The  Commission on women offenders report has been launched today, 17th April 2012.

The Commission makes 37 recommendations under the headings of (i) service redesign (ii) alternatives to prosecution (iii) alternatives to remand (iv) sentencing (v) prisons (vi) community reintegration and (viii) making it work (leadership, structures and delivery).

It advocates the replacement of Scotland’s prison for women – Cornton Vale – with a “smaller specialist prison for those women offenders serving a statutory defined long-term sentence and those who present a significant risk to the public”.

In order to divert many vulnerable women with mental health problems from prison it also proposes alternatives to prosecution, remand and changes to sentencing.

This will include the pilot of a problem solving court for “repeat offenders with multiple and complex needs who commit lower level crimes”. The pilot scheme will be run for both male and female offenders.

The report also suggests the establishment of a new national service – the Community Justice Service – “to commission, provide and manage adult offender services in the community.”

The report also makes recommendations on community reintegration covering access to safe accommodation and establishing effective throughcare and aftercare services.

Commenting on the report, Dame Eilish Angiolini, Chair of the Commission, said

“We no longer can ignore the significant cost to society of locking up women, the majority of whom have committed offences while suffering from addiction, trauma or mental health problems. In my 28 years as a prosecutor, I saw at first hand the tragic impact of women offending and re-offending on their victims, the local community, their families and themselves.” Scotsman newspaper 16/4/12

For Further information on women’s offending, please see the SCCCJ’s page on women’s offending in Scotland and the page on the Scottish Working group on Women’s Offending.

A new research project funded by the Economic Social Research Council has been established by a research consortium of academics based in Scotland, Sheffield and Belfast.

“Discovering Desistance is a project aiming to share knowledge and improve understanding about why people desist from offending”

The prinicple investigator is Professor Fergus McNeil from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He is working in collaboration with colleagues including Stephen Farrall from the University of Sheffield, Claire Lightowler from Institute for Research & Innovation in the Social Sciences and Shadd Maruna from Queen’s University Belfast.

The project will work with Allan Weaver, a Scottish ex-offender turned probation officer, to produce a documentary asking the simple question “What can we learn from those former prisoners who have successfully desisted from criminal behaviour  or gone straight”

There will then be a series of workshops for professionals to discuss further the findings of the documentary.

The project will also explore the implications of desistance research for probation practice and develop ideas about how better to support the process of desistance.

“Scotland must not give up on its most challenging young people” is the message from Angela Morgan, Chief Executive of Scottish Charity Includem. She argues her case at a Howard League Lecture on Monday 12th March 2012 in Edinburgh.

In her lecture entitled “A Better Life: the case for not giving up on the most challenging young people”, Angela will speak of how “there is no ‘silver bullet’, and no neat and easy solutions to messy human problems. However, that doesn’t mean we should do nothing to help Scotland’s most challenging young people. From a preventative spend perspective, these are exactly the young people who are most likely to create substantial short, medium and long term costs to the public purse. The stakes are high – to the public purse, the individual young people and to communities.”

“We must plan and deliver services that are there at the times when young people are in the most desperate need, are most difficult and most at risk. It is crucial in these harsh economic times that organisations stay focused on improving the lives of young people, not on organisational needs.”

At the lecture Angela will also launch a new hard hitting short-film, A Better Life, about Steven, referred to Includem aged 14 whilst in residential care. Steven was going off the rails and regularly involved in gang related violence fuelled by drugs and alcohol. Steven tells his story in his own words about the support he received from Includem. He talks about how he got his life back together and back home living with his mum, instead of the bleak alternative. ‘If I hadn’t had Includem I probably would have just ended up in Secure [care].

 To hear Steven’s story, please visit Includem’s YouTube Channel where the film will be available to view from Monday 12th March.

John Scott, Chair of the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland, says:

“We are delighted that Angela has agreed to speak in our lecture series. If a society can be judged by how it treats those in prison, it is equally true that it should be judged by how it approaches the problems of its most challenging young people. Scotland has a proud tradition of adopting a welfare approach through the Children’s Hearings System but we need to continue to do whatever we can to help young people in trouble, for their sake and the sake of society. Includem are an important part of the answer for many young people today and Angela’s talk is a welcome reminder of the challenges and the rewards for such important work.”

Alan Staff, Chief Executive of Apex Scotland, has written a piece for SCCCJ on the Work Programme and the implications for ex-offenders seeking work.

