HMIP Report on HM Unit

Shotts 1998

4. SECURITY, DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL

Security

4.1 An audit of security at the Unit had been carried out by the SPS’s Security Audit Team during the period 10-27 February 1997. There had been no escapes from the Unit since it opened in 1990.

Comment

4.2 We found a number of areas where SPS security procedures were not being adhered to. Equally, however, it is true to say that the unusual environment and legitimate expectations about personal and collective responsibility resulted in staff and prisoners not only being acutely aware of what was going on, but also of becoming quickly involved in addressing any security issues.

4.3 Nevertheless, it was not clear how applicable SPS security standards and procedures were in such a unique environment. Nor was it clear how helpful it would be to the secure operation of the Unit if security standards were to be enforced in certain areas, particularly with regard to the security of tools, the establishment of formal systems to analyse and evaluate security intelligence information and the supervision of prisoners. However, it was noted that action had been taken to improve performance in areas such as locking and internal perimeter security. It was also recognised that by operating along similar lines to any other prison, prisoners and staff would be reminded that the Unit was a prison whose role is to prepare prisoners to operate more successfully in the mainstream. The Unit environment should therefore reflect, in part at least, that which the prisoners will experience on their return to mainstream.

Discipline and Control

4.4 The principles underpinning the operation of small units include a commitment to participate in the regime. Implicit in this commitment is the exercise of personal responsibility and an understanding that inappropriate behaviour will be challenged. We saw written evidence of how individual lapses in conduct were addressed by prisoners and staff operating as ‘four-groups’, a forum which comprised two prisoners and two staff who formally addressed the issue of inappropriate behaviour, including the underlying causes.

Orderly Room

4.5 Given the nature of the Unit and the alternative methods of addressing inappropriate behaviour, orderly room adjudications were extremely rare for breaches of discipline, other than for drug misuse. We were satisfied that the procedures being followed were in accordance with SPS guidelines.