Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Prison Officers
Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Prison Officers
This week, HLS has invited a group of leading experts to reflect upon critical issues in Scottish penal policy. Below, Dr Katrina Morrison argues that we can make prisons more humane by professionally evolving the role of the prison officer, who can and should be someone who is trained to support people in custody.
Why penal reform should care about prison officers
In efforts to reduce the carceral net, and to make prisons better places for those held in custody, I want to argue that those interested in penal reform should also pay attention to the staff who work within prisons. If we want to minimise the harms of imprisonment as much as is possible within an institution that is coercive and inflicts pain, we must not forget those who give shape to the practices and experiences within the organisation. This may be especially important in an organisation in which its objectives are so conflicted, and the emotional dimensions of the work so heightened.
It is therefore important that penal reform should also include those who work within prisons within their remit, as well as on those who are in custody. Supporting staff in prisons, whether this be through better education, training or improved working cultures, may not initially seem like it should be high on the list of priorities for penal reform. However, progressive penal reform must also celebrate and support an investment in prison officers, in order that they be better placed to support the aspirations of imprisonment to care for those in custody and not be solely attentive to managing risk and ensuring less eligibility within prisons. Ultimately, it is prison officers who can support a return to citizenship, and the importance of this role has tended to be overlooked in the Scottish context.
Investing in better prisons – putting lipstick on a pig?
Arguing that penal reform should include attention on prison staff (implying investment of time and financial resources), may be difficult for some to agree with. This perhaps reflects a wider debate between penal reductionism and penal abolitionism, and whether it is possible to accept that there could ever be such a thing as a ‘good’ prison. Some may argue that investing in prisons, whether the buildings, conditions, or staff, is like ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. Whether prisons can ever be ‘normalised’ is long debated within criminology, but I take the view that, while prisons exist, they must be supported to do what positive work they can. This is within the boundaries of an institution which is fundamentally organised to inflict psychological, if no longer physical, harm (Crewe, 2011).
There is of course a danger in investing in prisons to improve the conditions therein. Investing in prisons leads to prisons being recast as places of care, respite and rehabilitation, with a real danger that the judiciary will send people there forrespite and care, when other non-custodial sanctions would be more suitable. Traditionally, this has particularly been an issue for the female population, and this is a delicate balance which must not be forgotten as the women’s estate is reconfigured and the Community Custody Unitsare built. Prison should never be an option where people are sent for rehabilitation.
The aims of imprisonment will always be multiple and complex, but prisons must also be able to support desistance by building hope, as well as providing access to services which support improved health, employability etc. both within and after prison. While care canand shouldbe provided in prison, it must nonetheless never be forgotten that prisons will also always be places of punishment, dislocation, and separation. The deprivation of liberty, control over movement, removal of key tenets of citizenship (ability to work, to vote, limit of family life and relationships), will always be the imposition of pain, no matter how positive the penal regime.
Prison Officers – from Turnkey to Professional Prison Officers
Officers perform tasks underpinned by conflicting rationales, in a demanding environment with some of the most vulnerable and challenging individuals in our society. Officers are required to monitor risk and security and to maintain order, whilst at the same time empathising, supporting, building hope, and demonstrating personal resilience (Crawley, 2004; Bennett et al., 2008; Liebling et al, 2010). The balance between ‘custody’ and ‘order’ with ‘care’ and ‘opportunity’ requires officers who can think critically about imprisonment and who can care in the most challenging contexts.
Following the publication of the Organisational Review in 2013, it is now recognised that staff must have the right knowledge, understanding and skills so that they too can support the positive change of those in custody (SPS, 2013). Since then, reforms aimed at professionalising the service are underway in order to create a degree of skill and professionalism that has not before existed in the prison setting’ (SPS, 2016:1). In the future, prison officers are expected to play a central role in helping to ‘unlock the potential’ of those in custody, by taking a greater role as: ‘counsellors, role models, coaches and advocates of the people in their care’ (SPS, 2016).
