PE1073, which has been in the system for a considerable time, urges the Parliament to investigate and establish the reasons for the apparently disproportionate number of Roman Catholics in Scottish prisons.At our meeting in November 2009, we asked for further deliberation on whether research could be carried out into the issues that the petition raises. On 26 November, SPICe sent a scoping paper to a number of academics, who were asked to comment on the questions that the committee raised.