Penal Policy
Call for Trustees
Call for Trustees - closed
Thank you to everyone who has expressed an interest in becoming a voluntary Trustee with Howard League Scotland. We have received a significant number of applications of a very high quality. If you have not already been in contact with our Secretary, please note that we have closed the call for Trustees for the time being to give us time to consider the applications received so far. We will provide a further update on our recruitment shortly.
Trustees: Howard League Scotland
It is extremely rewarding to be a Trustee of Howard League Scotland, where there is the real potential to make a difference to the way that penal policy develops in Scotland. Please consider joining us, we are looking for a broad range of skills. Howard League Scotland (HLS) campaigns for penal reforms, prisoners’ rights and improvements to the Scottish criminal justice system. We are seeking to appoint several new trustees to ensure we have the capacity and skills to continue our effective work for penal reform, and to ensure the good governance of the charity.
This is a voluntary position, HLS Trustees are not paid for their work, although all reasonable travel expenses will be met.
Trustees are expected to attend four board meetings per year and an Away Day, and also on occasion to work with the Policy and Public Affairs Manager on penal policy issues between meetings. Board meetings are currently held in central Edinburgh between 6 and 8 pm, although we are open to discussion about suitable dates, times and location.
Trustees are elected annually or may be co-opted by current trustees at any time.
About HLS
The Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland (HLS) promotes just responses to the causes and consequences of crime. It aims to be a forum to stimulate new and progressive thinking in penal practice and to critically question prevailing penal initiatives, based on evidence of ‘what works’ and careful ethical reflection on ‘what’s right’. HLS accepts no funding from central or local government so that we can campaign freely on key issues. HLS is a highly respected organisation and has been influential in changing government policy (for example in relation to women’s prisons). We are frequently invited to give evidence to the Scottish Parliament and to comment in the media. You can find out more on our website: www.howardleague.scot
About the role
We are seeking to recruit a number of trustees with the following skills and experience. We do not expect every Trustee to meet all of the criteria, but aim to have a balanced Board that in combination has the following skills and experience:
· Commitment to the objectives of HLS (Essential)
· Willingness to fulfil the duties and meet the standards of conduct required of a Scottish charity trustee (Essential)
· Understanding of penal policy and prisons issues
· Fundraising
· Policy analysis and influencing
· Lobbying policymakers and/or business and/or representative groups.
· Media and communications or PR, including social media.
· Strategic planning skills
· Management / project management
· Ability to understand and interrogate financial reports
This is an excellent opportunity to make a positive contribution to policy developments in the Scottish criminal justice system and to build your skills and experience in governance and board membership.
How to apply
Please send an email explaining why you wish to be considered for the role and the relevant skills and experience that you have to: Dinah Aitken, Secretary, HLS dinah.aitken@btopenworld.com
Short-listed applicants will be invited to an informal interview on a date to be agreed to find out more about HLS and meet some of the trustees.
Achieving Social Justice in 2018: Prisoner Voting Rights
The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts.
- South African Constitutional Court rules on prisoners' right to vote (1999)
Howard League Scotland calls on the government to take this occasion of newly devolved powers to extend the franchise to all prisoners. The issue of prisoners voting should be central to the Electoral Reform Consultation. Extending the vote to prisoners is not primarily about criminal justice, penal reform or rehabilitation. This is about human rights, creating universal franchise in Scotland, and ensuring democratic rights for all citizens. Ultimately, this is about improving the health of our democracy and building a better Scotland.
The centenary of women’s right to vote has been a powerful and timely reminder that citizenship is not automatic, even in democratic societies. We are reminded also that when people are reduced to second class citizenship, and thus socially excluded, it is all too often the result of government policy and legislation. Democracy is about inclusion, political engagement and civic participation. When we disenfranchise specific groups of people, however, we curtail their citizenship and socially marginalise them, but we also degrade the quality of the democracy across our entire society.