Professionalising prison officers is not a new agenda for the Scottish Prison Service. In 1991, Andrew Coyleclaimed that ‘we may now be at the beginning of a fundamental reassessment of how the prison officer carries out this task. In the not too distant future the prison officer might properly be described as a professional worker’ (p242). Over 25 years later, the inclusion in the 2017 Programme for Government of professionalization within the SPS, has put it firmly at the centre of Scottish prisons policy again.
There is no single definition of professionalism, but two key aspects of ‘professional practice’ are the ability to make ‘complex decisions’ drawing on ‘technical knowledge, skills and informed judgement’ (Sullivan, 2005), adherence to an ethical code which can be enshrined in a (regulated) code of practice, and engage in specialised formal learning throughout their career (Sparks et al, unpublished).
Within a prisons setting, professionalization can mean different things. According to Crawley, professional prison officers do their job in a ‘fair, legal, confident and neutral manner’ with the ability to ‘relate to, and deal with difficult, truculent people’ (2004: 112). Liebling et alcite Gilbert’s definition of ‘the professional’ prison officer as ‘open and non-defensive, makes exceptions when warranted, prefers to gain cooperation and compliance through communication, but is willing to use coercive power or force as a last resort’ (1997, in 2010). For Sparks et al (unpublished), professional prison officers are able to form the right sorts of relationships and to work in and through these relationships to support desistance, which require both the right ‘personal qualities and values’, and a ‘wider body of knowledge’ relating to crime and desistance.
What is clear, is that the ambitious aspirations for the SPS contained in the Organisational Review, have to place staff at the core of organisational change. Supporting staff within prisons to do their job to the best of their abilities, is compatible with an associated concern with people in custody. For those who want to reduce Scotland’s extensive penal state and radically improve penal outcomes, these concerns are symbiotic.
Author bio: Dr Katrina Morrison is a lecturer in Criminology at Napier University and was a part-time Learning and Development Researcher with the Scottish Prison Service, developing prison officer professionalization.
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Archive
2019
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New Strapline Brief
28th January 2019
2018
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Call for Submissions: 40th Anniversary Conference 'Reimagining the Future'
20th December 2018
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First HLS Student Society Launches
28th September 2018
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Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Prison Reductionism
21st September 2018
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Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Disclosure of Convictions
20th September 2018
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Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Prisoner Voting Rights
19th September 2018
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Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Inequality & Imprisonment
18th September 2018
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Critical Issues in Scottish Penal Policy: Prison Officers
17th September 2018
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Remand: A life or death crisis in Scotland
8th August 2018
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Phones in Prisons: Reconnect or Rehabilitate?
11th July 2018
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Raising the bar of youth justice: the minimum age of criminal responsibility
9th July 2018
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Justice Committee Remand Report
25th June 2018
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HLS Gives Evidence to Parliament
17th May 2018
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HLS Management of Offenders Submission
17th May 2018
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Press Release: HLS Statement on Equality and Human Rights Committee
14th May 2018
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Committee Recommends ban on prisoner voting should be removed in its entirety
14th May 2018
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Call for Trustees
9th May 2018
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Achieving Social Justice in 2018: Prisoner Voting Rights
19th April 2018
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Scottish Prisons in Comparative Perspective
20th March 2018
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HLS Welcomes Increase in Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility
14th March 2018
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Scotland Must Reform Life Sentences
12th March 2018
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International Women's Day
8th March 2018
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Proposed Advances in Electronic Monitoring
28th February 2018
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Crime falls, but the prison remains
28th February 2018
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Vision for Scottish Penal Reform in 2018
21st February 2018
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Spent Convictions Legislation
14th February 2018
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How long until my conviction is spent?
