Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Michael Matheson on 22 June 2015
To ask the Scottish Government what decisions it has taken following the announcement that it would not proceed with the planned prison for women at HMP Inverclyde.
When I announced in January 2015 my decision not to proceed with HMP Inverclyde as a large national prison for women, I said that it did not fit with my vision of how a modern and progressive country should be addressing female offending and that we needed a bolder, more radical and ambitious approach in Scotland.
Following a period of dialogue with national and international experts and local engagement, the Scottish Government has decided that there will be a new small national prison for women on the current site of HMP Cornton Vale, accommodating around 80 women, and five small community-based custodial units across Scotland which will each provide around 20 places. The new units will provide accommodation and support appropriate to the needs of women offenders and help them maintain links with their communities.
This will deliver 180 new high quality gender specific places for women in addition to the 50 we already have at the recently opened HMP Grampian. Alongside this, elements of the existing female estate will be adapted or decommissioned over time. These proposals offer greater flexibility in seeking to shift from custodial to community-based solutions and are closer to the spirit of the recommendations of the Angiolini Commission on Women Offenders (2012).
Whilst providing these new gender specific custodial facilities for women, I am also determined to reduce the use of custody in line with the principles set out in the report of the Scottish Prisons Commission (2008) that we should “target the use of prison where it can be most effective – in punishing serious crime and protecting the public”.
We will work with partners to increase the use of community disposals such as electronic monitoring with enhanced support provided in the community. We will increase investment in community based services both for those diverted from prosecution and serving community sentences – this includes the £1.5 million investment in services for women announced earlier in 2015.
We will consult on proposals to further strengthen the presumption against ineffective short-term prison sentences.
The Scottish Government is determined to reduce the number of receptions into custody each year for men and women. Using improvement methodology and working with a small number of pathfinder sites, we will work closely with local partners to test the most effective ways of reducing the use of remand and short-term sentences.
This ambitious vision offers the best potential to turn around the growth over the past decade in the female prison population, to offer effective alternatives to custody and to further reduce rates of reoffending.