News

The New Women's Prison Estate in Scotland

In August 2022, the Bella Centre, the first part of the new women's prison estate was opened. We issued the following statement to mark this: 

"10 years after publication of the Angiolini Report, the Bella Centre in Dundee is finally open. It provides places for 16 women and has been described as “the first facility of its type in the UK … taking a gender-specific and trauma informed approach to better prepare women for reintegration back into their communities”. In non-Government speak, it acknowledges that the majority of women who enter our prisons do so for short periods of time, carrying with them the scars of serious abuse and mental ill-health. With no bars on the windows and no high perimeter walls, the new centre is designed to be an unapologetic part of the local landscape, where women can feel and be seen as citizens, rather than social outcasts.

The new women’s strategy which underpins this bold approach is encouraging: each woman will have an individualised support plan that she’s devised alongside her own personal officer based on her own strengths and needs. This will take place in a therapeutic environment where any mental health issues are identified and acted upon; where the needs of any children are paramount; where setbacks are expected rather than punished; and where women have space “to heal”. We believe there’s a lot to like about this reimagining of the women’s estate, if it really is a cultural change based on a completely different rulebook. However, women should not need to go to prison for therapy. Support should also be accessible in the community, and not dependent on being convicted of a crime.

For the majority of people whose personal or professional lives don’t touch the criminal justice system, telling them that there are currently 294 women in custody in Scotland often comes as a huge surprise. Most imagine that there would be many more than that – perhaps into the thousands – and therefore see it as ‘good news’ that the figure is so low. In some ways it is good news, with the number of women receiving a custodial sentence decreasing significantly in the past 10 years. Historically, of course, overall offending rates amongst women are much lower than those of men, and patterns of offending tend to be a lesser threat to public safety. The (extremely) bad news, however, is that 32% are being held on remand, with 70% of them unlikely to go on to receive a custodial sentence.

This visionary approach must therefore apply to all women in custody in Scotland, not just the very few – circa 14% of the total women’s prison population - who have been assessed as low-risk and nearing the end of their sentence, and who will be housed in the Bella Centre and the similarly sized Lilias Centre in Glasgow. (The remainder will, clearly, continue to be held in prisons built primarily for men.) Only then will we get a good enough answer to SPS’s own question of self-evaluation, “how good is our care of women in custody?”."

Recorded Crime in Scotland 2021-2022

On 28 June 2022 the Recorded Crime in Scotland 2021-2022 figures were published. They showed that “recorded crime remains at one of the lowest levels since 1974 and is down 41% since 2006-07, with non-sexual violent crime down 36% over the same period and homicides at their lowest level since 1976".

Scottish Sentencing Council Reports

On 12 May 2022 the Scottish Sentencing Council published a report on the sentencing of offenders with mental health issues; this followed the publication of a report on the challenges of comparing sentences across jurisdictions and a report on sentencing domestic abuse offences.

Mental Health Support in Scotland's Prisons 2021: Under-Served and Under-Resourced

On 28 April 2022, the Mental Welfare Commission published a themed visit report entitled ‘Mental Health Support in Scotland’s Prisons 2021: Under-Served and Under-Resourced’. It advised that little had changed in relation to the outcome for prisoners’ mental health since the last themed visit in 2011 and that passing responsibility from SPS to NHS had offered no discernible improvements. It reiterated that seriously and acutely mentally ill people were still being housed in prisons instead of in hospital-based care.

Judged on Progress: the Need for Urgent Delivery on Scottish Justice Sector Reforms

On 10/01/22 the Scottish Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee published its report, ‘Judged on Progress: the Need for Urgent Delivery on Scottish Justice Sector Reforms’. It’s a weighty piece with recommendations across the following areas: the impact of Covid 19 on the justice sector; prisons and prison policy; misuse of drugs and the criminal justice system; violence against women and girls; victims’ rights and victim support; reducing youth offending, offering community justice solutions and alternatives to custody; and legal aid.          Importantly, it includes an Action Plan for the Scottish Justice Sector in this session of Parliament, which include monitoring mechanisms e.g. did the Scottish Government agree to the recommendation to deliver the manifesto commitment not to hold under 18s in HMP Polmont – yes/no/in part – with progress against delivery.

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