MARY FEE MSP

SPEECH TO DELEGATES AT THE FAMILIES OUTSIDE CONFERENCE IN NOVEMBER 2011

I would like to start off by thanking Families Outside for the opportunity to speak today and thank Dr Nancy Loucks and Jonathon Goodfellow for their help in the creation up of a Cross Party Group on Families Affected by Imprisonment.

The Cross Party Group will be your voice in the . The aim is to help Families Outside and similar-minded organisations raise issues inside and outside of the Parliament. The Group will also aim to push the Scottish Government into making some of the changes needed to our laws, rights and systems highlighted by everyone at today’s conference.

Last Monday, I was given a tour of Her Majesty’s Prison in Greenock. Now, this was the first I had ever stepped inside a prison and I found the experience very daunting, yet very informative thanks to Governor Jim Kerr, Family Contact Manager Paul Shelton and Frank Wilson Operations Manager.

Now if a woman of my age can find the visit daunting, then I cannot begin to imagine how a young child must feel on their first or even last visit to a prison.

One of the issues that I raised with the Governor was the need for family visit centres. The need for such centres first came to my attention from calls by HM Chief Inspector Brigadier Hugh Monro and the Church of Scotland, and in Parliament I have also added my voice to the need for family visit centres.

On many occasions I have been asked what is meant by a family visit centre and what these would be. My response is that these should be in a building not adjoined to the prison, in a separate environment that is friendly and warming as possible, unlike many of the reception areas in prisons. A family visit centre should be an area where the family can meet their loved one, where healthcare needs can be addressed, particularly mental health and drug-related problems, and I will continue to call for this throughout my time as an MSP and longer.

I also found on my visit that the Governor and staff at Greenock are very open to visits; and some prisoners have the opportunity for double and even triple visits per week. However one concern was raised, and a concern I share with all staff and I hope all of you here today.

Visits must not be a means for drug users to abuse their right to contact with families. There must be a balance between order and law, and care and support and this is an issue I hope we can address in the Cross Party Group.

Drug users need rehabilitation and support in our prisons and I would love to see the day drugs are fully out of our prisons, and out of our communities.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there has been some positivity coming from the Government and also from John Ewing from Scottish Prisoner Service.

In a response to question put by my colleague, Dr Richard Simpson, Mr Ewing said, “The current focus of the Scottish Prison Service is on improving the facilities within prisons to support contact between prisoners and their families.” Indeed in the recent report published by HM Chief Inspector, Brigadier Hugh Munro said that he “remained convinced that good quality family contact results in improved outcomes for prisoners in both in prison and on return to the community.”

In the inspection of HMP Dumfries it was reported that the Prison is implementing the Good Practice Guidelines for Working with Children and Families of Prisoners, and I know more prisons are I hope all prisons adhere to these guidelines in the very near future.

However, having visitors to the prison and spending time with children is still seen as being used as part of incentive and earned privilege schemes across the Prison service.

As said by Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People “The Scottish Prison Service should continually reinforce the very important principle that visits, including child focused or ‘bonding’ visits need to be seen as the child’s right, and must not be used as a disciplinary measure or punishment against the prisoner.”

What needs to remembered is that Children have the right to see a parent unless it is not in their best interest.

Currently, Children’s rights are protected by the Human Rights Act 1998; so children should have the same rights as any adult, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is ratified by the UK Government so that the nation and any secondary Governing bodies have to take into consideration the articles of the convention.

The Children’s Act (Scotland) 1995 looks at children’s well-being and rights through parental rights and responsibilities. However, there is no piece of Scottish legislation that specifically and outright protects the rights of children and young people.

The Scottish Government has outlined in its programme for this year that it will propose a Rights of Children and Young People Bill, this is something that I strongly feel that the cross party group can influence and contribute to.

Nonetheless, all of these acts, laws and Conventions say that children have a right to a family life. Children also have the right to have their opinions and livelihood taken into account when adults are making decisions that affect them; such as sentencing in courts.

In 2007 SCCYP made its 28 recommendations in its report Not Seen, Not Heard, Not Guilty. With a follow up report published in June 2011.

One of the recommendations was that the Scottish Courts should take into account children when it comes to sentencing. This is problem that is seen all across the world and Scotland recently had a visit from the leading South African Human Rights Lawyer, Justice Albie Sachs.

In a significant case at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Mr Justice Sachs made it clear that they needed to balance the child’s family life with punishment for the offender.

There needs to be a new line of thought within the Scottish Courts when sentencing offenders with children and the Scottish Government has set up a Scottish Sentencing Council and through this we can request that the courts take into consideration the well-being of children when making their decision.

However this cannot exclude anyone from breaking the law.

In 2010-2011 almost half of all female offenders where held for 6 months or less for crimes such as shoplifting, common assault, drugs and drunkenness. Surely there must be a change in the sentencing to women who are committing minor or non-violent crimes.

More community sentences and rehabilitative programmes can be used to keep families together. This is an example of an area that I feel the Cross party group can promote and lobby for changes in sentencing for offenders with families and especially young mothers.

The South West Scotland Community Justice Authority recently highlighted research that showed that offenders are up to 6 times less likely to re-offend if strong and appropriate family relationships are in place.

Surely the aim of imprisonment in any country is to reduce the level of reoffending and thus reduce the prison population and indeed the number of victims.

If relationships with families and especially between a parent and a child are maintained, repaired and even strengthened during the parents times in prison then surely this is positive movement.

Therefore, I feel that there needs to be a greater level in co-operation between all the organisations involved in recording the number of prisoners with children. I also feel that the amount of visits and the length of these visits must be monitored.

The stress and emotional feelings that children experience when a parent goes to jail is very significant in a child’s life; one particular quote that comes to mind is from the SCCYP report is that “most of the Children showed concerns about their imprisoned parent and many exhibited anxieties inappropriate to their age.”

With a greater understanding of the number of children who have a parent in prison a concerted effort can be made to help these children. Help them with understanding, help them to cope and also help them to visit their mother or father in prison.

One thing that would help is some concrete information sharing between the Scottish Courts, the Scottish Prison Service, and all organisations involved; information that can will support families and children as soon as their parent goes into prison or even upon arrest.

The Community Justice Authority reported in 2008 that families lack vital information that could be of help them emotionally with a family member sent to prison. It must be agreed that information from all the bodies involved in the process would go a long way to helping families.

The Scottish Prison service has announced that at the new low Security Prison in Low moss there will be a children’s play area and a separate are for family visits. This is a step in the right direction, however every prison should have a visitor centre that can accommodate family visits and parent and child bonding sessions.

The improvement in conditions of visiting at prisons is something that I hope the Cross Party Group will work to achieve.

What our prison system, governments and courts need are different ways of thinking and how we join up the dots between imprisonment and release to communities. We need more through care support for prisoners on release so they can go back to their families, where they have no need to reoffend and live fulfilling lives like all others in society.

I would like to finish on a quote from Sigmund Freud who said that

“…the bonding together in family groups is both instinctive and necessary to human welfare – and therefore essential to the health of a society…”

This is something we here as a group work to achieve and I hope we can - through a collective message to all politicians, government and communities.

THANK YOU.