focus on the families and children of offenders are critical if we are to reduce the negative impact of parental offending and imprisonment on children.
The Government has already provided £8.5 million in funding to the 218 centre in Glasgow, which is highlighted as an example of good practice in the commission’s report. It was also highlighted as an excellent example in the report on female offenders in the criminal justice system by the session 3 Equal Opportunities Committee, which was chaired by Margaret Mitchell. We felt that it was a fantastic community-based project. I was delighted to hear that that funding will be maintained in 2012-13.
The 218 centre provides a specialist community-based facility to help women offenders to address their offending behaviour and tackle the underlying causes. The results speak for themselves. The police have recorded that offending by the 320 women who were referred to the centre between June 2007 and May 2008 reduced by 21 per cent following their contact with the service. The 218 centre has also been the subject of an independent evaluation by London South Bank University, which estimates that the cost benefit of every £1 that is invested in the service is a potential saving of £2.50 per year across healthcare, criminal justice and social care. The funding is one of the best examples of preventative spend that I have seen. We know that, in some cases, it costs up to £70,000 a year to keep a person in prison, but it costs only £3,000 a year to support them in the community.
Better health plays a vital role in rehabilitation. As the Parliament knows, the responsibility for prisoner healthcare, including mental health and addiction services, moved from the SPS to the national health service at the end of last year. I hope that that will ensure a smoother transition from prison to the community in terms of treatment, support and access to mainstream services. As the previous Equal Opportunities Committee heard, better healthcare gives the best outcomes in dealing with the serious underlying causes of reoffending. That committee reported that the majority of women in prison suffer from mental health issues and/or addiction to alcohol or drugs, and a large proportion have been in a generational cycle of criminality. The saddest fact is that a number of those women are very vulnerable and are victims of crime. Some are victims of domestic or historical abuse. I have said before that I firmly believe that they need a hospital bed, not a prison cell.
I ask the cabinet secretary to remember in his deliberations on the report’s recommendations that he already knows about and has visited excellent projects, such as the Wise Group’s routes out of prison project and Barnardo’s women in focus project, which provides mentors and guidance for women offenders and reduces reoffending. The women in focus service works with community-based orders and with women and their criminal justice supervising officers. It helps young women in particular to comply with their orders, gives them constant support and practical help via a mentor, and looks at their budgeting and improving their social skills and education.
The commission makes many good recommendations for women in the system, but I ask the cabinet secretary to consider some of them for men, too. I believe to my feminist core that, if they work for women, they should surely work for men. We can then truly break the cycle of reoffending.
15:31
I commend the cabinet secretary for setting up the commission. However, as he recognises, there have been at least 10 reports and inspections since devolution, and none has been fully implemented. None of those reports and inspections seems to have had the impact that it should have had. In the meantime, women, many of whom are victims, have continued to go to jail in increasing numbers and, as a result, they have lost their homes, jobs and social supports, and their children have suffered. Around half of the children of women prisoners end up in prison, which is deeply disturbing.
I have served in the Parliament for 13 years, and women offenders have been a major issue in that time. In 1999, I was a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee’s women’s sub-group, which first met on 26 October that year. It decided to consider two main issues: the treatment of women victims of crime in the judicial system and the treatment of women offenders by the judicial system. Much of the evidence that we considered then has been repeated in the commission’s report some 13 years later, and Helena Kennedy raised many of those issues in her book “Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice”. In 1992, she proposed alternatives to custody.
Some positive steps forward have been taken over the years—I refer to the 218 centre, for example—but it is deeply depressing to realise that, after all that time, the issues have not only remained the same but worsened in some cases. In 2000, women made up 3.5 per cent of the total prison population; by 2010-11, the figure had risen to 5 per cent. That is depressing.
I am passionate about achieving change in how we treat women in the justice system, so I was pleased when the Equal Opportunities Committee in the previous session agreed to take forward my suggestion to have an inquiry into the subject. The report of that inquiry, which I mentioned in my intervention on the cabinet secretary, helped to inform the report that we are discussing, but many of its recommendations have simply been repeated. I make a plea for action.
Why should we be bothered about the increasing number of women who are being imprisoned? Perhaps because of prison overcrowding, the price of keeping someone incarcerated, or even the costs associated with looking after dependent children—those are all good reasons. It makes economic sense to stop sending women to prison, but the real reason why we should be bothered is that most of those women are victims, and their children go on to suffer. As a society, we need to take that on board and consider it.
Of course I accept that some women have to be in prison, particularly those who have been convicted of serious violent crime and might be a danger to society. Christina McKelvie pointed that out in her speech. However, those women would also fare better if prisons were less crowded and more time and effort was put into their rehabilitation, as the report suggests. Last year, those women made up only 2 per cent of the total female prison population, so I want to concentrate on the other 98 per cent, many of whom, as we have heard, have suffered abuse and have mental health problems. Many are addicts because of abuse in their chaotic lifestyles or, indeed, to cope with those lifestyles.
In evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee, Sue Brookes, who is an ex-governor of Cornton Vale, said:
“More than once, women arrived at ... Cornton Vale clearly not knowing who they were, let alone where they were”.—[Official Report, Equal Opportunities Committee, 5 May 2009; c 1005.]
She went on to question the ethics of that. For those women, alternatives such as the 218 centre are vital. Some women are detained in prison only because they need to be kept safe and nowhere else is available and, in that respect, the report suggests a different approach, which I hope will be accepted.
Alternatives are particularly relevant for women incarcerated on remand, only around 30 per cent of whom receive a custodial sentence. By being on remand, those women can lose their homes, their jobs and their children; their children suffer and they, too, suffer from mental distress and are at risk of committing suicide. It is all a bit reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, who said that, quite often, subjects are punished before they commit a crime rather than after and, sometimes, they are punished when they commit no crimes at all.
A note of caution is required on community alternatives, because they need to be suited to women and cannot simply be tagged on to men’s services. One of my main motivations for wanting the Equal Opportunities Committee to examine the matter was the fact that the criminal justice system was set up with men in mind and has continued to develop in that fashion and I believe that any new women’s prison must be built with proper consideration of the needs of women and dependent children. I also urge caution over holding women in men’s prisons. There are good reasons for keeping women in facilities in local communities, but they cannot be simply an add-on; they must be designed with women’s needs in mind.
Going back to a point made by Mr McLetchie, I note that the report says that there is no evidence to suggest that the courts are biased against women. However, in her evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee, Baroness Corston said:
“Sentencers do not like to hear this, but they have been giving women harsher sentences for less serious crimes.”—[Official Report, Equal Opportunities Committee, 19 May 2009; c 1048.]
The cabinet secretary, too, has touched on that issue in the past and I really think that it needs to be considered further.
Over many years, political parties have been guilty of reacting to a tabloid agenda with a macho contest over who is tougher on crime. Actually, it is tougher to have the courage to do the right thing with regard to women offenders. After 13 years of a devolved Parliament and five years of his Government, the cabinet secretary has got to find the courage to take action and, when he does, I will be the first in line to congratulate him. Indeed, I hope that I can do so in six months’ time when he reports back to Parliament and annually thereafter.
15:37
I, too, commend the commission for its report and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice for setting it up in the first place. The commission was set up to provide a fresh and independent perspective and to bring forward solutions this session and, for the reasons that members have highlighted, it is very important that the Government takes time to reflect on the report. After all, there have been many such reports before and people now want action. I look forward to getting the Government’s detailed response before the summer recess. We should certainly congratulate the individuals who have made an input to the report.
The man or woman on the street might well ask why there has been such a focus on women when, after all, we certainly need to address offending behaviour by both genders. I make no apology for repeating many of the statistics that we have already heard. For example, compared with men, women are more likely to be a lower risk to public safety, with only 2 per cent involved in serious crime. They are more likely to be in prison for dishonesty offences, by which I mean acquisitive crime as a result not only of addiction—if that were properly addressed, people might be prevented from coming into the justice system—but, dare I say it, of poverty. With the attack on the benefits system, that is likely to become more and more of a factor.
