A personal view
by David Mackenzie
The people who are locked up in our prisons are locked up on our behalf. Given that people deprived of their liberty are at a de facto disadvantage in questioning their treatment, it is essential that the goings on behind the walls and high fences are clearly and transparently visible to ordinary citizens. One might add, whether these citizens like it or not.
Kenny MacAskill wants to reform the system
The independent monitoring of prisons in Scotland has been undertaken by unpaid community volunteers and local councillors who are members of Prison Visiting Committees attached to a specific prison. The work of a Prison Visiting Committees has two distinct but practically interwoven aspects. Members listen to prisoners with issues and complaints and support them in managing these. They also have the job of keeping a watchful eye on what is going on in the prison, asking the important questions and feeding back to prisoners, prison management, their local Committee and the Justice Minister. Each committee is also obliged to produce and make public an annual report relating to their prison.
Over two years ago the Justice Secretary announced that he intended to abolish Prison Visiting Committees as part of his stated aim to simplify public services. Although 96% of respondents, (everyone except the Scottish Prison Service), did not support his proposal, the public consultation on it was deemed “not conclusive” and the plan to abolish Visiting Committees was persisted with. The Justice Secretary was forced to abandon this proposal when it was pointed out to him that the Scottish Government was party to human rights agreements which required independent monitoring of prisons. His next proposal was to hire three part-time, paid monitors to visit prisons to undertake monitoring. There was an understanding that these individuals would require to have “extensive experience of the prison service”. Who better to guard the guards than former guards? He was forced to reconsider this proposal when it was pointed out to him that independent monitoring of prisons had to involve lay members recruited from local communities.
David Strang
Chief Inspector of Prisons
Finally, he has produced a Draft Order that is almost as misguided as his first proposal. His latest proposal is for three paid, part-time monitors who would each cover a third of the current sixteen Scottish prisons, visiting each prison at least once a month. The Chief Inspector of Prisons would “instruct” these three paid staff, who in turn would then “instruct” an unspecified number of lay members. Currently there are over 150 Visiting Committee members covering the sixteen prisons, police cells and other facilities which hold individuals in custody.
The Order indicates that paid monitors and unpaid lay members would be recruited to cover any prison in the country while the Explanatory Note attached to the Draft Order suggests that lay monitors would be recruited from local communities and attached to one prison. The Draft Order indicates that lay monitors would be expected to deal with complaints from prisoners while the Explanatory Note states that lay monitors would not be allowed to support prisoners in making complaints through the formal prison complaints system, including access to the support of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. Detailed, publicly available annual reports from each prison written by Visiting Committee members will be replaced by a couple of paragraphs in the Chief Inspector of Prison’s annual report, drawn from ad hoc comments from the paid monitors.
The current system does have flaws
The detail governing the recruitment, selection, operation, management and reporting of current Visiting Committees is enshrined in primary legislation and Rules required by that legislation and published by the Justice Department. The lack of detail in the Draft Order and its attached Explanatory Note is gravely alarming. Very few features are defined in the new legislation and it will be open to future administrations to follow their whims, benign or otherwise, without reference to Parliament. This sketch on a napkin is so different from the rigorous and specific statutory framework in place at present which obliges frequent visits, feedback to prisoners re concerns, reports to the prison governor on each case and annual reporting.
People who are critical of the Scottish Government’s proposals accept that the current system has flaws. Over the country, the performance of Committees has been patchy and there is little or no evaluation of their performance by the Justice Department. In addition, the system has not conformed to international standards (OPCAT compliance) simply because the funding for independent monitoring was controlled by the Scottish Prison Service. The guards funded the guarding of the guards.
However, many Committees have been well run and well managed. You only need to look at the work of my local Cornton Vale Committee to see how effective and professional the work can be. Their annual reports, together with those of the other visiting committees are accessible on the website of the Association of Visiting Committees.
One of the best features of the current set-up, at least in its design, are the horizontal and local lines of accountability, linking a prison to its neighbourhood local authority and the local community through the Visitors themselves. You can drive past Cornton Vale and wonder what it is like inside. And then you can drive on. Or, you can read the Committee’s Annual Report, be re-assured by the assiduous nature of the visiting, clock the main concerns that were brought to the attention of Visitors, note the responses to these concerns and, if needed, share these concerns with your councillor, MSP, or MP.
To someone like me who is not directly involved as a prisoner, a staff member or a Visitor that visibility is essential. It looks very likely that this will be lost if the Draft Order gets the assent of Parliament.