In terms of measuring the strength of our democracy and social equality, universal franchise is seen as an important proxy. Using that measure, Scotland’s democracy is worryingly limited. Of the 47 Council of Europe nations, Scotland is an outlier; having restrictions on prisoner voting we are in line only with Westminster, Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia and Russia.
There is also something particularly punitive and arbitrary about denying prisoners the right to vote as opposed to all people with a conviction. This is most likely due to the belief that prison is for the most heinous criminals, but we know in fact large numbers of prisoners are not sentenced for serious or violent offences. In 2011-12, 28 per cent of shoplifting convictions, 54 per cent of housebreaking convictions, and 61 per cent of convictions for serious assault and attempted murder ended in a custodial sentence (Source: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2011-12). There is not a straightforward divide between the types of offences that attract imprisonment and those that do not. Therefore, HLS advocate that a custodial sentence by itself sets too low and arbitrary a threshold for the loss of such an important right as the right to vote.
Imprisonment is intended as the deprivation of liberty but in contemporary Scotland it also causes “civic death”, an archaic nineteenth century penal idea that should be resigned to history. Civic death was intended to strip a person not just of their freedom, but of many other basic rights, reducing them to a ‘non-person’. This sits at odds with the Scottish political commitment to reintegration and social justice.
Instead, by expanding the franchise the prison can be used to inculcate and encourage civic identity. This is particularly important given that the current voting ban also disproportionately impacts the most deprived and vulnerable. Prisoners tend to be the most marginalized members of our communities and by denying them a vote further ostracizes them from mainstream society. Strengthening people’s connection to society and motivating their sense of wider civic responsibility is an important aim of democracy, one that can be supported by giving prisoners the vote.
Since the devolution of electoral matters to Holyrood in the Scotland Act 2016, however, Scotland has gained the opportunity to be a leader and become the first polity in the United Kingdom to extend the franchise to convicted prisoners. England and Wales continue to deny prisoners the right to vote, despite the European Court ruling that it is unlawful. By extending the vote to all prisoners, the Scottish government can buck this trend, sending the clearest signal yet about its commitment to justice, fairness and inclusion.
HLS believes that the franchise is too limited in Scotland and calls on the Scottish government to remove this uncivilised and anti-democratic ban. Following the Irish model, voting should be extended to all prisoners, regardless of crime and sentence length and using a postal vote system. Prisons are public institutions, their character reflects the political and social values of society at large. However, from civil rights to eliminating the death penalty, history has shown us that governments can shape and encourage progressive public opinion by showing leadership on even the most divisive issues. By giving voting rights to prisoners, Scotland will make a bold statement on the international stage about the democratic character of our society. Prisoner voting is not a criminal justice matter, it is an electoral issue: in its current form it exposes a serious inequality that currently undermines Scottish democracy.
Proposed Advances in Electronic Monitoring
The Scottish government recently introduced the Managment of Offenders (Scotland) Bill. HLS cautiously welcomes the proposed changes to electronic monitoring as a means to directly and assertively reduce Scotland’s troublingly high imprisonment rate. Our wariness, however, is rooted in our concerns about criminal justice net-widening. As we recently wrote, an increase in community sentences over the last decade has not impacted the rate at which Scottish courts give prison sentences. Moreover, the expansion and refinement of electronic monitoring (EM) poses other potential issues for social justice, desistance and citizenship, which HLS remains apprehensive about.
Part of the appeal of EM is that it is considerably cheaper than prison. However, there needs to be sound penological reasons underpinning its use and development. The Scottish government have made it clear that they are interested in reducing re-offending. As a tracking technology EM has no inherent rehabilitative capacities, however, and we are concerned that expanding its use may in fact undermine criminal justice social work. EM cannot replace the human contact and the positive relationship between a social worker and their supervisee. The encouragement and guidance provided by probation can be vital in supporting a person’s rehabilitation, this includes helping someone access education and employment, secure housing and address addiction. Moreover, EM cannot counter the other issues that often underlie offending, namely, socially inequality and lack of opportunities. Monitoring should not be misrepresented as centrally a tool for rehabilitation. Its use, therefore, should be only one among a suite of community supervision and rehabilitation measures.