Women are also more likely to be placed on remand. In fact, a quarter of the women in prison are on remand and only 30 per cent of them receive a custodial sentence. I therefore agree with Lewis Macdonald that there seems to be a lack of logic in that respect.
There are also higher rates of mental health problems among women in prison. As we have heard, the inspectorate’s 2007 report said that 80 per cent of women in Cornton Vale had such problems. I think that it is important that this report refers to borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and I might well come back to that issue later.
As if prison were not traumatic enough for inmates and those charged with looking after them, it has been suggested that women in prison are around 10 times more likely to self-harm. That is an alarming statistic.
We have also heard of the impact on families and children. Approximately 30 per cent of imprisoned parents will develop physical and mental problems and are more likely to end up in prison themselves. We in the Parliament have met many organisations that are doing sterling work in that respect.
I am grateful to Equality and Human Rights Commission Scotland for its briefing paper on what it calls a case for a different approach. It says that
“women demonstrate different predictors of reoffending than men ... women are more likely than men to lose their homes.”
It also says that
“Women offenders are more likely than men who offend to have dependent children ... and less likely to rely on a partner outside to look after their children while they are in custody”,
which increases the potential for greater adverse impacts on children of women prisoners. So there is a range of gender issues inherent in what is being said today.
Cornton Vale is not everyone’s favourite establishment and there has been much consideration of the recommendation to replace it. I visited Cornton Vale with Alison McInnes, and I have to tell members that I think that the establishment is suffering a bit from visitor fatigue, which is probably what gave rise to many of the reports. There is a continual focus on the facility, which may have affected the morale of the staff who work there. Prison officers and their civilian colleagues apply the highest possible standards and should be commended for their work.
A lot of comment has been made about the 218 project and I am grateful that the Government has funded it to the tune of £8.5 million over five years. There is a very good reason for that investment. As Christina McKelvie said, there is evidence that, for every pound that is invested, the potential saving is £2.50 across healthcare, criminal justice and social care. However, this is not just about money. We are talking about the approach that we take. Reference has been made to the multidisciplinary teams—criminal justice, social workers, health professionals, addiction workers—and the tailored support that the 218 project can provide.
The report also talks about service redesign and doing things in a different way. Perhaps the more radical suggestion is to have a national service. We have all heard about the fragmentation of the service and I fear that, in some cases, out of sight means out of mind. Some of the information that we were given at Cornton Vale about the on-going involvement of the 32 local authorities—or, in most cases, lack of on-going involvement—suggests that something needs to be done. I hope that consideration will be given to that.
It is important to note that we are talking about reintegration into the community, and housing is a key part of that. That means an important role for the third sector. The report refers to the benefits system, which I think is pertinent. This is not a party-political issue and, clearly, integration will not be achieved if someone who leaves prison has their housing arrangements sorted but does not have their benefit sorted. Planning needs to go into that and I hope to see a positive role for the benefits agency.
Mentoring, to which Christina McKelvie and others have alluded, is also key, not just to deal with reoffending but to ensure that court orders are adhered to.
The report makes the interesting point that males and females breach court orders for differing reasons. Males generally breach court orders when they reoffend; with females, it is generally because of their chaotic lifestyle and the implications of distance, cost and childcare. There is a clear difference there and we cannot afford to do nothing about it. The report is a very positive start and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.
15:43
Having worked in Scotland’s only women’s prison from the day that it opened until my final locum there in 2003, and having served as Deputy Minister for Justice when Professor Sheila McLean presented her review of women offenders, I have a particular interest in the area.
That review arose from Henry McLeish’s aspiration to halve the number of women prisoners following the then inspector Clive Fairweather’s comments in 1999. As a minister in 2001-02, in what was then a new Administration, I tried to restate the aim as reducing the number of admissions rather than the daily prison population. At that time, the number of admissions was 2,100.
The report, “A Better Way: The Report of the Ministerial Group on Women’s Offending”, and the subsequent proposals, if they had been fully implemented, would have significantly reduced admissions. Many of the proposals in that earlier report are repeated in this welcome and important report from Dame Elish Angiolini and her colleagues. It is a welcome restatement of the direction of travel that we really must follow.
As a starting point, other members have said that we should recognise that there is a considerable difference between male and female offenders. Women are different and an adapted male prison model is not good enough.
In 1987, only a handful of drug misusers were admitted to Cornton Vale. By the time that I did my last stint there, more than 80 per cent of the prisoners had been convicted of drug-related offences, but the background of abuse in childhood, looked-after status in childhood, mental health problems, including borderline personality disorder, and histories of domestic violence or self-harm—much of which was detailed in research by Dobash and Dobash—remained unchanged throughout the period of my association with Cornton Vale.
I want to ensure that, this time round, as well as agreeing with the warm words in all the reports that have been produced, the Parliament agrees a set of targets. That is vital, because without hard targets we will not achieve the change that we all seek.
My only criticism of the Government is that its attempt simply to abolish short-term sentences by diktat demonstrated a surprising lack of understanding of the judiciary and how it works. The courts will choose non-custodial alternatives when they are seen to be effective. In 2001, the number of offenders who were admitted for fine default was 587. The fact that, last year, the figure was less than 90 shows that change can be achieved.
The principle of sheriffs managing cases, which the report mentions, is of great importance and has been welcomed by those who have been involved in the drugs courts, the domestic violence court and drug treatment and testing orders. That continuity of management should be extended.
It is not by chance that the number of young offenders who are admitted and the number of short-term sentences have reduced since 2001. That has happened thanks to the establishment of drugs courts, DTTOs and the unique, innovative and—as others have said—successful time-out centre at 218 Bath Street, which every year admits up to 500 women whose offence was wholly or largely drug related.
The tragedy is that, once that pilot project was shown to be successful in the middle of the last decade, it was not rolled out for women, nor was a similar project piloted for men. I believe that that should happen, and that the project should be extended to deal specifically with alcohol-related offences. We now need centres to deal with alcohol problems and we need to extend treatment and testing orders to cover alcohol.
Over the period that I am talking about, although the number of short sentences and the number of people admitted to prison for fine default have gone down, the reverse is true of the number of offenders admitted on remand, which has increased from 800 to 1,800 per year. The proposals for bail supervision and electronic tagging that I made when I was a minister have not been implemented nationally, which might be partly why the judiciary feel the need to use remand so often when only 30 per cent of those who are on remand eventually receive a custodial sentence. Therefore, I welcome the proposals for bail supervision plus and those for tackling housing and dealing with mentoring.
In my view, the proposal that remand should be to local treatment and support units that are similar to time-out centres is welcome. Section 5 of the report, which is on supervision, tagging, mentoring and ensuring that housing and treatment are provided, has my full support.
Another important issue is children. Although I do not have time to go into that today, it is critical.
In the meantime, I recommend to the cabinet secretary some issues on which he should consider making early progress. First, I ask him to ensure, almost immediately, that someone be appointed to the SPS board specifically to deal with female offenders. David McLetchie and others mentioned that. That would cost no money and would provide the focus that has been lacking on the board for far too long.
Secondly, I ask the cabinet secretary to meet the call of the report and the chief inspector for a prison visitors centre at Cornton Vale, possibly in the old staff canteen, which would be run by the community. I have been pressing for such centres in the prisons, three of which are in my constituency, for some years. Glenochil prison could have had a prison visitors centre, but the prison board chose to abolish the premises that could have been used. The old canteen at Cornton Vale is still there and it could be used tomorrow. It would cost very little to turn it into a visitors centre and the community is willing to run it, so let us get on with it.
