Customer Survey

4.1 On the basis of advice as to format and content from the Prisons Branch of The Scottish Office's Central Research Unit we carried out a customer survey, which was necessarily on a small and therefore unscientific scale. A questionnaire - of which a copy is given at Annex 1 - was distributed to 165 prisoners at Cornton Vale, accompanied by a brief oral explanation as to its purpose and significance. In particular it was made clear that replies would be treated anonymously.

4.2 On the same day as the questionnaires were distributed, we met with a number of staff and prisoner 'focus groups' to seek their views on various aspects of the treatment of female offenders in Scotland.

4.3 As regards the questionnaire, we received 119 returns (72%). Effective returns were reduced to 66% by virtue of 10 spoilt papers, in addition to which not all the remaining 109 returns contained answers to all the questions. Notwithstanding these limitations, the results were interesting and a summary of the responses to the main points is as follows.

4.3.1 Serving sentences in mixed prisons

All who completed the returns responded to our first question - Should all female prisoners be located in one central prison? - but only 30% of the respondents agreed with this proposition. Those who disagreed were then asked for their views on how important it was for female prisoners to serve all or part of their sentence in a mixed sex prison and of the 75 who responded, 43 (57%) were in favour. By contrast, only 15 prisoners (20%) of this group thought that it was very important for all staff in residential areas to be female. Of those who were in favour of a single central female prison only 16% thought that it was important for all staff at Cornton Vale to be female.

4.3.2 Serving all or part of sentences in establishments near home

All those who were against the concept of a single central female prison (ie 76 of the respondents) answered the question on the importance of serving all or part of their sentence in a prison near their home and 91% were in no doubt that this was very important. Those who agreed with the proposition of a centrally located female prison were also asked for their views on spending all or part of their sentence in a prison nearer home. 75% of those who responded were in favour of long-term female prisoners spending the latter part of their sentence in such an establishment and 70% thought that it was important for those serving 12 months or less to be given the choice of remaining in a prison nearer home or of moving to Cornton Vale.

4.3.3 Opportunities afforded in relation to outside activities, education and employment

All participants in the survey were invited to express their views on the above topics. As regards outside activities, we received 104 responses, with the overwhelming majority - 85% - considering that it was very important for female prisoners to be involved in Community projects. As regards education, 64% of those who responded confirmed that they had been given the opportunity during their sentence to attend some form of course, including those which were clearly educational. If education is excluded from the consideration, however, only 28% had been offered courses. Of those who had been given the opportunity to attend a course 75% had taken up the offer (61% if education is again excluded). Overall, 17% of those who responded had had the opportunity to attend a course, excluding education. Finally, 52% described their present job or course as either 'poor' (32%) or 'very poor' (20%).

4.3.4 Being able to serve part of a sentence in open conditions

On this question, 92% of the respondents thought that it was very important for female prisoners to be given the opportunity to serve part of their sentence in open conditions. A similar, but slightly lower, proportion (89%) also thought that more TFF opportunities should be provided for female prisoners.

4.4 As noted above, in addition to the questionnaire we also discussed our study with a number of focus groups involving prisoners and staff. The 'off the cuff' comments by some prisoners were perhaps even more revealing than the questionnaire results. A general complaint was that the regime was uninspiring. Remand prisoners found the regime very restricted and YOs described it as too regulatory, particularly on personal contacts. Many prisoners, and especially LTPs, felt that there was no real attempt at sentence planning and that they had fewer opportunities than their male counterparts. In particular LTPs considered that they did not receive the differential treatment which they - reasonably - felt they had the right to expect. These deficiencies became especially marked towards the latter part of the sentence, when prisoners who had achieved Security Category 'D' felt disadvantaged as to privileges offered compared with male prisoners. And not only was there no open prison for women but TFF facilities were available only within the confines of the main perimeter at Cornton Vale.

4.5 Two specific areas were picked out for criticism. Firstly, in the areas of visits, families and children, although bonding visits with children were considered good, there were complaints about the lack of provision for family visits or of bonding or conjugal visits with partners. The LTPs pointed also to lack of facilities for children during visits - few toys and no proper creche. More fundamentally, LTPs felt that help for families or friends in coping with the consequences of the prisoner's imprisonment was very inadequate.

4.6 Secondly, employment and education were regarded as inadequate, not as to quality but certainly as to scope. VT opportunities were considered to be very limited and LTPs observed that not even Category 'D' prisoners were allowed to attend college courses (but see paragraph 8.9) or VT courses in male establishments. Interestingly these comments bore a striking similarity to those recorded in "The Imprisonment of Women" by Russell and Rebecca Dobash and Sue Gutteridge first published in 1986.

4.7 Finally we invited prisoners to expand on the question of mixed prisons. Most convicted prisoners favoured the concept, at least as regards work, dining and visits but expressed a preference for their own residential quarters and - unanimously - for separate sleeping arrangements. Some also expressed concern about the likely reaction of their partners should they be located in a mixed prison.

4.8 On that last point staff, although happy with the development of mixed staffing, were firmly opposed to mixed prisons on the grounds that female offenders were often those who had been abused in one way or another and were therefore less likely to benefit by being in a male-dominated prison. They were, however, very ready to countenance the prospect of female prisoners joining in courses at male prisons, particularly in VT, to widen the range of possibilities. Staff fully agreed with prisoners about the limited opportunities available for the latter at Cornton Vale and with the (current) inadequacies of sentence planning. They also agreed with prisoners at least to the extent that they saw merit for LTPs in being able to spend the last part of their sentence nearer home. For remand prisoners they saw merit in establishing more female remand units in different parts of the country - which would allow Cornton Vale to develop a better regime for convicted prisoners.