Prisons

Reducing Scotland's Prison Population (Yet Again ...)

Following the launch of the consultation on proposals to change the point of release for long term prisoners on 8 July 2024, the consultation report was published on 10 October 2024. You can read our consultation response here. On the same day, the Cabinet Secretary made a Statement to Parliament. As she had been warned, the prison population had quickly returned to pre-emergency release levels.

A report published on 2 September 2024 on the Early Release of Prisoner and Prescribed Victim Supporters (Scotland) Regulations 2024 is available here. It showed that 477 people were released under the emergency release regulations, with Governors having vetoed 171 of those initially identified.

A further report published on 2 October 2024 showed that of the 477 released prisoners, 57 (12%) of them had been returned to prison having been accused/convicted of further offending. (This is lower than the ‘normal’ rate of reoffending over a similar time period.) The average time in the community was between 2 and 61 days, with an average time length of 22 days.

On the day of the Parliamentary Statement the population stood at 8,322, against an operating target of 8,007. The Cabinet Secretary thus advised that in November 2024 she would be introducing new proposals to move the point of automatic release for short-term prisoners from 50% to 40% in the expectation that this would immediately reduce the population by between 260 and 390 people and would continue to do so in a sustainable way. She also advised that HDC GPS technology would be introduced in January 2025 (subject to Parliamentary approval).

The Cabinet Secretary’s statement was followed by one from the Lord Advocate (Dorothy Bain KC) who advised that she would be issuing short-term guidance to sentencers making decisions regarding bail and remand. The guidance does not apply to those involved in allegations of domestic abuse or sexual violence. Much of it appeared to reflect points that we had made previously about the importance of information being made available to sentencers at the point of setting bail and discouraging automatic objections to it by the Crown. Bail reviews are to be encouraged alongside a full roll-out of the successful Summary Case Management pilot which was launched at Dundee, Hamilton and Paisley Sheriff Courts and before being extended to Glasgow and Perth.

HMIPS Annual Report 2023/4

On 6 August 2024, HMIPS published its Annual Report 2023/4. For the sixth and final time, the Chief Inspector Wendy Sinclair-Gieben highlighted that the stubbornly entrenched issue of prison overcrowding was her primary concern.

Order for Lifelong Restriction Prisoner Judicial Review

On 2 May 2024, a judicial review brought by an OLR  (order for lifelong prisoner) against the Scottish Government was upheld by the Outer House, Court of Session. It ruled that the petitioner’s rights under under Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached as a result of a 20 month delay in the prisoner accessing the rehabilitative course required to demonstrate a reduced risk to the Parole Board.  His detention was ruled to have become arbitrary in an Article 5(1) sense, until real opportunities for rehabilitation were provided to him.

HMIPS Full Inspection of HMP Edinburgh

On 14 March 2024, a full HMIPS inspection report of HMP Edinburgh was published. It raised specific concerns about lack of purposeful activity; time out of cell; and the need for tighter assurance on the use of force.

GEOAmey Prison Transport Contract Issues

On 14 March 2024, the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee took evidence from His Majesty's Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben. She described GEOAmey’s performance as “truly shocking”, advising that there were short-term tweaks possible, but that it all came down to more prisons or less prisoners. She reiterated that Scottish prisons were at a tipping point where we needed to spend to save and that HMP Greenock should be “bulldozed”. She recommended that consideration  be given to making the presumption against short term sentences mandatory; and that currently it is only down to good staff that insurrection has prevented. 

On 28 March 2024, three senior GEOAmey directors gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee. They maintained that whilst they apologised for their poor performance, it was down to two things: i) socio-economic factors relating to fewer people looking for work ii) changes to the “operating environment” (more prisoners and more of them needing to get to court/hospital appointments/VIPERs etc.). In their view, they were “the face of failure” and that the solutions lie in other parts of the criminal justice system making changes too and that all human rights obligations remain with the “state actors” i.e. SPS.                           

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