Thirdly, we need a successor to the prison visiting committees and I look forward to the announcements that the cabinet secretary referred to this morning. I hope that, as well as involving a monitoring function, the new system will embody the best of the prison visiting service, which was working well in Cornton Vale, if not in some of the other prisons.
Fourthly, arrest referral and other intervention services related to drugs and alcohol should be extended. Again, that could be done at relatively little cost.
Finally, the Government should work with the judiciary to increase continuity of management.
Those measures would cost little and would demonstrate momentum, but the danger is that the suggested demolition of Cornton Vale will lead to planning blight. We need action and we need a good action plan now.
15:49
I welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s wisdom in setting up the commission on women offenders and particularly in asking Dame Elish Angiolini to chair it. Her commitment to women’s issues in the justice system is well recognised. For example, we all remember her unstinting efforts to secure more convictions for rape and her commitment on that issue. The recommendations in the report are sound and far-reaching. I hope that, when the cabinet secretary gives the Scottish Government’s response in the summer, it will be positive.
I speak as a former member of the visiting committee at Craiginches prison for 12 years. For the majority of that time, Craiginches had a small women’s unit. We witnessed the increase in women prisoners over that time and the changes in the type of offences, which Dr Richard Simpson mentioned.
Members have mentioned that women need fairness in the justice system. By that, I think that they mean equality of treatment between men and women. No one says that women should not be sentenced if they have committed a crime, but the sentencing of men and women is not fair. Women are more likely to be sent to prison for lesser crimes. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice is known for talking about locking up the bad and not the sad, but that definitely needs to be applied to female offenders as well as to male ones. Reoffending rates are higher not just because short sentences mean that little time is available for rehabilitation, but because, tragically, prison is the only safe place in many women’s lives.
I witnessed women who had come into prison malnourished, ill-kempt and distraught, but who, after just a few weeks, looked so much better, with their hair shiny and nails growing as a result of getting good food, regular sleep and order in their lives. As John Finnie mentioned, one can see the self-harm scars healing. Regrettably, the SPS in its wisdom decided to close the unit in Aberdeen and move women offenders from the north-east to Cornton Vale. The visiting committee vigorously opposed that move because we knew that it would increase problems for the families with visits and maintaining relationships. Of course, it has now been realised that the move was a mistake, and the unit has been reopened.
It is worth quoting some excerpts from the commission’s report that relate to Aberdeen. It states:
“We were ... impressed with the Community Integration Unit at Aberdeen HMP which provides support for women to be part of a local community at the end of their sentence.”
The report goes on to state:
“The Commission visited Aberdeen Community Integration Unit and met with management, staff and prisoners, and former residents. We had lengthy discussions with prisoners away from staff and we were struck by the positive relationship which exists between the staff in the unit and the prisoners there. This seemed to us to be based upon a culture of mutual respect. We also noted the emphasis that was placed by management and staff on involving the residents in taking responsibility for practical decisions which affect their daily lives within the unit. It seemed to us that the women in the unit benefited from this approach and were encouraged by it to develop important life skills which may assist them as they prepare to return to their communities.”
The report continues:
“We recommend that the new national prison for women should include”
a
“Community Integration Unit based on the model in place at HMP Aberdeen to help women access community services and support networks prior to their release.”
We should all congratulate Governor Audrey Mooney and all the agencies, including the Wise Group, that work in the community integration unit.
I regret that I have not visited Cornton Vale. That is a gap in my knowledge, although I take on board John Finnie’s comments about the number of visitors. However, I know that the prison has links with prisons in Malawi, and I want to share my experience of visiting Chichiri prison in Malawi. In that prison, women can be held on remand for up to nine years; children are detained with their mothers; women do not have cooking facilities, but they have to do their own cooking, without a kitchen and just on bits of burning wood; and they have appalling shower and washing facilities.
I agree that Cornton Vale should be replaced but, as others have said, we need to find ways of gaining retribution for women’s crimes other than putting them in prison. My biggest plea is for a change of culture in judicial services.
Recently, Aberdeen prison visiting committee hosted a meeting that, as Lewis Macdonald knows, was well attended by a wide range of organisations, including police, social services and many third sector organisations. What struck me most was the heartfelt plea from a head of social work services about the huge burden that is placed on the public purse by the judiciary’s sentencing policy, whether that is in housing, fostering, kinship care, or mental health services. It is important that the judiciary recognises the wider consequences of sentencing policy. It is clear that David McLetchie did not read the briefing from Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, which calls for a distinct approach for women offenders.
My hope is that, as a result of the report, we will see a change of culture in the judicial services and that the effects of sentencing policy on offenders and their families will be recognised. I also hope that there is a change in the SPS, so that it considers the longer-term outcomes.
15:56
Although I warmly welcome the report of the commission on women offenders, and I largely agree with the main issues that it highlights—many of which also apply to male offenders—my overriding reaction is a depressing, “Here we are again.”
The report comes to many of the same conclusions as previous reports, including the report that resulted from the Equal Opportunities Committee’s 2008 inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system. That report’s recommendations were debated in the chamber in 2009, but three years later, the issues that it raised and the recommendations that it made are still unresolved, as the commission’s report before us confirms.
Prisoners with mental health issues are one of three main issues that are covered in both reports. There are women in Cornton Vale with mental health issues so severe that 24/7 supervision is required to stop them self-harming, which in turn puts huge pressure on prison staff. Such prisoners are not a danger to the public, but they are a very real danger to themselves and they ought to be in hospital and not in prison. The issue was raised in the committee’s 2009 report, so why are such women still in prison?
Both reports raise the issue of remand. We know that 70 per cent of the female prisoners on remand will not serve a custodial sentence. It therefore makes sense to look at the alternatives to remand that are outlined in the commission’s report, such as electronic tagging or bail supervision.
On sentencing, both reports stress the necessity of ensuring that sentencers are in full possession of important information about the offender’s background, their medication and their health issues—including mental health issues.
The commission’s report recommends the introduction of
“a truncated Criminal Justice Social Work Report, a Rapid Report”
to be made available to criminal courts
“on the day of conviction ... or within two working days”
and containing that type of information to enable quick and appropriate sentencing. That recommendation should be adopted, coupled with the recommendation for comprehensive judicial training to ensure that judges are aware of all available custody alternatives, such as community sentence disposals—served, for example, at the 218 centre.
Significantly, if the mental health, remand and sentencing recommendations alone from the 2009 report had been taken on board—as they could quite easily have been over the past three years—that would have gone some considerable way towards addressing the overcrowding problem. That in turn would have freed up prison staff to help to deliver rehabilitation programmes for the prisoners for whom prison is quite definitely the correct sentence.
However, it takes leadership and political will to make such changes and sadly they have been absent. That is particularly disappointing in view of the fact that the Cabinet took the unusual step of discussing the Equal Opportunities Committee’s 2009 report and, on the back of that discussion, awarded £800,000 to community justice authorities.
That was in recognition of the results that were achieved by one community justice authority, which worked with Circle—the charity that does outstanding work to support offenders’ families—to run a pilot scheme that cut reoffending rates dramatically. However, despite those results, it was not suggested that each of the eight community justice authorities should use the £100,000 that was available to them to run similar projects, and the outcomes from how each community justice authority spent the additional funding were not measured. Consequently, an opportunity was lost to tackle the reoffending revolving-door syndrome.
I have highlighted issues in the commission’s report that could and should be acted on now, but there are recommendations with which I disagree. For example, I do not accept that it is impossible to carry out meaningful rehabilitation with prisoners who are serving short-term sentences that have been handed down for whatever reason.
Will the member accept an intervention?
I am sorry, but I will struggle to get through my speech in time.
Over two weeks, let alone six months, good progress can be made to address literacy, numeracy, communication and other life skills. At present, short-term prisoners are not offered such rehabilitation services.
