Prisons

Speech by Robert Brown MSP on Thu 21st Feb 2008

I have seldom seen David McLetchie so passionate, but he is being passionate about a cul-de-sac up which we ought not to go. There are more significant issues to be dealt with than the line that Mr McLetchie encourages us to take. Therefore, I move from women to children and welcome the cabinet secretary's announcements on the ending of detention for children. We are dealing with numbers in the 20s, and it is eminently possible to deal with the issue within the confines of the current estate.

There is a fairly stark difference between the Conservative motion and the major alternative that is being offered by the Government and Liberal Democrat amendment. My goodness-we know where we are with the Tories; they believe in prisons. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they believe that prisons deter and reform people. They want more of them and, despite the fact that Scotland already has more people in prison than any other country has, the Tories want more people, including more women, to be put in prison.

However, it is an imperfect world. In their haste to roll over for a few crumbs from the SNP Government's table, the Tories agreed to a reduction in prison funding to pay for more policemen. There is some doubt about where that leaves the Tories now; perhaps they will enlighten us during the debate.

No one in the chamber seriously suggests that dangerous prisoners who have been convicted of serious crimes should not be locked up for the protection of the public. The issue is about those at the lower end of the scale, where some consideration of why they have offended and what can be done about them is in the public interest. We know that a high percentage of those who come before the children's panel at the age of five as a result of parental abuse and neglect end up coming before the court at the age of 17 or 18 for criminal or antisocial behaviour. We know that 70 per cent of prisoners have some form of mental health problem, 50 per cent have a drugs problem, one third have an alcohol problem on admission, and substantial numbers have learning and literacy difficulties. We also know that the average cost of a prison place is around £40,000 per year per prisoner. We must at least ask whether the public get good value for that money.

From those statistics, it is possible to identify a general picture of the high cost to the public of short-term prison sentences that do not and, because of their shortness, could not succeed in rehabilitating the prisoner. They certainly give limited protection to the public for the period of detention, but that is relatively short, and the prisoners have to come out at some relatively near point in the future, possibly with tensions that have not been dealt with.

Bill Aitken: Which of the following short-term prisoners should not receive a custodial sentence: the knife carrier; the wife beater; the person who drives whilst drunk and disqualified; or the shoplifter who has done it 50 times?

Robert Brown: I will not get into that sort of debate, because that is not the issue. At the end of the day, prisoners who are serving short-term sentences have to come out in a short period of time. We need to consider the contributory factors to criminality in our fractured society and decide what we want to do to reduce crime and get better benefit from the public's money.

The Prison Reform Trust recently produced a report, based on interviews with Scottish prison staff, which estimated that up to 2,250 prisoners out of 7,000-odd have a technical learning difficulty or require some additional support with learning. Scandalously, the report also said that few procedures were in place to identify and deal with such issues in prison, and that little information arrives with the prisoner, despite the need for a social inquiry report before prison sentences are handed out.

I lodged a motion in the Parliament on that issue, which was signed by no fewer than 34 members from all parties, including Mary Scanlon. I hope that the minister will say whether he is in a position to take the issue forward. The protection of the public will be dealt with by changing the behaviour of the person who has come before the courts, and by dealing with some of the reasons why people are aggressive and take to alcohol.

I have been sparing in my praise of this Government's actions in the past, but establishing the McLeish commission is worth while. Its report will give the measured support to progressive and effective penal policies that, regrettably, the Conservative motion does not give.

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Prisons.