If that becomes the case, and EM is but one tactic in an integrated programme of community supervision and surveillance, then the severity of punishment for breaching EM should remain in question. If a person who is tagged is generally succeeding in meeting the broader demands of supervision and desistance, we need to seriously consider if breach of EM curfews and exclusion areas should automatically cause a recall to prison.
HLS are also particularly concerned about the proposed creation of exclusion zones that could range "from a house, to specific street patterns, to a neighbourhood, to a whole city. GPS also allows more than one exclusion zone to be set. Using GPS technology to set exclusion zones can help create safe spaces for victims of crime", according to the Scottish government. We worry that a desire for effective and cheaper forms of criminal justice and community protection are superseding more ethical and social concerns about citizenship and reintegration. When people are denied access to large areas of public space, like city centres, it sends a clear statement that they do not belong here, that they do not deserve equal membership of Scottish society. When we block people from full social and civic association we degrade their citizenship as we make people criminal for moving through public spaces. We also blur the lines between the community and the prison. We strongly resist any suggestion that cities and neighbourhoods should be carved up into permitted territories and no-go zones. This has the long-term potential to create a community justice culture of security and exclusion in Scotland, rather than a culture of reintegration and social inclusion.
Relatedly, we know that in Scotland, like elsewhere, people sentenced to prison are largely drawn from the most disadvantaged communities. If the use of EM follows this pattern – and those being tagged and GPS tracked are concentrated in the most marginalised areas – the Scottish government risks converting neighbourhoods that are already hindered by social exclusion into prison-like places, where large sections of the population have restricted movement and liberty. Any attempt to reduce prison numbers and achieve the aims of social justice is seriously undermined if EM inadvertently creates communities of confinement across Scotland.
Any form of tagging and monitoring should be developed with these concerns in mind. EM can support rehabilitation, offer community protection and keep people within their families. But achieving the goals of community justice while mitigating the serious social and civic risks will require a delicate and critical balance. To begin to address some of these issues, and emphasise EM’s potential strengths, longer periods of supervision could be organised on a graded system, becoming increasingly less onerous, with stipulations and exclusions reduced, as time passes. As the Council of Europe wrote, ‘EM can certainly be used in ways which make an offender feel trusted, an important ingredient in the rehabilitation process’. Finally, long-term research is needed to carefully monitor the economic, rehabilitative and qualitative impact of EM on individuals, communities and Scottish civic life.
Read More:
The Scotsman: Scottish criminals ‘could be barred from entire cities’
BBC News: Use of electronic tags to be extended
Iriss (2017) Electronic monitoring in the criminal justice system
Guest blog: Restructuring Community Justice in Scotland
As the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee commences its Stage 1 considerations of the Community Justice Bill, Jamie Buchan considers reform of community justice in Scotland.
Under legislation recently introduced by the Scottish Government, community justice in Scotland is to be reorganised for the second time in about a decade, after the previous reorganisation left it with serious structural flaws – but even if these problems are removed, challenges old and new will remain.
Scottish criminal justice has seen some interesting developments recently; most encouraging was the January decision not to build a new women’s prison at Inverclyde and instead to pursue a model of small local centres, as recommended by Howard League Scotland and the Commission on Women Offenders (the Angiolini Report).
Less well-known are the Angiolini Report’s recommendations on community justice. This is an important part of Scotland’s criminal justice system – in 2013-14, over 20,000 offenders received a community sentence. These sentences combine punishment and rehabilitation – they can include unpaid work requirements, probation supervision delivered by criminal justice social work (CJSW), and interventions aimed at the offenders’ ‘criminogenic needs’ (such as mental health, housing or employment). This vital work goes beyond community sentences – these same structures contribute to the reintegration of offenders released from long prison sentences.