I am concerned about the implications of the commission’s recommendations on centralising criminal justice social work and on establishing a community justice service and a national community justice and prison delivery board, because there is a danger that all the effort will be put into establishing a new system rather than addressing the fundamental problems that relate to women in the criminal justice system.
We should now show leadership and the political will to make the changes that I have outlined, especially in relation to mental health, remand and sentencing.
16:01
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this important report. Concerns about Cornton Vale are not new. As we know, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons reported in 2009 and 2011 that there was an immediate need to address overcrowding. He also highlighted the high levels of mental ill health and the lack of a family-friendly visitor centre. When he gave evidence to the Justice Committee, he drew attention to
“the time bomb that is Cornton Vale.”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 25 October 2011; c 339.]
The recommendations on Cornton Vale are not a bolt from the blue. It is clear that the Scottish Government needs time to address the implications, but it is fair to point out that there have been changes to alleviate overcrowding, such as the creation of a women’s wing at HMP Edinburgh, which I and other Justice Committee members visited a few months ago. The news is not that nothing is being done, but that much more needs to be done.
In looking at the report as a whole, the importance of reconfiguration must be stressed. The commission stated that it considers
“that many of our recommendations could be achieved through reconfiguration of existing funding, rather than significant new investment”.
It did not refer to full implementation, as the Association of Directors of Social Work erroneously suggests in its briefing, but, given the current financial situation, the point must be a very relevant consideration.
The commission sensibly suggested that community justice centres would not need to be new custom-made centres. It is strong on the need for multidisciplinary teams and mentoring, which I support. Women offenders need the support that mentoring can provide, if the cycle of reoffending is to be broken. That cycle causes disruption not only to prisoners but to their families and their children in particular.
It is a salutary lesson to note that approximately 30 per cent of children with imprisoned parents develop mental health problems. The higher risk of such children ending up in prison is perhaps unsurprising. As the report suggests, high-quality visitor centres are needed. The chief inspector of prisons has called for them for some while. They must be a prerequisite to assisting mother-and-child relationships.
The commission pointed out that prevention and early years spending were not part of its remit, but it nevertheless stressed that intervening in the early years of life will have significantly more impact on reoffending rates than intervening later in life would have. The commission said that, as far as children are concerned, early intervention starts with the mother. I have to agree with that.
In 2007, the chief inspector of prisons reported that 80 per cent of women in Cornton Vale had mental health problems. We know that the Scottish Government is finalising its mental health strategy. It is essential that that addresses issues of trauma and self-harm, which are prevalent among many female offenders.
There is a clear need for adequate mental health training for police and prison officers, particularly—as others have suggested—in the management of people with borderline personality disorders, who are all too prevalent in the system. The commission’s report highlights that access to education or rehabilitative programmes is insufficient. It is common sense that the absence of constructive activity is hardly conducive to good mental health.
We know that only around 30 per cent of women on remand go on to receive a custodial sentence and that, as the cabinet secretary has said, 76 per cent of custodial sentences that are imposed on women are for periods of six months or less. The alternatives to which the commission refers—electronic monitoring and bail supervision involving engagement with a proposed multidisciplinary team—seem eminently sensible. There must be scope for cutting the costs of prison by reducing the number of women who are on remand, especially among the group who are not likely to be sentenced to a custodial term in any event. It should also be borne in mind that only 2 per cent of female offenders were involved in serious violence last year.
One of the clear facts to emerge from the commission’s report is that comparatively few offenders are entitled to statutory throughcare, most offenders qualifying only for voluntary throughcare. The Justice Committee wrote to all 32 local authorities, asking them about the arrangements that are available on release. It is clear that voluntary throughcare has drawbacks. First, it requires offenders to opt in and the level of take-up is not high. Secondly, there is no integrated case management system. Thirdly, there is no assigned criminal justice social worker.
The commission made important points on the difficulties that homelessness causes for discharged prisoners. It is common sense that, if we want to discourage reoffending, we must make access to safe accommodation on release a priority. Without a roof over their head and early access to benefit, the chances of someone avoiding reoffending will be diminished. Even if we take the view—as some might do—that prison is primarily a place for punishment and deterrence, at the end of the punishment a proper level of assistance must be a must.
The report is a welcome contribution on an issue of pressing social need. It has clear financial implications on which the Government needs to reflect, but I welcome the cabinet secretary’s comment that it is up to all of us to ensure that the report does not pass without bringing about real and substantial change. That really is the task for this Parliament.
16:07
I add my voice to those who have already supported the report from the Angiolini commission, but I have one main criticism: its lack of focus on the families of female offenders. Families have an integral role to play in reducing reoffending among prisoners, and both families and offenders need support from the point of arrest right through to release, and after. Until now, there has been a distinct lack of action to halt the increase in female incarceration, particularly given that there has not been a similar increase in the number of crimes committed by women during the same period.
Last year, when the Government announced the creation of the Angiolini commission, I hoped that it would be the start of a new era in tackling the problems that are inherent in female offending. I still have that enthusiasm, and we now look to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to take the recommendations forward. I hope that real, meaningful and long-term change will come out of the report.
One recommendation that I was happy to hear announced last Tuesday, at the launch of the report, was the recommendation that Cornton Vale be replaced with a smaller specialist prison. It is not the first time the Government has been told that Cornton Vale has served its purpose; after all, it was the state of the art in 1975, but Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons in Scotland announced last year that it was overcrowded and no longer suitable as a prison.
Earlier this month, I was given a tour of Cornton Vale in my capacity as the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I was told by the deputy governor that 80 per cent of the prisoners suffer from underlying mental health issues and that 60 per cent suffer from drug and alcohol misuse. The women are clearly being locked up for the wrong reasons—they are incarcerated for not paying fines, for example—so there needs to be a concerted effort to find alternatives to imprisonment, which are essential for the future wellbeing of women who are suffering from mental health issues and/or addiction problems.
The commission recommended alternatives to prosecution through fiscal work orders. Such alternatives can be effective only when authorities and services such as the courts, the police, the SPS and social work departments work collectively to divert women from the courts, when that is best for the community, the victim and the offender.
I have often talked about the important role that families can play in reducing reoffending. The commission’s report did not cover the importance of that role and the influence that families can have on a prisoner’s rehabilitation. The alternatives to prosecution that are highlighted in the report must include the woman’s family—only, of course, if it is safe for the child to be involved. Only by incorporating the family into efforts to rehabilitate the prisoner and prevent reoffending can we halt the increase in female imprisonment and reoffending rates.
More support is needed for the families of the imprisoned mother or father. We must remember that mothers and fathers are imprisoned: we are focusing on mothers, but it is worth reiterating that fathers need support, too. Support in relation to housing, benefits and employment is essential if family members are to continue their lives as normally as possible. If such support is in place, the chances of the prisoner reoffending on release are reduced. However, support is not being extended to the family.
Communication with families is essential during a female offender’s time in prison, but for the families of many women in Cornton Vale, travel to the prison is impossible, given the cost and time involved and the availability of transport. That is especially the case for people from northern and southern Scotland.
I endorse the use of videoconferencing to enable prisoners to maintain contact with families and rebuild broken ties, so that on release the prisoner has a home to go back to. The technology is used in many countries, so it is unfortunate that, in the use of technology and innovative measures to maintain family contact, Scotland falls behind many countries that would be classed as being less developed than we are.
Child or family impact assessments at the point of arrest or custody are required if we are to reduce female imprisonment rates and shift the balance towards alternatives to imprisonment. If such assessments were made, judges and courts could make more informed decisions about sentencing offenders, especially mothers, who in many cases are the primary givers of care to their children. However, last week, in response to a parliamentary question that I lodged, the Minister for Children and Young People said:
“The Scottish Government has no plans to introduce child impact assessments”.—[Official Report, Written Answers, 18 April 2012; S4W-06327.]