In the article he states:

Despite repeated assurances from Department of Work and Pensions that the Work Programme would eventually result in the third sector’s increased involvement as sub contractors, to date there has been little indication that any significant resource transfer is happening between private and third sector entities.  While some progress is being made in establishing specialist activity agreements it has to be noted that any sub contracting reduces the profit margins of the Prime contractors which in Scotland are Ingeus and Working Links.  The loss of highly successful programmes such as Progress2Work/Link-Up have left thousands of people with multiple barriers to employment such as criminal records, substance misuse and mental health issues with little in the way of specialised services.  Figures issued to date indicate that only a small number of these will actually find their way into and stay with the work programme, but funding bodies up and down the land claim that since employability is now being dealt with by the Work Programme they no longer need to find finance for such activity.  The levels of service cuts across the sector in this field are staggering and have led SCVO to comment recently that the whole initiative is contributing to the effective dismantling of the third sector’s role in offender employability.

Read the full article here.

Evidence for a Better Life, Includem’s Activity and Impact Report 2010-11 has been published. It reports on significant achievements including the launch of A Better Life modules for Includem practitioners containing the practical knowledge, tools and theoretical context for Includem’s persistent, flexible 24/7 model; a successful Glasgow Gangs pilot in partnership with Strathclyde Police and [...]

Professor Alec Spencer, Convenor of SCCCJ, has today written to the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill MSP concerning the abolition of prison visiting committees.

Letter to the Justice Secretary.

In it Prof Spencer says:

Visiting Committees are constituted to ensure proper treatment of prisoners – and that role is still required, as indeed are our commitments to the various international treaties, conventions and protocols which exist to ensure proper treatment of prisoners.

Professor Alec Spencer, Convenor of SCCCJ, has today written to the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill MSP concerning the abolition of prison visiting committees.

Letter to the Justice Secretary.

In it Prof Spencer says:

Visiting Committees are constituted to ensure proper treatment of prisoners – and that role is still required, as indeed are our commitments to the various international treaties, conventions and protocols which exist to ensure proper treatment of prisoners.

The Consortium are pleased to annouce the publication of the 2010 Review of Crime and Justice in Scotland: a Fifth Review of Progress.

The report has a foreword by Dr Tapio Lappi-Seppälä, Director of the National Research Institute of Legal Policy, Finland. Finland is a country with the same size of population of Scotland and some of the same health and social problems. However, its rate of imprisonment is less than 40% of the Scottish rate and its prison population is declining.

In his foreword Dr Lappi-Seppälä comments that Finnish imprisonment rates have declined in the past 10 years whilst those in Scotland have risen and comments:

“The report gives a simple explanation for the increased number of prisoners in Scotland. At the same time as the proportion of offenders receiving custodial sentences is increasing, the length of sentences has become longer. This double change lifted the Scottish incarceration rate from the level of 100 (per 100,000 population) in the early 1990s to the level of around 160. The obvious way to reverse this trend is to reduce either the number of prison sentences, or the length of prison terms (or both) [. . .] There is no reason to assume that increased use of imprisonment explains declining crime in Scotland.”

Speaking today Professor Alec Spencer, the Convenor of the Consortium said:

“Despite commitments by successive governments to reduce the number of people in prison, the numbers continue to rise year on year More dramatically, over the last 10 years, the number of women in prison has doubled compared with a 31% rise for men over the same 10 year period. We welcome the current Commission on Women Offenders chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini and look forward to its report in February 2012. There have been some real improvements in the system but the rate of incarceration remains a continuing issue.”

On October 7th 2011 the Consortium, toegther with the Scottish Working Group on Women’s Offending, ran a round table discussion attended by the former Lord Advocate, Professor Eilish Angiolini, other members of the Commission on Women’s Offending, academics, policy makers and practitioners.

The report includes an action plan on reducing the number of women in the Scottish criminal justice system.

The SCCCJ Twitter account is now up and running at @SCCCJ

PRESS RELEASE

Biggest-ever child rights discussion day to look at prisoners’ children

Children whose parents are in prison will come under the UN spotlight for the first time ever on Friday.  Families Outside, a Scottish charity that works solely on behalf of families affected by imprisonment will be one of four Scottish delegates attending.

At its 2011 Day of General Discussion (DGD), the Committee on the Rights of the Child will explore the rights of ‘children of incarcerated parents’. These children have committed no crime but are deeply affected by their parents’ involvement in the criminal justice system. Almost uniquely, children themselves will speak at the main session of the DGD, which with up to 250 participants is expected to be the biggest ever.

“Children of prisoners are often referred to as the invisible victims of the penal system”, said Oliver Robertson, co-convenor of the NGO Group for the CRC’s Working Group on Children of Incarcerated Parents. “We hope that this event will bring them to centre stage.”