Community punishments are cheaper, less disruptive and overall more effective at tackling reoffending than imprisonment, and the Scottish Government has accepted this for some time. Nonetheless, community justice features only rarely in media and public discussions. As Rob C. Mawby and Anne Worrall wrote in Doing Probation Work (2013), community justice doesn’t have the pop-culture prominence that novels, news media, TV and films have imparted to the police, prisons and the courts. Notwithstanding the reality of sentencing, we tend to think of prison bars when we think of punishment – and to think of community punishments as ‘alternatives to imprisonment’ rather than punishments in their own right.
The distinctive structure of the Scottish system was developed almost fifty years ago, following the Kilbrandon report into youth offending. That report, which famously led to the creation of the Children’s Hearings System, also made recommendations about adult social work and criminal justice. Scotland’s probation service was abolished, and its functions were folded into new generic social work departments within local authorities.
The position of CJSW as a local authority social work institution, rather than a national criminal justice institution, has shaped its development in Scotland – but community justice issues don’t stay neatly within the institutional boundaries of social work departments. They involve police, courts, prisons, the NHS, social housing and the many charities that work with offenders. That makes community justice a matter of partnership, and the current system aims to reflect this. It’s structured around eight Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) – regional bodies established in 2006 after hurried compromise between local government, social workers and the Scottish Executive.
CJAs were set up to reduce reoffending in their regions by allocating CJSW funding, promoting partnership and holding social work departments to account for meeting reoffending targets. The members of each CJA are councillors from the constituent local authorities, who vote on area plans which detail how resources will be allocated. In practice, these plans are prepared by CJA employees – the Chief Officer and their small support staff – and rarely come to a vote. CJA Chief Officers also coordinate activity between various partners: local authority CJSW, the Scottish Prison Service, the NHS, the Crown Office, Police Scotland, Victim Support Scotland and various charities.
Despite the efforts of CJA employees, the current model has serious structural flaws. A CJA has no operational control and only limited strategic control, and it can’t hold the NHS or the courts accountable in the same way it can social work departments. My own ongoing research suggests that CJA staff feel a conflict of aims – reporting a failing social work department to the Government would hinder partnership working, so this power has never once been used. With no control over non-CJSW partners, the success of a CJA partnership has often come down to personality, not policy.
Despite being restricted by these structural factors, CJA staff have often played important roles in developing innovative approaches to rehabilitation. Reoffending has fallen and partnership working has improved since CJAs were established. The system has not been a total failure, but by the time of the Angiolini report it was clear it had to change.
The consultation for redesigning the system was unusually long (about two years), which suggests the Scottish Government wished to avoid the rushed decision-making and implementation that produced the CJA system. Initially the consultation presented three options: keeping CJAs but enhancing their power, handing responsibility to local authorities, or setting up a single national Community Justice Service (the latter recommended both by the Angiolini report and by Howard League Scotland).
None of these options was accepted – instead a compromise between local and national was agreed, but not a regional middle way like the CJAs. Instead the Community Justice (Scotland) Bill, recently published and now in its first stage, will replace CJAs with a new two-tier system.
Local Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) will be responsible for coordinating partnerships and developing local plans for reducing reoffending – as they already are in many areas outside justice. Alongside these a new national body, Community Justice Scotland, which will be responsible for promoting knowledge exchange and public awareness of community justice.
It’s likely to be a turbulent time for CPPs as they assume these new responsibilities. The upcoming Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill is intended to strengthen CPPs in light of criticisms of their performance; the Scottish Government is also requiring local authorities to integrate health and social care provision structures, and there’s a growing division within the local authority umbrella group COSLA.