I will continue to make representations on assessments, for which Families Outside and other charities have called.
I will be keen to hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in six months about progress on the commission’s recommendations. We must place greater focus on rehabilitation and education through alternatives to prison, especially for women who have substance abuse issues and mental health problems. As the cabinet secretary said, if we do not do that, we will be having this debate again in 10 years.
16:13
It is appropriate to thank Dame Elish Angiolini and her commission for a comprehensive report, which contains significant recommendations. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice is to be commended for establishing the commission, in seeking to address the problem.
David McLetchie provided raw statistics and implied that they show that we are somehow in danger of taking the issue too far and that the situation on female offending is not as bad as we are making it out to be. However, in her intervention during his speech and in her own speech, Elaine Smith set out the reality that lies behind the statistics, with a remarkable description of the impact on the wider life of the female offender, and particularly on her children.
It says in the briefing by Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People that
“women offenders are more likely than men who offend to have dependent children, more likely to lose their housing while in custody, and less likely to rely on a partner outside to look after their children while they are in custody. This increases the potential for greater adverse impacts on the children of women prisoners.”
There is the potential for such children to end up in the care system, with all the difficulties that can arise as a result. The children become at risk of coming to the attention of the justice system themselves at some stage in the future. It is imperative that we break that cycle.
This is part of the early intervention agenda. If we can take steps to address female offending—both the committing of offences and the punishments that are being delivered to female offenders—it will have a knock-on effect, particularly on the children of women offenders. That will play an early intervention role in dealing with some of the problems that can occur further down the line.
Rod Campbell rightly mentioned that economic decisions will have to be taken as a result of the recommendations. It is important that whenever the cost of applying a recommendation is calculated, we look at the benefits that will result, as we do with much of our current early intervention.
Does Mark McDonald agree that that is preventative spending—that it is spending to save?
I agree absolutely. Elaine Smith was not here at the beginning of my speech, when I said that the matter falls into the early intervention and preventative spending agenda, in terms of dealing with women offenders and the impacts on the children of offenders. She made that point strongly in her speech.
The issue of mental health presentations and mental health problems leaped out at me from the report. It is unacceptable that women who have significant mental health problems are being incarcerated. Those women need to be helped and looked after—not locked up. When the Cabinet Secretary for Justice considers the recommendations, I hope that he will speak with the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy and her ministerial team about the mental health strategy that the Government is developing, and how women offenders fit into that strategy. It is important that we have cross-departmental work, as well as work that is focused in the justice department.
I agree with Maureen Watt that we need to consider a culture change in our judicial system and among our judiciary. I understand David McLetchie’s point that we should respect the independence of the judicial system, but we must engender a change in attitude within that system. It is not just politicians who say that. I quote from John Scott—not the Deputy Presiding Officer, but the chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland—who said:
“The sentences”
that women offenders
“are receiving is a significant indicator that it is the judicial response which we need to be looking at. The judiciary need to be re-educated and reassess their approach.”
It is fair to say that the statistics that are before us—especially on serious violent crime—raise the question of why so many women who commit non-serious and non-violent crimes find themselves imprisoned, particularly for short periods of time, and then falling into a cycle of re-offending.
I conclude with an example from the north-east of Scotland. Lewis Macdonald and Maureen Watt rightly highlighted the community integration unit at Craiginches prison in Aberdeen. The unit has clearly demonstrated success in ensuring that women break the cycle of reoffending and are better reintegrated into the community. As well as wide-scale reform of what currently exists, we must tease out the current best practice, continue to promote it and, perhaps, expand on it.
Aberdeen City Council’s connections programme is a range of modules that are designed to help women improve
“connections with themselves, with others and with the community”
and ensure that they can better reintegrate into the community and break the cycle of re-offending. It is not just about wide-scale change; it is also about replicating what is good in the system.
16:19
Last autumn, when I was still the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I had the pleasure of welcoming Baroness Vivien Stern, who is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies, to speak at our women in Parliament dinner. That evening, helped by her focused remarks about women in the justice system, it seemed to me that there was a sense of collective determination not to allow the “criminalisation of distress”, as one researcher has called it, to continue any longer. We all talked about the awaited report and hoped that it would not just be the 11th such report to gather dust.
Last winter, I visited Cornton Vale and was shown around by the governor, Teresa Medhurst. Although I acknowledge—as many members have done today—the commitment and vision of the staff, I was very clear in my mind that we had to move on and to move beyond being a society that allows the criminalisation of distress to be eternally repeated and inadvertently passed on from generation to generation.
This spring—only last week—I sat in a University of Strathclyde lecture theatre, along with Mary Fee and many others, feeling inspired not just by the collective wisdom of those who were assembled there, but by the palpable sense of anticipation as we awaited the report of Dame Elish Angiolini, Sheriff Daniel Scullion and Dr Linda de Caestecker and their recommendations. Somehow, that gave me a sense of optimism.
After Dame Elish had outlined the recommendations, the discussions seemed to crystallise into a sense of resolve that this had to be a watershed moment. Although we recognise that there are a small number of women offenders who must, in order to protect society, have custodial sentences, a cultural shift is in the making that must be developed into a systemic change, as outlined in the commission’s report, which will break the pattern of reoffending by helping to create openings for women who have few or none.
Many members have signed the motion that I lodged welcoming the report, and it is obvious from the debate that there is support for it almost throughout the chamber. I would like, however, to distance myself from some of David McLetchie’s remarks; no doubt many members will know to which remarks I allude.
As parliamentarians, we all know of women constituents who are challenged by bewildering and fragmented lives—lives on the edge. I hope that the debate will coalesce our determination to drive forward the report’s vision. I am heartened to hear that so many other members are in agreement on that and I welcome the cabinet secretary’s invitation to members across the chamber in that regard.
The report is about both breaking the cycle of reoffending and preventive work. As the Cabinet Secretary for Justice said, it is a whole-system approach, bringing together police, courts, education and social services and working with women in a holistic and effective way. As my colleague Graeme Pearson said, we need bespoke solutions. “Bespoke” is an old-fashioned word that refers to something that is carefully made for each individual. There must be a menu of options. There are examples of that approach in my region, such as the women in focus project, which was launched by the cabinet secretary in 2010. The service works with women offenders to reduce their levels of reoffending and reconviction, and to help them to lead fulfilling lives in the community. At the launch of the project, the justice secretary commented that women
“need access to multiple services and forms of support in order to reduce reconviction rates.”
However, the commission notes that Scotland’s public service landscape is “unduly cluttered and fragmented”. Clearly, much more needs to be done.
There are countless examples of young women falling into the justice system because of financial exclusion, inability to access housing or health services—in particular, mental health services—or lack of family support. I disagree with Margaret Mitchell on the validity of short sentences for women in such situations. As many speakers have highlighted, it is indeed a gender issue.
If the shift is to happen, we must put in place solutions systematically. I received an e-mail today from the Scottish Quaker community justice network urging us to support the thrust of the report. It said:
“Any financial costs in making such changes will more than be met by the reduced social costs to society of finally breaking the cycle of most women’s offending and its collateral impact on their families.”
As we have heard from many other members, this is not all about cost; it is in part about how structures and support are organised. The executive summary of the commission’s report, which Roderick Campbell highlighted, refers to prevention and the early years, even though that was not in the commission’s remit.
From my time many years ago working in a unit for pupils who had been excluded from school, I recall the arrest of one of my pupils, who was stopped from going out of a supermarket with a frozen chicken under her jacket in the hope that the security guards would let her pass thinking her to be heavily pregnant, even though she was only 14 years of age at the time. That girl was forced to act as a young woman far too early, not responsibly and, indeed, not legally.
However, I come back to the phrase “criminalisation of distress”. Let us sort it out together for Scotland’s girls and women who are on the edge.
16:25
I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate. Like many other members, I have consistently pressed the cabinet secretary for action on the disgraceful conditions in Cornton Vale.
