Recommendations and Points of Note

Recommendations

9.1 Greater use should be made of the female remand units at HMPs Aberdeen and Inverness and HMYOI Dumfries to provide certain prisoners with the option of serving all or part of their sentences in such a unit with the existing TFAs being given the opportunity to become full-time staff (paragraph 8.6-8).

9.2 The TFF hostel at HMYOI Polmont should be developed as a dual-purpose TFF hostel and open prison for females (paragraphs 8.10-11).

9.3 The existing regime at HMP and YOI Cornton Vale should now be comprehensively reviewed (paragraph 8.12-15).

9.3.1 In that review, we suggest that the following points require specific attention:-

9.3.1.1 Employment - the feasibility of increasing employment opportunities away from the stereotype female model and offering more SCOTVEC modules (paragraphs 3.10, 7.1 and 8.13);

9.3.1.2 Medical - the allocation of resources to meet specific medical needs, particularly in relation to the treatment of the apparent incidence of psychiatric/psychological problems (paragraph 5.29.2);

9.3.1.3 Visits - the need to look at accumulated visits, proper facilities for family visits and facilities for children (paragraph 4.5, 5.2.4, 5.12-14, 6.22 and 8.14); and

9.3.1.4 Education - the need to review the current courses on offer to assess their suitability for the prisoner population (paragraphs 3.8 and 8.2).

Points of Note

9.4 Consideration should be given to the feasibility of developing, in the longer term, a system whereby Cornton Vale staff, in addition to normal discipline duties, act as instructor, counsellor and fellow worker during the working day (paragraph 6.48).

9.5 Female prisoners in a TFF hostel should be given responsibility for the preparation and cooking of their own meals (paragraph 6.48). (Note: should our recommendation at paragraph 9.2 above be accepted, this Point of Note would apply also to prisoners in open conditions.)

9.6 Should male prisoners be located in vacant accommodation at Cornton Vale, any mixed arrangements should be modelled very much along the lines adopted in Ystad, Sweden (paragraph 8.16).