Held for no cause. Released with no care
Experts: Too many women on remand, too little support to stabilise their lives
Far too many women are still being unnecessarily remanded, experts have warned, as analysis reveals one in four held behind bars in Scotland have not yet stood trial.
Of those on remand, almost three quarters will not get a custodial sentence while Scottish prisons have a greater proportion of women on remand than the rest of the UK.
The numbers of women on remand reveals, according to criminal justice professionals, an abject failure to address the issues raised in a landmark report calling for transformative reform of how women are treated within Scotland’s justice system.
They warn time spent in prison can have a catastrophic effect on women’s lives, causing them to lose their homes, custody of their children and their job and insist custodial remands should only be for offenders likely to get a jail sentence.
Official figures this month reveal 284 women in prison in Scotland and of those, 69 – 24% – are on remand, compared with 15% in England and Wales and 18% in Northern Ireland. Of those on remand in Scotland 70% don’t receive a custodial sentence.
Emma Jardine of Howard League Scotland, an independent penal reform organisation, said: “Data published by the Scottish Government in March, showed a significant proportion were accused of non-violent offences.
“People accused of such offences shouldn’t be remanded into custody and there’s no logical reason for Scotland’s rate of remand to be so out of kilter with that of other countries.
“It has been nine years since the Angiolini Commission recommended a complete redesign of services for women in the criminal justice system and yet we’re still remanding vulnerable and traumatised women to prison, where we know they won’t get the individualised support that they might need.
“Remanding into custody should be reserved for offences which are likely to attract a prison sentence on conviction or for reasons of public protection, never because we don’t know what else to do with someone.”
The Commission On Women
Offenders, led by former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini, QC, in 2012 said women’s prison HMP Cornton Vale in Stirling was “not fit for purpose” and should be replaced by a prison for longterm offenders and smaller units around the country for those serving short sentences.
An overhaul will see a new facility open on the site of Cornton Vale and two smaller Community Custody Units will open in Glasgow and Dundee, housing up to 20 women, making it easier for them to maintain family and community links.
Three more units will open if the smaller units are a success but, campaigners say other changes demanded by the commission have stalled, including greater resource for alternatives to custody.
At the time, Angiolini said: “We have a penal system designed for men and largely based on a Victorian notion of punishment. The system needs to adapt and provide the Scottish community with effective remedies for the heartbreak caused by crime.”
Mark Day, head of policy at the Prison Reform Trust, said: “Even a short spell in custody can devastate women’s lives, causing them to lose their jobs, homes, and contact with children and families. The fact that so many women in Scotland are being remanded to custody compared to other nations of the UK is shocking enough. That more than two thirds of women do not go on to receive a custodial sentence raises serious questions for ministers regarding the fairness and proportionality of the use of pre-trial detention.”
Experts fear that without specialist support and help, too many women prisoners return to the chaotic lifestyles that led to their offending and a probable return to prison.
Rhona Innes, who runs Shine, a Scottish Governmentfunded mentoring service for women offenders, offering crucial support in prison and on release, said lockdown has made the situation of many even more perilous.
She said: “All visits were shut down, which had a massive impact. Even when women were released from custody, they often couldn’t see their children because they may have been housed in a different council area. That can be devastating.”
Sharon Stirrat, director of justice at Sacro, a leading community justice organisation which oversees the Shine service, said: “It can also be traumatic for children. Sometimes women don’t expect to be remanded at court and are just taken away, with children left wondering where their mum is.”
She said there were fundamental questions over why so many women are being remanded despite being untried or unlikely to receive a custodial sentence.
“One example is if they do not turn up for appointments with social workers but women may have children, they may have a violent partner, they may have health problems, so in order to get the report done the sheriff might decide to remand a woman in custody.
“It does beg the question if that is a good use of custody? It has so many far-reaching consequences for the women and their families.
“Each case should be looked at in the context of the woman’s circumstances and potential risk. If you look at the resources it takes to lock people up, the response to individual cases should be more bespoke. Very often, there would be scope to do things differently.”
Stirrat believes courts should make more use of bail supervision where women are not remanded on condition they meet a bail supervisor regularly. She added: “That is a direct alternative to remand and the government is trying to increase it. There is momentum there.”
The Scottish Government said £117 million is invested in community justice services annually, including a ringfenced allocation of £1.5m for bail support for women. A spokesman said an additional £50m will be spent trying to clear the backlog of cases linked to the pandemic while £550,000 will be spent on bail supervision: “The single biggest factor in the increase in remand is the backlog of cases created by the pandemic and we are committed to helping the justice services recover.”