In 2009, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons declared the prison to be in a state of crisis, citing overcrowding, two-hour waits for the toilet, cold meals, lack of activities and a deep problem of lack of prisoner purpose and activity, which was impeding rehabilitation.
A follow-up inspection report by the chief inspector in 2011 said that little progress had been made and that there was an immediate need to address overcrowding. It also highlighted several other areas of concern, such as limited access to activities or offending behaviour programmes and high levels of mental health problems, as we heard earlier. In addition, it highlighted something else that has become glaringly obvious to all of us who are concerned about the conditions at Cornton Vale: the lack of strategic prioritisation of the prison by the Scottish Prison Service.
Only yesterday, Brigadier Monro published a further follow-up report. Although it notes some progress, four of the original recommendations and 10 of the original action points have still not been satisfactorily implemented more than two and a half years after the first report. Many prisoners still lack access to clean bedding, access to clean laundry or even basic privacy. Whatever crimes they have committed, it is deplorable that they continue to be denied those basic human dignities.
The latest inspection report also highlighted the unacceptable use of silent cells. The fact that, despite previous warnings, extremely vulnerable prisoners continue to be placed in cells with a single mattress on a concrete plinth, no ventilation and no natural light, shows that the management culture in the Prison Service has still not changed. I have been concerned by the culture of complacency in the SPS and the lack of direction from the cabinet secretary, who has routinely maintained that those failings are operational matters for the SPS. Therefore, I hope that the Angiolini report will mark a change of attitude in the SPS.
I am delighted that the commission recommends that Cornton Vale be replaced with a new, smaller specialist prison for the most serious offenders, and that most of those who are on remand or serving short-term sentences should be held in local prisons. I agree whole-heartedly with that.
However, if we are to reduce reoffending, we must look beyond the management culture and fabric of Cornton Vale. That is why I welcome the comprehensive nature of Dame Elish’s report and commend all the members of the commission for their insight.
We have 37 recommendations, which are radical in their scope, and there is much with which everyone can agree. The report considers what happens to women at every stage through the criminal justice system, from when they are only at risk of offending and when they are at the point of arrest, through to sentencing options and resettlement on release from prison.
The report also urges us to address the factors that contribute to women’s offending behaviour, and stresses the value of offering women new life choices and valuable learning experiences so that we help them to develop confidence and self-esteem that will reduce the risk of their reoffending. In that respect, the report echoes what Baroness Corston called for some years ago, which was
“a seamless continuation of care”
inside and outside prison and a focus on women’s accommodation needs. She suggested that the problems that lead to women’s offending respond far more to casework, support and treatment in the community than to imprisonment.
It is clear that the criminal justice system utterly fails women who find themselves subject to it. The failures that the report exposes impact not only on women offenders, but on the communities in which they live and into which they resettle, the victims of their crimes and—this is perhaps the saddest thing—their children, who themselves become vulnerable. We know that approximately 30 per cent of children with imprisoned parents will develop physical and mental health problems and that there is a higher risk of those children also ending up in prison.
The report sets out clearly why we should take a gender-specific approach to dealing with reducing offending. It has been demonstrated that services for women need to resonate with their needs and experiences and that simply adapting programmes, interventions and services that have been developed for male offenders is unlikely to meet appropriately the complex needs of female offenders.
We have already heard that women offenders are themselves often victims of severe and repeated physical and sexual abuse. There are shocking levels of mental ill-health and self-harm in prison. We know that 80 per cent of those who are in Cornton Vale have mental health problems.
I support the approach that is outlined in the report’s parts 3, 4 and 5 on service redesign, alternatives to prosecution and alternatives to remand. Short-term prison sentences have little or no impact on reoffending, with 70 per cent of women offenders who receive a prison sentence of three months or less reconvicted for an offence within two years.
I have no doubt that, for minor offences, prison is rarely the right answer. It is far better that community-based schemes, whereby offenders contribute locally to making reparations, be the option of choice. Work in the community that challenges and changes people for the better is a positive and constructive way forward.
The commission rightly points to the vital role of throughcare. Roderick Campbell mentioned the work that we carried out on that on the Justice Committee.
The one recommendation that gives me pause for thought is the setting up of a national community justice service. Such centralisation seems contrary to the rest of the report, which emphasises a tailored community-based response. Criminal justice social work is rightly part of the local government family and the development of close links between criminal justice services, social work services, housing, education, and drugs and alcohol services has meant that progress has been made on tackling the root causes of crime. I am concerned that setting up a national service would be expensive, disruptive and would lead to the loss of such integration of local services. However, the fragmentation and confusion that are illustrated in the report mean that the issue must be addressed in some way, so we must further consider the matter.
The report has some frank words to say about the lack of leadership that has existed until now. It will certainly take strong and sustained leadership to make many of the recommendations work, but investment that reduces reoffending will benefit all of our communities and produce lasting results that will make Scotland a fairer and more compassionate country. The Liberal Democrats will work with the Government to realise that goal.
16:31
I think that members will all agree that this is an important debate. The speeches have been excellent and have covered the commission’s recommendations well.
Members have mentioned David McLetchie’s speech. I was not going to do so, but it is important that I, like others, distance myself from some of his remarks.
I sincerely thank all those who produced the report. They have done an excellent job. As many members have said, we have been looking for such recommendations for a number of years, so I welcome the report.
Women make up 5 per cent of the overall prison population. The vast majority are reoffenders who have addiction issues and mental health problems and have experienced terrible social circumstances. Most are certainly not a threat to society; as the cabinet secretary said, most of them are, unfortunately, a threat only to themselves. That is why I believe that the recommendations in the report—radical though they may seem to some people—are correct. Alternative treatment must be explored and offered to women who would benefit from that.
When I was a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee in the previous session of Parliament, I visited Cornton Vale along with other members—others have mentioned that visit—and saw at first hand the conditions in the prison. There was a lack of privacy: the women had to queue up for a shower, and the shower curtains were missing; and they had to ask to go to the bathroom, which had a half door that gave no privacy and was very demeaning. That issue is covered in the report. Sports facilities were practically non-existent and were unfit for anyone who wanted to get in any form of exercise. Unfortunately, the situation is still the same.
We were also concerned by the lack of family visiting facilities and the very poor space where families could come to visit. We must bear it in mind that Cornton Vale is a women’s prison and that the women’s children visit them. That is the only contact that some of the women have with their school-age kids. That issue must be explored. Unfortunately, as others have said, very little support has been forthcoming from the Scottish Prison Service. I implore the SPS to create a visitor centre—perhaps the cabinet secretary could also implore it to do so. We obviously hope that Cornton Vale will not continue as it is now, but in the meantime some improvement would be excellent for the women.
Many members have mentioned statistics and so on, but I will concentrate on the visit to Cornton Vale that the Equal Opportunities Committee undertook in the previous session of Parliament. The issues that I have raised were of concern, but of more concern were the women themselves and the experiences that they had gone through. We were, rightly, not allowed to ask what their crimes were, but the women were anxious to speak to us, individually or in groups, and tell us about their experience of life inside and outside prison.
The majority of the women were in prison for low-level crimes. Margaret Mitchell mentioned the revolving-door situation, and many of them spoke about that, too, saying that they could not find a way out. Most of the women had suffered from domestic abuse and other forms of abuse, mental health problems and addiction.
Margaret Mitchell and others will remember the woman who was in what I believe is called a silent cell—Alison McInnes mentioned that—with just a mattress on the floor. She was very much suffering from mental health problems. She could tell us all the medication that she was on and all the medical terminology for her condition, yet she was sitting on a mattress in a bare cell. She should never have been in prison; she should have been in a hospital, getting care.