14th February 2018
2017
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Evidence on prisoner voting rights for Equalities and Human Rights Committee
7th September 2017
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Howard League Scotland response to Scottish Government's 2017/18 Programme for Government
6th September 2017
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Reviewing progress on female imprisonment in Scotland
26th June 2017
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HOWARD LEAGUE SCOTLAND RESPONSE TO DRAFT SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM BILL (2016)
13th March 2017
2016
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Scottish prisons design capacity and average daily populations (2015/16)
20th September 2016
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HLS response on minimum age of criminal responsibility
23rd June 2016
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2016 HOLYROOD ELECTIONS: REVIEW OF PARTY MANIFESTOS
29th April 2016
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Statement on presumption against short periods of imprisonment
9th February 2016
2015
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Response from Howard League Scotland to consultation on proposals to strengthen the presumption against short periods of imprisonment
23rd December 2015
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Briefing on Community Justice (Scotland) Bill
19th November 2015
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Howard League Scotland website problems
20th October 2015
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Reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
7th September 2015
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Guest blog: Restructuring Community Justice in Scotland
1st September 2015
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Response to Scottish Government announcement on women offenders
22nd June 2015
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Prisoners (Control of Release) Bill - Stage 3 briefing
21st June 2015
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Women's Penal Policy Campaign Still Needs Champions
18th April 2015
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Latest Crime and Punishment Statistics Scotland
23rd March 2015
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Perspectives from inside Barlinnie
23rd March 2015
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Prisoner Voting
23rd March 2015
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Experiencing Long-term Imprisonment in Scotland
23rd March 2015
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Standards for Inspecting and Monitoring Prisons in Scotland
23rd March 2015
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Automatic Early Release
27th February 2015
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Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Bill Feb 2015
24th February 2015
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Blueprint for Reform
19th February 2015
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Automatic Early Release
4th February 2015
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Inverclyde in the news
26th January 2015
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Howard League Scotland welcomes bold decision on Inverclyde
26th January 2015
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HLS in the news: automatic early release
19th January 2015
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Ban on automatic early release
13th January 2015
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Grampian Prison Radio Station
13th January 2015
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January 2015 Scottish Prison Population
12th January 2015
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Pat Carlen on Women in Prison - an indictment of society
7th January 2015
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Death, Addiction and Decay - Health matters in Scottish prisons
5th January 2015
2014
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Inverclyde - a new year's resolution?
18th December 2014
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Can Prison Work?
1st December 2014
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New Cabinet Secretary for Justice
21st November 2014
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Ageing Prison Population
19th November 2014
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People in prison: a snapshot
5th November 2014
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Possible Smoking Ban in Scottish Prisons
3rd November 2014
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Scottish Government’s Draft Budget 2015-16
3rd November 2014
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Scottish Imprisonment - Recent trends and Costs
31st October 2014
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HLS Convenor, John Scott QC, Annual SACRO Lecture
30th October 2014
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Prison Visiting Committee Reform
30th October 2014
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Lord Carloway Drummond Hunter Lecture - full paper
27th October 2014
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Scottish Government’s Draft Budget 2014/15
11th October 2014
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Scottish Government: What Works to Reduce Crime?
10th October 2014
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Prison Population
8th October 2014
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Rehabilitation and Resettlement
8th October 2014
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Getting it Right For Every Child
6th October 2014
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Youth Justice Under the Radar
6th October 2014
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Extended Family Visits
6th October 2014
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Is prison the only future for women's penal policy?
1st October 2014
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Baroness Corston: Inverclyde prison 'will fail'
1st October 2014
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Scottish Imprisonment September 2014
26th September 2014
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Greenock Inspection
26th September 2014
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Howard League Scotland calls for voting rights for prisoners
23rd September 2014
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VOTERS ASKED TO REMEMBER THOSE WITH NO VOICE
18th September 2014
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Prison Population - September 2014
9th September 2014
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Prison Population - September 2014
9th September 2014
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Past, Present & Future - Women's Penal Policy
20th August 2014
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HMP Grampian - Incapacitant Spray Used
13th August 2014
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A Shine Mentor on Women Offenders: From Where I Stand...
11th August 2014
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SPS Annual Report 2013-2014
16th July 2014
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Prison Population - July 2014
11th July 2014
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Scottish Prisoner Voting Arrangements
3rd July 2014
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Breaking the Cycle of Building Bigger Prisons
1st July 2014
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HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Report 2013-2014 Published
25th June 2014
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The problem with prison population predictions
12th June 2014
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SPS Prisoner Surveys 2011-2013
10th June 2014
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SPS Custodial History and Substance Misuse 2014
6th June 2014
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Scottish Prison Population May 2014
4th June 2014
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Criminal Justice Social Work Annual Report 2012-13
29th May 2014
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SCCJR Report on Training for SPS Staff
26th May 2014
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Prison Transformation in Dominican Republic
24th May 2014
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WHO Report on Prison Health Care
24th May 2014
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Problems Implementing Human Rights in Prison Practice
20th May 2014
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Automatic Early Release May 2014
16th May 2014
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Prison and Desistance - (Re)turning point?