Promoting public awareness and developing public interest could be an even greater challenge for Community Justice Scotland. The Inverclyde decision suggests Scotland could forge a path to a more effective and humane criminal justice system, centred on rehabilitation and reintegration. Getting there requires us to challenge the narrow conception of community punishments as ‘alternatives to prison’, and to develop locally engaged structures which can deal in a multifaceted way with the complex problem of rehabilitation.
*****
Jamie Buchan is a third-year PhD student in criminology at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the development and effects of the restructuring of the community justice systems of England and Wales and Scotland, with particular reference to practitioner opinions, experiences and adaptation in Scotland. He writes here in a personal capacity.
Prisoner Voting
That Scotland denied prisoners the right to vote during the independence referendum undermined the fabric of our democracy and the principle of universal suffrage. In this essay Albie Sachs and HLS President Andrew Coyle review the current ban on prisoner voting in Scotland, England and Wales. How can the Scottish Government make real its social justice mantra when it denied such a large population a right to be counted as a member of a democratic Scottish society during the independence referendum?
Read the essay here: The Right to Vote | Scottish Justice Matters | Vol 3 | Number 1 | March 2015
Pages
Sections
Archive
2023
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HMIPS Thematic Review of Segregation in Scottish Prisons
18th September 2023
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HMP Greenock Full Inspection Report
18th September 2023
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Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill
18th September 2023
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Recorded Crime in Scotland 2022-2023
18th September 2023
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Prison Mobile Phone Phase Out
18th September 2023
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Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill
18th September 2023
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Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service Corporate Plan (2023-26) & Business Plan (2023-24)
18th September 2023
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Prisoner Voting
18th September 2023
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HMP Addiewell Full Inspection
18th September 2023
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Journey Times in Scotland's Criminal Justice System Report
18th September 2023
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Joint Review of Diversion From Prosecution
18th September 2023
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'Still Nothing to See Here' Follow Up Report
18th September 2023
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Scottish Parliament Pre-Budget Scrutiny
18th September 2023
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HMIPS Annual Report 2021-2022
18th September 2023
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HMIPS Strategic Plan 2022-2025
18th September 2023
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HMP Shotts: Full Prison Inspection
18th September 2023
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Court Backlog Modelling
18th September 2023
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Scottish Prison Population Health Needs Report
18th September 2023
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The New Women's Prison Estate in Scotland
18th September 2023
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Recorded Crime in Scotland 2021-2022
18th September 2023
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Scottish Sentencing Council Reports
18th September 2023
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Mental Health Support in Scotland's Prisons 2021: Under-Served and Under-Resourced
18th September 2023
2022
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Judged on Progress: the Need for Urgent Delivery on Scottish Justice Sector Reforms
21st April 2022
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Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 Implemented
21st April 2022
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Independent Review of the Response to Deaths in Prison Custody
21st April 2022
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Scottish Sentencing Council: Guideline on the Sentencing of Young People
21st April 2022
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HMIPS Annual Report 2020-2021
21st April 2022
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HMIPS Health and Well-Being Pre-Inspection Survey
21st April 2022
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Scottish Sentencing Council Report: Judicial Perspectives on Community-Based Disposals
21st April 2022
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Reconviction Statistics: 2019-19 Offender Cohort
21st April 2022
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Recorded Crime in Scotland 2020-2021
21st April 2022
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HMIPS Liaison Visit to HMP Greenock
21st April 2022
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HMIPS Liaison Visit to HMP Castle Huntly
21st April 2022
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Audit Scotland: Community Justice Sustainable Alternatives to Custody
21st April 2022
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Mental Welfare Commission Report: Women and Mental Ill-Health
21st April 2022
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Membership of the new Scottish Parliament Criminal Justice Committee Announced
21st April 2022
2021
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The Scandal of Remand in Scotland: A Report by Howard League Scotland – May 2021
21st May 2021
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An Urgent Plea from Howard League Scotland Committee
21st April 2021
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Expert Review of Mental Health Support For Young People Entering And In Custody At HMP&YOI Polmont - Final Progress Update
15th April 2021
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Extended Presumption Against Short Sentences Monitoring Information: January – December 2020
15th April 2021
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Scottish Crime & Justice Survey 2019-20
