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Monday, April 27, 2009
It was back to business this week following the Easter recess. The main justice interest took place in Committee, with the inquiry into women in the justice system continuing in the Equal Opportunities Committee, and the scrutiny into the financial aspects of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, beginning in the Finance Committee.
The Equal Opportunities Committee
Inquiry Into Female Offenders
Last Tuesday, the Equal Opportunity Committee continued with its inquiry into female offenders in the justice system. This is a ‘short and focused’ inquiry, whose remit is to “assess the prison experience for, and background of, female offenders, particularly the extent to which prison helps to prevent women from re–offending.”
The Committee has already heard from the Lord Advocate, the Governor of Cornton Vale prison, and other officials from the SPS including the Chief Executive. Their evidence so far, both oral and written, has described the social profile of prisoners, the needs they have, and the challenges that they pose for the prison system. This week‘s evidence session was concerned with finding out the support that is available to female prisoners and how effective it is.
The first panel of witnesses were representatives from the health and care services in the SPS. They said that they started their work from the premise that unless women‘s primary problems, which usually revolve around drugs and mental health issues, are not addressed once they come into the system, then the women will be unable to engage with programmes that are more specifically designed to address their offending behaviour. One of the witnesses spoke of the difficulty of addressing mental health problems, given that the women present many other more immediate needs which are easier for the women to express and for staff to identify. The witnesses also spoke about the different types of mental health problems that female prisoners exhibit, and some of the reasons that female prisoners are more likely to have greater needs than the male prison population. They also spoke about whether prisoners are required to attend programmes or not, and about how they measure the effectiveness of programmes. They said that although they are proud of the success they have achieved in Cornton Vale by international standards, the co–ordination of care between prison and the Community was an area that they still wished to improve on. The difficulties of helping prisoners on very short sentences was also mentioned and they answered questions about treating mental health problems in the prison setting. They also spoke about the pattern of drug abuse amongst female prisoners entering the prison versus when they leave, and they said that although the rate of drug abuse in prison is still relatively high, it tends to be restricted to cannabis and other less harmful drugs than the class A drugs which are in prisoners’ systems on arrival in the prison.
The next panel of witnesses were comprised of professionals from the SPS and the voluntary sector, who all worked with female prisoners who had experienced sexual abuse, domestic abuse, prostitution and addiction. They also answered questions about the difficulties of measuring the efficacy of their interventions, with one witness saying that it was difficult to quantify what are essentially qualitative outcomes, such as increased self–confidence or believing that they do not deserve to be in an abusive relationship any more, and so forth. The voluntary agencies said that one of the biggest obstacles they faced was not having a national capacity, so women may fall through the gaps depending on which part of Scotland they go to following release. The head of care in Cornton Vale said that on occasion, prisoners manage to brew their own alcohol whilst in custody using potatoes and sugar taken from the prison kitchens. However, given that the process is relatively lengthy, the hooch is usually discovered before it can be consumed. The witnesses were also asked about community prisons, given that at present the vast majority of prisoners are housed in a single prison, often away from their families. One of the witnesses said that some of the female prisoners expressed the view that it was actually easier for them to address their problems whilst they were further away from their families, although this was obviously not felt universally by prisoners. The witnesses were also keen to emphasise that the needs of the prisoners’ children while their mothers where in custody, should be paramount, and it was clearly in their interests to be able to maintain contact with their mothers whilst they are locked up.
You can read all the oral evidence in the Official Report, or watch the meeting on Holyrood.TV. You can also access the Inquiry’s homepage, which has links to all the evidence taken so far
The Finance Committee
Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill Financial Memorandum
On Tuesday afternoon, the Finance Committee continued its scrutiny into the Financial Memorandum of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill. The Committee have agreed that this process will require a level three scrutiny, which means it will collect oral as well as written evidence from the relevant agencies. Today they heard from three panels, the first comprised of local authorities, the second of professionals from the Crown Office, the Scottish Court Service, the Scottish Prison Service, and the Scottish Police Services Authority, and the third of officials from the Scottish Government.
The first panel from local authorities expressed concern about the increased workload for criminal justice social work that will be resultant if this Bill is to be passed, and fears were expressed that, although the financial memorandum does provide extra resources, it does not go far enough. They also answered a range of questions about the cost of community payback orders, increased social inquiry reports, and the need for extra professionals to work with offenders in the community.
The second panel indicated that they were all broadly content with the assumption of costs made in the Financial Memorandum. The speaker from the Crown Office said that the largest impact on his organisation was likely to be the new requirements for disclosure, and the spokesperson from the SPSA said this would also have a considerable impact on the forensic services in his organisation. The SCS said that additional shrieval time would be required to deal with the review hearings which will be required as a result of more community payback orders, as well as the extra time for sheriffs if they will have to begin explaining their reasoning in court every time they issue a sentence of six months and under.
The last panel comprised of five Government officials, responsible for different parts of the Bill. They answered some of the concerns that had been raised by earlier witnesses, and they made the point that, although it was extremely difficult to estimate costs based on future sentencing behaviour, they were currently working around an estimation of an increased 10% – 20% in community payback orders, which will be attributable to a down–tariffing in short sentences. There were several questions about this estimate and the different variables which may affect it, and whether the provisions in the financial memorandum were sufficient to meet the policy intentions.
Another witnesses answered questions about the cost of setting up the new Sentencing Council, saying that the present plan was to graft this body onto the newly reformed Scottish Court Service, which would mean the cost of establishing a new body would be foregone, but that this may have to be reconsidered if the Lord President, who is now in charge of the SCS, decides this would not be possible. There were also a number of questions about licensing, despite the fact that many of the licensing provisions initially intended for the Bill will now be moved to a separate distinct piece of legislation.
You can read all the evidence received by the Committee in the Official Report, or watch it on Holyrood.TV. You can also read all the evidence taken so far on this Bill on it’s Official Homepage.
Questions
Wrongful Death Legislation
During General Questions, Bill Butler (Lab) asked about a report from the Scottish Law Commission, into damages for wrongful deaths. He said that the approach the report advocated would remove the need for some cases to go to court, which would allow the victims and their relatives to access compensation more swiftly and without having to undergo a stressful court process, and he announced that he intended to introduce a member’s bill shortly which would reflect these parts of the Scottish Law Commission’s report.
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice replied that the terms of the report had to be considered to make sure they would fit into a legislative framework, and that although he accepted that the law on damages had to be changed, it still had to be decided which approach would be most suitable to take at this stage. And you can read this question in the Official Report
Drug and Alcohol Services in Scotland
Later, during questions for the First Minister, Stuart McMillan (SNP) asked about the response to the recently published Audit Scotland report about drug and alcohol services in Scotland, and in his question he included the fact that the former Labour MSP and recent Prison Commission chair, Henry McLeish had gone on record in support of the Government’s policy of minimum pricing for alcohol.
In reply, the First Minister praised the summit held the previous day, in which Government together with COSLA launched a new ‘framework for action on alcohol and drugs’, which he said seeks to addresses the problems that the Auditor General’s report recently highlighted. You can read this question in the Official Report and read the stories about the launch of the framework in the CJScotland Newsblog
Written questions
There were a number of questions about alcohol policy, about alcohol’s harm to health, and about the number of children affected by parents with drug misuse problems, and how they arrived at their estimation. There was a question about whether the Government were interested in a ‘knife–crime text hotline’ currently operated by Crimestoppers UK, and Richard Baker (Lab) asked a number of questions in relation to the report ‘Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979–2009)’.
Posted by KM
on Mon 27th Apr 2009
at 3:22 pm
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