Too many women being sent to jail – prison chief

Too many women are locked up in Scotland, the head of the prison service told MSPs yesterday.

Mike Ewart, the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, said that imprisoning people can do some good but it “always does harm”.

He also said that the proportion of women serving short-term prison sentences is too high.

Scotland’s only all-female prison, Cornton Vale in Stirling, has 431 inmates.

Mr Ewart said 36 women had been released under home detention curfew with an electronic tag on them, taking the total female prison population to 467.

“By any means that is too many and the proportion of women serving short-term sentences in that population is too large,” he said.

Mr Ewart was speaking to members of Holyrood’s equal opportunities committee – who are carrying out an inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system.

He said more than 80% of women prisoners are serving short-term sentences.

“The fact is that we lock up far too many people and use prison in a wholly inappropriate way.

“Prison can do some good but prison always does harm.

“By introducing somebody to the prison system you are likely if they have a job to get them to lose their job, if they have a home or a tenancy to get them to lose that, and to seriously damage their family relationships or their community relationships.

Mr Ewart continued: “All the evidence we have from years of research is that the three things that go to reduce offending behaviour are having a job, having a home and having a family.

“We put people into prison and we damage those three things.”

Mr Ewart said women prisoners were given the opportunity to maintain their relationship with their children, and that education in jails can include help for people who struggle with literacy or numeracy.

But he said it was more difficult to work with those serving short sentences as to have an impact on someone’s behaviour, it needs to take “some appreciable time.”

Mr Ewart also spoke about the problems women face in prison, pointing out that women are often the principal carer in families.

Women in prison had the same type of problems as men in prison – such as mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse, Mr Ewart said.

But he added: “In almost every case the issues are more significant and more prominent for women.”

Last year Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini told the committee there are “worrying” signs that more women were committing violent offences.

Mr Ewart said the evidence showed there has been a rise in the number of violent offences among women but the increase had started from “a very small base figure”.

There was some research that showed the things that led women into criminal behaviour were different than for men, he told the MSPs.

Women are “more likely to be persuaded or driven into behaviour by others.”

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill yesterday dismissed concerns that public safety will be put at risk if a north-east prison is closed.

The controversial decision to shut Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen and transfer inmates 35 miles away to a new £140million superjail opening at Peterhead prompted Grampian Police to say there is a greater risk of people escaping from custody.

Superintendent Innes Skene, head of the force’s criminal justice and support division, said that prisoners could abscond in the event of vehicles they are travelling in being involved in accidents or breakdowns on the A90 Aberdeen-Peterhead road.

He expressed his concerns in a letter to Holyrood’s public petitions committee which is investigating the case for keeping Craiginches Prison open.

But Mr MacAskill rejected the force’s fears when he appeared in front of the committee yesterday. “I don’t accept that there’s any risk to public safety,” he said.