The total Scottish prison population as of 8 January 2016 was 7,895. This is made up of both sentenced and remanded prisoners and includes people released to serve the end part of their sentence on home detention curfew (electronic tagging). Current Scottish government statistics predict this population will remain fairly static between now and 2022-23. Yet more lives, individuals and families, will be torn apart.
In July 2015 the Scotland Institute published a report Mental health and Scotland’s prison population.* Up to 2011 Scotland had the highest incarceration rate in the European Union (150 per 100,000 members of the population) despite recorded crime figures steadily falling since the early 1990s (p8). It stated that ‘despite the gains’ from the SNP government’s Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 which brought to an end the use of short-term prison sentences, replaced by non-custodial community payback orders, ‘Scotland continues to incarcerate the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society’ (p9). It reported that as many as 80% of prisoners, especially women, suffered from poor mental health but were not receiving the services and treatment they required. Since 2000 the female prison population in Scotland has risen by 120% despite conviction rates remaining stable, causing trauma to mothers and their children.
The 2010 Act transferred care for prisoners’ mental and physical health from the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to the NHS and yet the report notes that ‘none of the NHS Board annual reports make even passing mention of the challenge of the provision of mental health services in prison’ (p10). As the report describes, many prisoners suffering poor mental health and in need of treatment are instead subjected to segregation and prison officer brutality ‘control’ (p13). Mental health services in the community, which ex-prisoners were able to access, are also being cut.
In November 2015 Scotland’s chief of prisons Colin McConnell himself stated that Scotland still had an ‘obsession’ with imprisoning the most vulnerable in society which cast a ‘dark shadow’ across the nation breeding inequality (Daily Record, 6 November 2015). Pressure needs to be put on the SNP government to put an end to the brutalisation of Scottish prisoners and to ensure there is proper and effective NHS treatment for all prisoners and those leaving prison. Progressive reforms must be fought for by uniting together, inside and outside, but they will not and cannot get rid of the root cause of this injustice, inequality and brutality – that requires an organised smashing of class society and its prison walls!
Effective NHS treatment for all prisoners now! End SPS brutality!
Dominic Mulgrew
*www.scotlandinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mental-health-and-Scotlands-prison-population.pdf
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 249 February/March 2016
