Call for rehabilitation cash to cut rising jail numbers

SCOTLAND’S justice system is “broken” and needs an urgent and radical overhaul if the problem of prison overcrowding is going to be tackled, according to the head of a leading rehabilitation charity.

Laurie Russell, chief executive of the Wise Group, a social enterprise body that works with offenders to help them reintegrate back into society, said that despite the government’s commitment to reducing prison populations, too many people are being jailed for minor offences and not enough money is being invested in preventing those released from short-term sentences from re-offending.

As a result, prisons were filling up to beyond capacity. Glasgow’s Barlinnie recently reduced its population from 1,500 – 500 over capacity – by transferring 400 inmates to the new Low Moss prison, Russell claimed. Five weeks later, the numbers were back up at 1,500. Statistics showed that 94 per cent of Barlinnie’s prisoners were reoffenders.

Russell said: “Everyone accepts that prisons are overcrowded, but the way they [prison populations] are going up is not because of the people everybody accepts should be locked up for public safety and because they’ve committed serious crimes. It’s the people on remand and on very short sentences for relatively minor crimes who are in and out of prison: those with addiction or mental health issues, who are locked up without us tackling those problems.”

He said the prison system was being used to “just get them out of the way”.

According to Scottish Government statistics, the average prison population has risen steadily over the past ten years, from just over 6,000 during 2001 to 2002, to a peak of 8,000 for the period 2009 to 2010, dropping slightly to 7,853 during 2010 to 2011.

A report published last week by the former Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini, on the future of the Cornton Vale women’s prison near Stirling, said too many women are locked up for short periods or were on remand in the prison which is unable to deliver effective rehabilitation due to pressures on staff.

Proportionately, Scotland has a prison population of 153 offenders per 100,000 people, compared with Finland which has one of 59 offenders per 100,000 people.

Russell said the disparity between the two countries was down to how Finland dealt with petty offenders and reduced the number of minor offences carrying a jail sentence.

While the Scottish Government was currently reviewing the prison system, it now had to take serious steps to address its rehabilitation policy with community projects getting access to a “serious amount of funding”.

“The system is broken I believe, as illustrated in report after report, and this is an opportunity for the government to review fundamentally how the justice system works from top to bottom – from the courts through to social work and other services that are seriously funded but are not making an impact,” he said.

The Wise Group is one of a number of enterprises running community projects to help reintegrate short-term prisoners back into society.

Its Routes out of Prison (RooP) scheme sees former inmates working with newly released offenders to help them find somewhere to live, apply for benefits, look for work and get back on their feet.

Russell said that at a local level, Criminal Justice Authorities (CJAs) – which direct government funding for criminal social work – were ignoring the type of offenders who are clogging up the prison system.

“I think the difficulty is that a lot of the funding into CJAs and criminal social work is focused mainly on longer term prisoners on release,” he explained.

“If your sentence is less than four years, there’s no statutory support for you, so that support comes from Routes out of Prison and other community projects, where we get support from the Big Lottery. It’s temporary funding and it’s significantly less than goes into the statutory services and yet we are not making any impact on reducing reoffending figures and the numbers of people in prison are going up.”

Reacting to Russell’s comments, a Scottish Government spokeswoman said that it was already working towards replacing short-term prison sentences with community alternatives.

“Prison will always be the right place for serious and dangerous offenders,” she said. “However, all the evidence shows that short-term prison sentences for low level offenders – both male and female – don’t work and the Scottish Government is in absolute agreement with the Wise Group about the vital need to reduce reoffending.

“That is why we have already taken action on sentencing by introducing a presumption against short-term prison sentences of three months or less for low-level offenders in favour of robust alternatives where they can repay their debt to society through hard work in the community.”