I was chilled to the bone when I spoke to a woman who would not be out of prison in time to see her four kids at Christmas. She had reoffended but what really got me was that she felt safer in prison than outside, because of the environment that she lived in. She was willing to risk not having Christmas with her four kids because she was terrified of what awaited her outside. That was chilling.
We have to think about new ways of treating women in prison. Some of those women were institutionalised. It is quite chilling to think that someone felt safer in prison, with its lack of amenities, than they would feel outside. That is a damning indictment of the society that we live in. I endorse everything that is in the Angiolini report. I would have thought that anyone would rather be outside, enjoying Christmas with their children, than in prison, queueing up to go to the toilet or have a shower, yet those women said that they felt safer in prison. That is institutionalisation, and we have to do something about it.
Before we move to the winding-up speeches, I note that the following members took part in the debate but have chosen not to be present for the wind-up speeches, which I consider to be a gross discourtesy: Christina McKelvie; Maureen Watt; and Roderick Campbell. I hope that their whips will take note.
16:37
It is a privilege to take part in the debate. There have been many excellent speeches. I congratulate Dame Elish Angiolini not only on producing a well-researched and robust report but on her clear and uncompromising message that action is necessary. Her insistence on that point is relevant and timely because, having been a member of this Parliament since 1999 and having spent part of that time as convener of the Justice 2 Committee, I know that the issues of the rehabilitation of offenders, male and female, and the complete inadequacy of the preparation for their release from prison and of the support that is available to them on their return to the community have been regularly raised and discussed. Others have made that point. Significantly, as we heard from Margaret Mitchell, in 2009, the Equal Opportunities Committee produced a thorough and comprehensive report, “Female offenders in the criminal justice system”. Looking at the general thrust of the Angiolini report, I see that it recognises and addresses many of those issues in a thoughtful and practical manner. I commend her for that.
I certainly sympathise with Elish Angiolini’s call for action, because progress to date has not been impressive. Elaine Smith, Richard Simpson and Margaret Mitchell made that point. Indeed, Elish Angiolini’s report and the report of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons beg two pertinent questions: what has the Scottish Government been doing over the past five years; and, much more significantly, what has the SPS been doing over the past 13 years since devolution began? The SPS has witnessed the discussions, debates and expressions of concern since 1999, in this Parliament and beyond, it has heard the calls for improvements, innovation and change and it has seen the disturbing levels of reoffending, yet it has looked lumbering and unresponsive and has displayed glacial progress when reacting to events. The minister should feel distinctly uneasy about that culture of inertia. Maureen Watt and Alison McInnes clearly share my unease about it.
I observe that many of the recommendations in the report apply equally to male and female prisoners. It is important to recognise that the approach to criminal justice in Scotland needs to be changed and improved across the board, and I hope that the Scottish Government will be sensitive to that and cognisant of it in taking the report forward.
That said, the report rightly identifies that there are specific circumstances and challenges that are common among and particular to women prisoners. Many members commented eloquently on that, and it is an important distinction to make, particularly when the women are mothers. To me, addressing the needs of the children is every bit as important as addressing the needs of the prisoners, and often those needs are mutual.
I therefore feel positive about service redesign involving community justice centres, multidisciplinary teams and supported accommodation. However, let us be clear about how they will engage with community justice authorities and let us ensure that we eliminate duplication or replication of function or service. On that issue, I share Alison McInnes’s concerns about some of the proposals for further bureaucracy. The proposals for new national bodies need to be examined carefully. We have a Scottish Parliament, a Scottish Government and a Scottish Prison Service, and it seems to me that they—particularly the SPS, if it is functioning effectively—ought to be able to embrace many of the responsibilities.
I warmly welcome the focus on mental health services, the recognition of borderline personality disorders and the need for improved and timeous psychiatric reports. The proposals in those areas have potential to deliver huge benefits. Mark McDonald made a thoughtful contribution in that respect.
I am not hostile in principle to alternatives to prosecution, which might play a useful role, but they must not become the automatic, default position for all classes of lower-level offending simply because of a balance-sheet-driven approach. The public interest might require that some offenders are still prosecuted and, on conviction, imprisoned.
The alternatives to remand deserve serious consideration, and improvement to community reintegration is years overdue. I fully support the recommendation that, on release, a woman should have immediate access to benefits and safe accommodation. Without those fundamental supports, it is irresponsible to release her from prison.
I have left the issue of prisons to the end. It is genuinely perplexing. First, and importantly, the report states explicitly:
“There are women who should be in prison to protect the public and to mark the seriousness of their crimes.”
The report acknowledges that by proposing a new national prison for women offenders. It anticipates that the facility will be smaller than Cornton Vale. If many of the changes that are proposed in the report work, pressure on prison capacity will reduce, but, as my colleague David McLetchie said, there is still a significant challenge. Recent figures show that the numbers of women who commit non-sexual crimes of violence—that is homicides, attempted murders, serious assaults and violent robberies—are extensive, and we must be sure that we have the prison capacity for that cohort of serious offenders.
The member should wind up.
Finally, do we need to investigate whether Cornton Vale can be modernised, partially rebuilt or reconfigured? Perhaps it is so defective that those things cannot be done, but I would be grateful if the minister could clarify that.
I support the report and look forward to the Scottish Government’s progress report.
16:44
This afternoon, we have heard support from the majority of members in the chamber for the recommendations in the commission’s report. I have a lot of sympathy with David McLetchie’s view that alternatives must also be found for men in the prison system. On a recent visit to Perth prison, I spoke to a young man in the reception area who had just come from court. Deeply distressed, he wanted to get a message to his brother in B hall. Intergenerational offending and indeed offending in the same family are found among male and female prisoners throughout our system.
We also share Mr McLetchie’s hope that the latest chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service will bring more focus to the issue of female offending, as covered in the commission’s report, and preside over better governance of the SPS.
My colleague Elaine Smith made a passionate and informed case. She pointed out that, like prison systems throughout the world, our prison system in Scotland was set up for men. With her many years of experience, she has called for alternative methods of dealing with female offenders, which chimes well with the recommendations in the report.
My colleague Claudia Beamish made powerful comments about the “criminalisation of distress”. I think that, across the chamber, we all understood her comments .
Labour members agree with Alison McInnes, who drew a link between Government responsibility and the management of the Scottish Prison Service. Policy and operational matters are perhaps not so easy to define and divide in relation to the complex needs of offenders such as those whom we have been talking about.
My colleague Mary Fee called for a child or family impact assessment at the point of arrest or custody, reducing female imprisonment rates and allowing judges and courts to make more informed decisions when they sentence offenders.
The Government sought to do that in the previous session, but it was opposed by Labour. I look forward to a conversion along the way.
As the cabinet secretary knows, I was not an MSP in the previous session—[Interruption.] I conclude from what colleagues on the Labour benches are saying that what the cabinet secretary said was perhaps not exactly the case. We will certainly look at the proposals that the Government brings forward in relation to the contribution by my colleague Mary Fee. I pay tribute to her for all her work with families who are affected by imprisonment. I am sure that she will continue to press the cabinet secretary for those important needs assessments.
My colleague Richard Simpson called on the Government to agree a set of targets. We have talked about the issues for a long time, and I will go through them again for the cabinet secretary. They include an appointment on the Scottish Prison Service board to deal with female offenders; a visitors centre in Cornton Vale; a successor to the prison visiting committees with a good monitoring function; early intervention services relating to drugs and alcohol; and good continuity in management. I hope that the minister will refer to those calls in her closing speech.
The report proposes radical change in how we deal with women offenders and reiterates a common view that, to tackle offending, we must do more than simply incarcerate. Labour asks the Government to harness the growing body of opinion and act on our mutual support for Angiolini’s recommendations.
Labour strongly welcomes the commission’s focus on the need to tackle the underlying causes that lead women to offend and subsequently reoffend by introducing a package of measures such as community justice programmes, multidisciplinary teams and supported accommodation. We believe that space will always be reserved in prison for any person who presents a threat to the public, but that prison simply does not work for a large proportion of women offenders.