15th May 2014
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PQ re pregnant women in HMP Inverclyde
14th May 2014
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PQ on healthcare services for HMP Inverclyde
14th May 2014
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PQ on transport links to Inverclyde
14th May 2014
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PQ on Inverclyde - which experts consulted in design phase?
14th May 2014
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PQ on Inverclyde - different security levels?
14th May 2014
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Children are 'Innocent Victims' of imprisonment
14th May 2014
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PQ on Inverclyde Family Visiting Facilities
14th May 2014
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Proposal to end automatic early release
12th May 2014
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Prison Population - May 2014
11th May 2014
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Startling Differences in Regional Imprisonment Rates
2nd May 2014
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Moral Panic or Moral Crusade?
1st May 2014
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Moral Panic or Moral Crusade?
1st May 2014
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Criminal Justice Social Work Annual Report 2012-13
1st May 2014
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Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill - Women's Penal Policy
24th April 2014
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218 Service - Case Studies
18th April 2014
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218 Project - Women's Penal Policy
18th April 2014
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Anne Pinkman, SWGWO - Women's Penal Policy
17th April 2014
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Karyn McCluskey,Violence Reduction - Women's Penal Policy
17th April 2014
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Maura Daly, Circle - Women's Penal Policy
16th April 2014
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Sarah Roberts, Families Outside - Women's Penal Policy
16th April 2014
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Tam Bailie, Commissioner for Children and Young People
15th April 2014
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CJA Chief Officers - Women's Penal Policy
15th April 2014
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Thinking about women's penal policy
14th April 2014
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Thinking about women's penal policy
14th April 2014
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Thinking about women's penal policy
14th April 2014
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Thinking about women's penal policy
14th April 2014
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Howard League Scotland in the News
14th April 2014
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Dr Margaret Malloch - Women's Penal Policy
14th April 2014
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Tom Halpin, Sacro - Women's Penal Policy
14th April 2014
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What's right for women offenders?
13th April 2014
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CPT Recommendations Scotland - March 2014
27th March 2014
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Scotland's Prison Population 1998-2013
5th March 2014
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Scottish Sentences
13th February 2014
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HLS Event in the News
13th February 2014
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Scottish Prisons in the News
7th February 2014
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Recruiting ex-offenders - James Timpson Lecture
3rd February 2014
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Prison Visiting Committee Reform
30th January 2014
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Scottish Prison Population 3rd January 2014
21st January 2014
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Prison Policy in the News
18th January 2014
2013
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Women Offenders
23rd December 2013
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Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill
23rd December 2013
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Prisoner voting and the independence referendum
23rd December 2013
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Independent monitoring of prisons
23rd December 2013
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Appointment of Howard League Scotland’s first President
23rd December 2013
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Female Imprisonment in Scotland - Survey 2013
12th December 2013
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Scottish Crime and Convictions Figures 2012-2013
26th November 2013
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Justice Budget 2014/15
11th October 2013
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Howard League Scotland Calls On MSPs To Let Short Term Prisoners Vote In The Independence Referendum
12th September 2013
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SPS Annual Report 2012-13
1st July 2013
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Prisoner Voting
21st March 2013
2012
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Angiolini Commission on Women Offenders
1st May 2012
2011
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Scottish Survey - Female Offenders (2011)
1st December 2011
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SCCJR: Female Imprisonment in Scotland
31st October 2011
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Cornton Vale Inspector of Prisons Report 2011
11th June 2011
2009
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SCCJR Report on Developing Sentencing & Penal Policy
9th August 2009
2006
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Women in Prison in Scotland, SCCCJ Report
3rd November 2006