Seòmar agus comataidhean

I echo Ms Stevenson’s comments and would welcome more information on this. What seems like a minor negative instrument extends for a significant period of time certain powers that governors in our prisons and young offenders institutions have, such as the ability to confine prisoners to their cells for prolonged periods of time, to restrict activity, to suspend prison visits and to curtail work, educational activities, counselling and purposeful activities for another six months.

I appreciate that this might be linked to the extension of other Covid regulations that were debated in the chamber more widely as part of other legislation. However, I note that paragraph 9 of the policy note says:

“SPS intends to publish the consultation, the responses received”—

which, I should add, were not all positive—

“and its response to the consultation responses on its website in October”.

However, the powers run out at the end of September, and we are being asked to approve their extension prior to the publication of the consultation and the SPS’s response. I find that wholly unacceptable. I therefore expect the Minister for Community Safety or whoever is presenting the SSI to give us more information on the concerns that have been raised in the consultation process so that members can take a view on the suitability of extending the powers as the SPS or the Government is asking for.

I thank the academics, who have put in great work on the important issue of deaths in custody, which has, rightly, been highlighted in today’s media. Dr Graham has done excellent work on an area that was perhaps previously unreported, as has the University of Glasgow on FAIs. It is worrying that nine in 10 of the FAIs that were analysed by those academics were found to have produced no recommendations at all on things that can change. The mother of one girl who died in a young offenders institution was widely quoted as saying that the FAI system was broken. We have heard that time and time again. That may be an observation rather than a question.

We could spend all day talking about community sentencing. I want to ask about prevention. There may be a perception that Scotland does not suffer from the same level of youth gang violence as other parts of the UK or the world. However, we know from the number of inmates who are involved in serious organised crime that that is an issue. What work is being done—or not done—to ensure that people are not sucked into serious organised crime at a young age? We want to prevent them from falling into the trap of ending up in prison as high-tariff, high-profile offenders. The main thrust of my question may be crime prevention.

That was a very good answer that explained the rationale behind the policy, but it did not quite answer my question. My question was about why so many phones were hacked. The obvious next question is: what will be done about that? Are those 7,600 prisoners being allowed to keep the devices when we know that many of them—hundreds, or perhaps even thousands—are being broken and used for illicit purposes in your prison estate?

We also know that 80 per cent or more of the current backlog of court cases relates to sexual crimes or crimes of violence against women and children. I suspect that the average age of the accused may be higher than for other types of crime. We know that such crimes can come from adverse behaviour and experiences at an early age. We aim to prevent violent crime; what is being done to prevent people from going on to commit sexual crimes?

I will try to stick to that general theme, but I have some specific questions. I would like to interrogate Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons. I thank Wendy Sinclair-Gieben for her written submission, which I thought was quite stark. The first page paints a rather grim picture of Scottish prisons. It talks about overcrowding, high levels of substance abuse, mental health challenges, what is described as a

“fragile organisation with aging infrastructure”

and critical inspections. Given what we now know about the endemic problem of drug and substance abuse in Scottish prisons, have we simply got it wrong in Scotland? We have high remand rates and one of the highest incarceration rates in northern Europe, and Scottish prisons seem to be a revolving door of drugs, reoffending and poor mental health outcomes. What are we getting so wrong?

Thank you, convener. I have a supplementary on the line of questioning on parole. I indicated that I also have a question on alternatives to custody, because we have not really discussed that issue today, but I am happy to keep that for later, if we have time.

The number of people involved in the victim notification scheme is dropping year on year. At the moment, it is an opt-in service. I vividly remember from reading the Parole Board for Scotland’s submission that the word “victim” was not used once. Is that not the root of the problem? The entire submission is centred around how we make parole better for those involved in the hearings—in other words, those in prison. None of the submissions says how we can proactively improve the victim notification scheme, so that we tell people who have been affected by serious crimes that those who perpetrated them are back out on the street, in order that they do not bump into them in the queue at the supermarket.

I am sure that we will have that discussion in future sessions. I look forward to reading your submission.

Convener, would you like me to ask my other question now?

In your submission, you say:

“The choice is stark—either we put fewer people in prison or we recognise that we have to pay for the prison population that we do have”.

We know that we are not putting fewer people in prison. Does that mean that we are not paying for the prison population that we have?

My question for the Scottish Prison Service follows on from my colleague’s question. We gave about 8,000 prisoners a mobile phone for in-cell use during the pandemic, when there were obvious reasons for doing so. Those mobile phones were supposed to be unhackable. Why are so many of them being used to buy drugs in prisons?

My other question is about parole. However, it is not on this theme, so I am happy to come back in later, if you will allow that.