Chamber and committees

We are operating within the existing victim notification scheme—[Interruption.] We cannot give people information without knowing that they want it—

I will start with overcrowding. There is a long history of there being a high prison population in Scotland. We saw some progress between 2010-11 and 2018-19, just before the pandemic, which was when the population began to uptick again.

The pandemic was a major disruptor and, post pandemic, as I reported to the Parliament, the population has increased, albeit that it stabilised at a high level at the start of the year. I will not rehearse all the reasons for that, as I have previously provided information and spoken about it at length.

The work around remand was a particular focus of the 2023 act. The convener is shaking her head so, again, I will not rehearse the debates that we had at that time. However, the implementation of the 2023 act throughout the course of this year and the start of next is important in relation to the new bail test, although the general election has got in the way a little bit.

We have been engaging closely with the United Kingdom Government because a section 104 order is required for the new bail test. I will not go into all the detail, but it concerns extradition. If members want further information, I can supply that, but it is separate to the matters that we are discussing today.

With regard to the modelling, we will not know firm figures until the regulations are passed but, with the statutory exclusions and additional criteria, before a governor’s veto, the indicative figure is that around 70 women would be eligible for release. That amounts to 31 per cent of the sentenced female population, or 20 per cent of the total female population. That figure is greater than the proportion of the eligible male population, which would be around 11 per cent of the sentenced male population, or 8 per cent of the total population.

With regard to violence, the governor’s veto gives an additional layer of safeguarding and protection. Again, as a result of requests and debate during the passage of the 2023 act, there is guidance for governors and it is supplemented by operational procedures. The veto gives the governor of any establishment the opportunity to exclude anyone who is otherwise eligible for release if they are an immediate threat to an individual or an identifiable group of individuals.

An underlying risk management group will collate the information that flows to the governor from social work—not only justice social work, but children and families social work, which is crucial. The prison also holds information on its security and the police hold information that will also feed into that.

That is why we will be working as hard as possible to support the victim support organisations.

Not recently, but historically, when we look at previous records—I think that this is in an information note—in days gone by, the number of prisoners on home detention curfew would have sat at around 250 or 300. When I first started in this portfolio, in any given week, that number would sit between 50 and 60. The Scottish Prison Service has done positive work on that—I will bring in Ms Medhurst in a moment, if there is anything that she would like to add—and, today, the home detention curfew figures are at 104, so we have been able to improve the process.

Essentially, the processes around it were very cumbersome and Ms Medhurst has taken a centralised approach. People have to opt into it. The short answer is that we have cast the net more widely. Of course, there are statutory exclusions to home detention curfew and people also have to be risk assessed.

Ms Medhurst, have I missed anything on the process?

For absolute clarity and for the record, it might be useful for me to confirm that tranche 1 of the release will be on 26 and 27 June, tranche 2 will be on 3 and 4 July, tranche 3 will be on 10 and 11 July and tranche 4 will be on 17 and 18 July, with the latest possible release date being 25 July.

I will keep my remarks brief, convener, because we have had a lengthy session. I appreciated the opportunity to spend that time with committee members focusing on the nature of the regulations. We have also had a wider discussion about the longer-term drivers of the prison population. The only point that I wish to make to the committee here and now is that, while we can critique the past and debate the next steps for the future, we have a decision to make in relation to the evidence from the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service and from Mr Hodge, a prison governor, and it is a very difficult decision.

I know what I am asking of the committee and Parliament, but we need to make a decision based on the situation and the critical risk that exists across our prison estate. It is my view that we have no alternative to making this very difficult decision. The Prison Service needs to know that help is on its way and that, ultimately, we have its back. It does a job on our behalf and on behalf of the communities that we all serve. This measure is absolutely a necessary and proportionate course of action, but it has not been taken lightly.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the Early Release of Prisoners and Prescribed Victim Supporters (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.

It is not that we are somehow unique and a complete outlier in what we need regarding our prison population.