Like many of my Labour colleagues, I went to Cornton Vale in February this year. I spoke to the prisoners and staff, and I have seen for myself the damage that has been done to women and their families through the manifestation of a culture that ignores the complex needs of women offenders.
In the context of our discussion of Angiolini’s recommendations, it is useful that Hugh Monro’s follow-up report on Cornton Vale has been published this week. It gives us further evidence against which to consider the commission’s proposals. For example, despite progress having been made on working with prisoners with complex mental health needs, Hugh Monro stated:
“Some of these women might be better located in alternative specialist facilities.”
He went on to urge that a long-term solution for prisoners with complex mental health issues be found.
We very much welcome the key focus on mental health in the commission’s report. Dame Elish has made a series of recommendations to improve the harrowing and stark reality of the lives of the hundreds of women who find themselves incarcerated. With that evidence, it is inconceivable that the Government should not act. The cabinet secretary has said that he will act on the report, and I very much welcome that.
As my colleague Lewis Macdonald pointed out, the Government already has blueprints that it can use to take immediate action on the commission’s recommendations. For example, community justice projects created by Labour, such as the 218 centre in Glasgow, are proving to be hugely successful in reducing reoffending rates. When, at last week’s First Minister’s questions, I asked the First Minister whether he would consider expanding those centres throughout Scotland, he replied that “good ideas” would be accepted. The report contains many good ideas, and Labour believes that the Scottish Government should take action now and set the wheels in motion on initiatives that are set out in the report to ensure that in June—and in six months’ time, when the cabinet secretary has to come back to the chamber—we can see real progress.
For too long now, we have known about but not dealt with the harrowing underbelly of female offending. I urge the Government to find the political will to make the bold changes that are necessary because, in that work, it will have our support.
I call Roseanna Cunningham to wind up the debate. Ms Cunningham, you have until 10 o’clock. [Interruption.] I mean 5 o’clock, of course.
16:51
I had to hesitate before I could say thank you, Presiding Officer.
I am grateful to members for their speeches in what has been a good debate. It is quite clear that women offenders are a matter of concern across the chamber. In bringing the issue to Parliament, the Government intended to encourage all members to make their views known and, from their comments, they clearly join the Government in thanking the commission for its hard work.
In its report, the commission provides a compelling, commonsense vision for the future of the criminal justice system in Scotland. It chose to be ambitious and aim for changes that would genuinely change Scotland for the better, and it clearly looks to this Parliament to rise to that challenge.
The commission’s proposals are neither simple nor straightforward. It has looked closely at the criminal justice sector and asked how each part can contribute to the achievement of more positive outcomes. As the report makes clear, the roots of women’s offending run deeper than just criminal behaviour. Very often, there are problems of prior abuse, addiction, deprivation and mental illness. Such issues must be understood and addressed if women are to be helped to genuinely rehabilitate themselves and reintegrate successfully into society. That issue will not be resolved quickly and there is no simple solution that will solve every aspect of the problem.
There has been considerable discussion of members’ agreement with the recommendation to demolish and replace Cornton Vale. As he has already indicated, the cabinet secretary has tasked the SPS with considering how all the commission’s recommendations on prisons could be put into practice. However, the truly important question is not just what would be demolished, but what would be put in its place in terms of not only bricks and mortar but the structures of our communities.
We need to build up our public services’ capability to address the deeper concerns that relate to women offenders and to build the public’s confidence that such an approach is appropriate and that the methods are both robust and cost-effective. The commission’s proposals would not only ensure that offenders repay society for their crimes but provide them with a real opportunity to turn their lives around. That is, of course, the goal that we are all hoping to achieve.
As a result, the Government will engage with partners in the criminal justice sector to agree how new structures and new ways of working might realise the commission’s aims and ambitions. It will also engage with the wider public sector, because this is a challenge for the whole of Scotland to respond to. Clearly, those working in health, mental illness, addiction, employment, housing and across the voluntary sector can play a role and, indeed, members have mentioned those services. This is not just a matter of criminal justice—of courts and social work—alone. Just as women offenders’ problems have consequences for many Scottish families and then for their communities so there is a need for all parts of society to take a hand in responding effectively to the concerns that have been raised.
I turn to some of the specific points that have been made this afternoon. I thought that Lewis Macdonald was quite right to emphasise the huge amount of hard work that will need to be put in. Those of us who have been members of Parliament for more than one or two years will know that we have been grappling with the issue over the lifetime of the Parliament. If the job was easy, it would have been done by now. We must all recognise that Lewis Macdonald is correct when he says that the problem requires hard work.
I thought that David McLetchie’s speech was predictably depressing; he seemed to be making a thinly veiled call for more women to be locked up, as if that was somehow a solution to the problems that we face. It is not. He must realise that. He was just taking the easy line.
David McLetchie also made a point about new non-executive members of the board—I think that he was talking about the possibility of such members having a specific function. When the cabinet secretary meets the new chief executive they will discuss that recommendation, among other topics, so there might be some movement on it. We must allow the new chief executive who is coming in some time to get into the job properly.
Christina McKelvie rightly emphasised the need to break the cycle of reoffending but also to prevent the process from starting in the first place. That is a very important aspect. In contrast to David McLetchie, she reminded us that only 2 per cent of female offenders are in prison for violent crime, which is the most serious of all crimes.
I am not really sure where the 2 per cent figure comes from; perhaps the minister could explain that as well as how it fits with the fact that in one year alone—2010-11—there were 321 instances of non-sexual crimes of violence committed by women.
The 2 per cent figure comes out from the Angiolini commission; I am relying on that information. I will discuss the detail with David McLetchie afterwards, but as he knows, in reality, sometimes behind the statistics are multiple incidents that might relate to only one or two individuals. We are talking about female offenders—we are talking about people.
Women themselves are victims of crime. That is not news—it was one of the big things that we were talking about back in 1999 and 2000. As Roderick Campbell said, most women who are in prison were themselves victims of crime in their childhood and as they were growing up.
I welcomed Elaine Smith’s speech because she has a long track record on the issue. There is a question about who gets sent to prison. We have made some progress: 10 years ago, the debate was about the number of people who were in prison because of fine defaults—[Interruption.]
One moment, minister. Could members who are coming into the chamber please do so quickly and quietly?
Richard Simpson pointed out that the position has changed markedly in the intervening period. We have made some progress; let us not pretend that we have not.
A great many similar, good points were made by a number of members, and I want pick out one or two in particular. First, Mary Fee made a point about child impact assessments. There was some consternation among the Labour members about the fact that they had opposed that suggestion during a previous parliamentary session. I am afraid to say that they did indeed oppose it in committee, during scrutiny of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. The Government tried to introduce such a measure, but it was voted down by a combination of Opposition members. Perhaps those members should go away and look at the rationale behind their decision.
Secondly, I commend Claudia Beamish for a particularly strong and effective speech. If we take away two phrases from today’s debate, they will be from her speech: “criminalisation of distress”, and “falling into the justice system”, which is an apt way to describe what happens at the start of the process.
I have probably given rather short shrift to many other members who also made good speeches. I have referred to many of the debates that we have had in the past and, like Annabel Goldie, I feel that I am a veteran of such debates. I reiterate the point that that tells us that if the job was easy, it would have been done by now. The Government wants to tackle the problem as strongly and as effectively as possible for the future. Prison is not the right response to women who commit minor offences, and we look for members’ support for that position. For many women offenders, only a robust community sentence will ensure that they are rehabilitated or that they repay their debt to society. It just takes the political will—and support—to act.
Today’s debate has shown that almost all the other parties, and probably almost all the members of the party that is a little recalcitrant, share our concern, so I look forward to receiving support from across the chamber in the future.