15th April 2021
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Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics: 2019 -20
15th April 2021
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HMIPS Liaison Visit to HMP/YOI Grampian
15th April 2021
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Review of Forensic Mental Health Services in Scotland Final Report
15th April 2021
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The Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Rules
15th April 2021
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Covid19 Court Restrictions Extended
15th April 2021
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The Community Orders (Coronavirus)(Scotland) Regulations 2021
15th April 2021
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The Restorative Justice (Prescribed Persons) (Scotland) Order 2021
15th April 2021
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Allan Marshall FAI Recommendations
15th April 2021
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The Parole Board (Scotland) Amendment Rules 2021
15th April 2021
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Effects of New Covid19 Variant
15th April 2021
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Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) Criminal Case Throughput Data
15th April 2021
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Council of Europe's European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Report
15th April 2021
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Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2017-18 Offender Cohort
15th April 2021
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Justice Committee Evidence Session - Covid19 Effects on Criminal Justice System
15th April 2021
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HMIPS Liaison Visit to HMP Kilmarnock
15th April 2021
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Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act - Electronic Monitoring
15th April 2021
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Outstanding Unpaid Work (Community Payback Orders)
14th April 2021
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HMP Dumfries Full Inspection
14th April 2021
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New European Prison Rules
14th April 2021
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Scottish Prison Population Statistics 2019 - 2020
14th April 2021
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HMIPS First Liaison Visit to HMP Addiewell
14th April 2021
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HMIPS First Liaison Visit to HMP Edinburgh
14th April 2021
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Disclosure (Scotland) Act
14th April 2021
2020
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HMIPS: Remote Monitoring and Liaison Visits
16th November 2020
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Virtual Visits and Mobile Phones in Scottish Prisons
16th November 2020
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SPS Covid19 Route Map
16th November 2020
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Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2018-19
16th November 2020
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HMIPS Inspection of HMP Edinburgh
16th November 2020
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Jackie Tombs – A Note of Appreciation
20th August 2020
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Three Keys to Unlocking the Problem of Prisons in a Pandemic
25th June 2020
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‘Prisoner householding’: the latest threat from Covid-19
29th April 2020
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COVID-19 in Scottish Prisons: Update #1
30th March 2020
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COVID-19 in Scottish Prisons
30th March 2020
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Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representations) Bill Passed
30th March 2020
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Disclosure (Scotland) Bill Report
23rd March 2020
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Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act
23rd March 2020
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Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representations) Bill Report
23rd March 2020
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Independent Review of the Handling of Deaths in Custody
23rd March 2020
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Evidence to Education and Skills Committee: Disclosure (Scotland) Bill
23rd March 2020
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HMP Glenochil Full Inspection
23rd March 2020
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Council of Europe's European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
23rd March 2020
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Pre-Budget Scrutiny
11th February 2020
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Throughcare Service Provision Announcement
11th February 2020
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Recorded Crime in Scotland: 2018-2019
11th February 2020
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Evidence to Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee: Prisoner Voting
11th February 2020
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Audit Scotland audit of SPS
11th February 2020
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Scottish Government - Programme for Government 2019/20
11th February 2020
2019
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HMIPS Annual Report 2018-19
5th November 2019
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Fatal Accident Inquiry - Allan Marshall (HMP Edinburgh)
5th November 2019
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Franchise Extended to Prisoners to Vote in the Shetland By-Election
5th November 2019
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Suspension of SPS Throughcare Support Service
25th July 2019
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Management of Offenders (Scotland) Bill
1st July 2019
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Presumption Against Short Sentences (PASS)
28th June 2019
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UN Committee Against Torture - Key Concerns
11th March 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
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