Thank you very much for that question. I made that point crystal clear in my statement to Parliament on 16 May. This is not a long-term solution. It is not a solution—it is breathing space. It buys us time. That is why I identified in that statement further additional action that I believe is required; we can make further improvements to the home detention curfew arrangements and bring forward proposals to reconsider the release arrangements for long-term prisoners, so that we can have a discussion with Parliament about the benefits of long-term prisoners spending longer supervised in the community before their sentence expiry date. There is important evidence that demonstrates the value of supervision in the community, as opposed to people spending only a very short time being supervised in the community at the end of a lengthy sentence.

I have also, in my two previous statements, addressed issues in and around the remand population and the work that is going on there. I know that GPS technology is of particular interest to some members, which is why we will pilot GPS technology in the first instance, in phase 1, for those who are released on home detention curfew.

I am exercised about the ageing population in our prisons. The population of over-50s has doubled in a decade. Those over 50 in the prison population will experience health inequalities, although I contend that people who are over 50 are not particularly senior or elderly. If you have long-standing health problems due to the inequality that you have experienced in your life, those factors have to be taken into consideration.

There is an exploration of modular accommodation, and there is an exploration of care arrangements. I would like to see more compassionate release, where that is appropriate.

I have spoken at length to Parliament on the need for a whole-system approach. As a Parliament and as a country, we took that whole-system approach on imprisonment of young people. Incarceration of young people—16 and 17-year-olds—has reduced by 93 per cent over the past year. We need that same approach being taken to the larger adult population.

On your specific question, I meet the chief inspector regularly—indeed, I will meet her tomorrow. When it comes to the Prison Officers Association Scotland, I meet regularly with justice trade unions; however, when I listened to Phil Fairlie’s evidence, it struck me that I probably need to write directly to more people to alert them to statements that are made in Parliament. I appreciate that not everybody follows proceedings in great detail, as we do, so I will change some aspects to ensure that people are better informed. However, I have been focused on issues of the prison population since I came into post.

The situation has been exacerbated further by the population increase of 400 in a few months. The rate of increase from March to May was double what it was earlier in the year, when it was high—too high—but stable. We now need to take this emergency short-term action, which will buy us time for additional measures to kick in.

No. I have looked really closely at the matter. I made an undertaking to do so in response to a question from Mr McArthur following my statement. In short, the legislative basis for remanding prisoners is very different. Scottish ministers have, under legislation, powers on release arrangements for sentenced prisoners, while powers concerning remand prisoners lie with the court. The mechanism for the arrangements to be revisited would be to do that through solicitors, whereby a person could request a review of their being on remand. That is the short answer.

The prisoners who will be released under the emergency arrangements will not be prisoners who are subject to compulsory supervision measures, because those prisoners are excluded from the release programme. People who are on extended sentences or are under sex offender notification requirements or supervised release orders—all arrangements that indicate additional risk—are not being released. We are talking about people who would be released within the next few weeks or months and without being subject to any supervision on release.

I will ask Teresa Medhurst to talk about the preparation for that, because extensive work is being done to do all that we can to prepare folk for release. I am not in any way trying to be glib.

There were statutory exclusions the last time people were released under emergency provisions, which was during Covid. The figures show that around 40 per cent of those people returned to prison. The recidivism rate for people who are serving a sentence of less than two years is 52 per cent, whereas the figure for those with a community disposal is 29 per cent.

We must remember that the people who could be eligible for release are the short-term prisoners who would be released in a few weeks or months anyway and who would not be subject to any monitoring or supervision.

It might be useful to give some information about who is eligible for release. The numbers vary depending on the prison population and will be determined by tomorrow’s population. I can give you some indication of the modelling that has been done. This is an estimate, but it is anticipated that almost 65 per cent of those who will be eligible for release will have 90 days or less left to serve, so the majority would be released in the next few months anyway, without the measures.