An estimated 16,500 children each year in Scotland experience a parent’s imprisonment – more than experience a parent’s divorce.  Despite affecting 800,000 children across Europe and millions of children worldwide, this is the first time that this neglected issue has been discussed substantively anywhere in the UN system. Alongside two prisoners’ children, specialists from Brazil, Pakistan and South Africa will also speak to the DGD.

Dr Nancy Loucks, Chief Executive of Families Outside, said “We are pleased to be representing Scotland along with our colleagues and that this issue is finally being recognised.  We look forward to feeding in to the UN’s Discussion and informing Scottish policy in turn.”

“This is an issue where no one country or region is a clear world leader”, said Rachel Brett of the Quaker United Nations Office, which has worked on this issue since 2004. “ The DGD therefore gives us a unique opportunity to share ideas with people from around the globe who have worked with children of prisoners day in, day out.”

The DGD will look both at babies and children who live in prison with their parents and those children who remain outside. It is accompanied by an exhibition showing children’s experiences of parental incarceration through the words and drawings of children themselves.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Day of General Discussion 2011 is on the topic ‘children of incarcerated parents’. It takes place from 10.00 to 18.00 on Friday 30 September in Room XVII and XI of the Palais des Nations, Geneva.

1. Information about the DGD, including the agenda, background information and written submissions from around the world, is available online at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/discussion2011.htm.

1. For further information and/or interviews, please contact:

Dr Nancy Loucks, Chief Executive, Families Outside, nancy.loucks@familiesoutside.org.uk, Tel: +44 131 557 9800

Oliver Robertson, Programme Officer, Quaker United Nations Office and co-convenor of the NGO Group for the CRC’s Working Group on Children of Incarcerated Parents, orobertson@quno.ch, Tel: +41 22 748 48 01

Alessandra Aula, Associate Secretary-General of BICE and co-convenor of the NGO Group for the CRC’s Working Group on Children of Incarcerated Parents, alessandra.aula@bicr.org, Tel: +41 22 731 32 48 (specifically with regards to Africa)

Aïsha Rahamatali, Advocacy Officer, Defence for Children International, advocacy@dci-is.org, Tel: + 41 22 734 05 58 (specifically with regards to Asia).

1. The DGD will be webcast live via Ustream. To watch the plenary and working group discussion on ‘children living in and visiting prison’, go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/crcdgdwebcast between 10.00 and 18.00 CET on Friday 30 September. To watch the working group discussion on ‘children on the outside’, go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/crcdgdwebcast2 between 10.50 and 17.20 CET on Friday 30 September.

1. The exhibition, ‘Collateral Convicts: If my parent goes to prison, what happens to me?’ will be on show at the Bar Serpent at the Palais des Nations until Friday 30^th September. Images from the exhibition available on request.

Five of the country’s leading children’s charities have been jointly nominated for a prestigious award after working together to reform the way children’s hearings are handled in Scotland.

Action for Children Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, CHILDREN 1st, Aberlour and Quarriers all played a vital role in shaping the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) legislation which was introduced in the Scottish Parliament in February 2010, and received Royal Assent in January 2011. Now the five influential charities have been nominated for the Devolved Administrations Campaign of the Year in the annual Public Affairs News awards programme.

Speaking on behalf of the five charities, Paul Carberry, operational director of children’s services at Action for Children Scotland, said:

“By working together, the country’s leading children’s charities have been able to influence the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act; the most significant piece of legislation focusing on vulnerable children and young people in Scotland since the UK Parliament’s Children (Scotland) Act 1995.

“We were able to promote a listening culture for the children’s hearings system by listening ourselves. We consulted with volunteers, staff and, most importantly, the children and young people who use our services. This allowed us to significantly improve legislation in Scotland, which will now deliver better outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.”

Scotland operates a unique volunteer-led system, which has taken a welfare based approach to support thousands of vulnerable children who have offended and/or require care and protection, and helped them to turn their lives around. Through joint working the five national charities were able to ensure that the needs and interests of the largest possible number of vulnerable children were represented, and considered, throughout the legislative process.

The alliance of charities is one of three nominees in the ‘Devolved Administrations Campaign of the Year’ category. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in London this November.

‘It’s Everybody’s Business’ – Families Outside conference.
Tuesday 1st November 2011, The Falkirk Wheel. With the title ‘It’s Everybody’s Business’ and chaired by HMCIP Brigadier Hugh Monro, the event will focus on the experiences of families affected by imprisonment while also concentrating on how a wide range of agencies can make a difference.

More information on the conference will be available soon.