« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
2. Overview 2008-2009
How can progress in helping prisoners to change their behaviour be assessed? One important measure might be the preparation of prisoners for release. This has been a particular theme of inspections in 2008-2009. The Open Estate has been for years a key component of the arrangements made by the Scottish Prison Service for preparation for release. It is located on two sites, at Noranside and at Castle Huntly. The Open Estate has been the subject of some controversy: it has been suggested that illegal drugs are easy to come by inside the prison, and that it is very easy for prisoners to run away. This controversy was intensified after a prisoner failed to return from an event he had been allowed to attend outside the prison, and later committed a violent and horrible crime.
The Scottish Prisons Commission ("The McLeish Commission") was asked to investigate these concerns. The Commission declared that " Scotland also needs a well-run open estate because it is not in the public interest to release long-term prisoners from closed institutions without preparing them for release and training them for freedom."
The inspection report makes it clear that "the SPS has learned lessons about the Open Estate in the past year and has made considerable improvements. This is a decisive moment for the future of the Open Estate. Who suffers most when prisoners are released from prison not prepared for safe, decent lives in the community? It will require courage to maintain open prisons which are not full in a time of unprecedented overcrowding: but it is courage which will serve the public good."
While all preparation for release is controversial, the preparation of sex offenders for release is especially controversial. Two inspections in this past year have been particularly concerned with this matter: in Dumfries and in Peterhead. In both the conclusions are not encouraging. Sex offenders are those whom the public would want to have the best possible preparation for release. They do not get it because (a) they have to be willing participants in any programmes designed to change their behaviour and many are not willing (b) there are not enough places on such programmes for those who are willing to participate (c) fears about public safety make it almost impossible for sex offenders to be tested in community work placements and home leaves before they are released and so they are released untested.
The publication of a major thematic report Out of Sight: Severe and Enduring Mental Health Problems in Scotland's Prisons attracted significant public interest. There was interest in the prevalence of mental illness in prison - four times higher than in the population as a whole. There was interest in the good links which often exist between prisons and psychiatric hospitals. There was interest in the sad fact that sometimes, still, people with severe mental illness can leave prison with almost no links to the community awaiting them. And there was support for the main finding that Prison is not the most appropriate environment for people with severe and enduring mental health problems. Their primary need is their mental health and the appropriate place to address this is in a hospital.
Another report was the result of the inspection of three places where convicted young people under 21 years of age are held who are not in Polmont: i.e. Greenock, Perth and Cornton Vale. The conditions and treatment of the young men who were in Darroch Hall in Greenock and in Friarton Hall in Perth were found to be particularly good; but those of the young women in Cornton Vale were not. The report called for the establishment of a separate unit for women who are under 21 years of age where they do not regularly mix with adult prisoners; and for an end to the current situation in which there is not a single person at any level in the Scottish Prison Service whose sole responsibility is the custody, care or management of female young offenders.
The lot of imprisoned children has been a concern repeated often in Annual Reports. It is a great disappointment to me that it is not possible in this, the Overview of my last year as Chief Inspector, to declare that the imprisonment of under 16-year-olds has ended. However, the argument has been won, the legislation to end this sad practice is imminent, and it will be for the next Chief Inspector to welcome its abolition.
What happens to Scotland's children is such an important pointer to what happens in Scotland's prisons. On Christmas Day I met a young man in Polmont whose record of violence among the most dreadful of any young person in the country. He told me that he had not been at liberty on Christmas Day since he was 11. Two weeks before I was speaking to a psychologist who supervises a Violence Prevention Programme with long-term prisoners. She told me this: 1% of Scottish children have been in care; 50% of Scottish prisoners have been in care; 80% of Scottish prisoners convicted of violence have been in care. Year after year I have said that it is naïve to blame prisons because they cannot solve the problems of Scotland. We will only have better prisons when we have a better Scotland.
« Previous | Contents | Next »