apex scotland An Unmet Commitment: Women and the Justice System in Scotland Baroness Vivien Stern CBE Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies King's College London Apex Scotland Annual Lecture SIGNET LIBRARY 7 SEPTEMBER 2010 APEX SCOTLAND Previous Apex Scotland Annual Lectures have been delivered by: 8 September 2009 Professor Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work, University of Glasgow 9 September 2008 Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Richard Jeffrey, The Prisons Commission 11 September 2007 Professor Wesley Skogan, Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Northwestern University, Illinois 12 September 2006 The Rt Hon Lord Cullen of Whitekirk 13 September 2005 Cathy Jamieson MSP, Justice Minister 15 September 2004 Duncan L Murray WS, President of the Law Society of Scotland 16 September 2003 The First Minister, The Rt Hon Jack McConnell MSP 18 May 1998 Henry McLeish MP, Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution, Scottish Office ANNUAL LECTURE 2010 Foreword The exceptionally high level of health and In this year's Apex Scotland Annual Lecture, social problems experienced by most female Baroness Stern examined this anomaly and offenders means that prison is not an answer posed a number of questions about equality but an additional problem. The recent report and justice. on female offenders published by the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities We were delighted that Baroness Stern Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons accepted our invitation to deliver this year’s report on HM Cornton Vale issued earlier this Lecture. Her analysis was thought provoking year both acknowledge that mental health and timely and generated a great deal of issues, abuse, childcare and addiction debate at the event. problems feature much more significantly in Particular thanks are due to Mike McCarron, the lives of female offenders than their male Apex Scotland Chair, for introducing the counterparts and that these factors need to Lecture and chairing the discussion session. be addressed more effectively than at Thanks are also due to the Apex Scotland present if we are to make any inroads into team at Head Office and to our colleagues reducing the number of women who end up at the Signet Library whose organising skills in prison. Yet the number of women in prison and attention to detail made the event such goes steadily upwards: an average of 210 in a success. the year 2000, 417 now. Scotland, with its much-envied social work tradition, has so far I hope you enjoy reading the Lecture. failed to find a better way in spite of many political commitments to do so. Alan Staff, Chief Executive 1 APEX SCOTLAND Introduction people in resuscitation techniques and all the spin-offs that come from that; spin-offs like the feeling that you yourself are worth It is a great pleasure to be here. I very much something because you can help other appreciate this invitation to give the Apex people. An Apex client has been chosen to Scotland Annual Lecture. play for Scotland at this year’s Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro. Congratulations I have known Apex a long time - more than on that. And finally this little quote from 30 years. It is very important work. Without it Apex’s Annual Report has a lot of resonance: how much poorer our society would be. The work Apex does is one of the basic building “My worker at criminal justice is really blocks of an ethical society because it is part pleased with me and everyone says they of an essential message - a message that can see the difference. For the first time in says everyone can contribute to society, my life I don’t want to go back to prison. everyone is worth investing in, everyone is I’ve also got my own house now and entitled to work if possible. speak to all my neighbours...”. I have been reading about Apex activities. “My worker at criminal justice is really pleased They are all very worthwhile but some stand with me”. What a clear illustration of the out because they show how Apex looks at importance of relationships in rehabilitation. other human beings. And since this is one of the themes I shall be concentrating on this “I speak to all my neighbours”. What a clear evening let me say a little about it. illustration of what social reintegration after prison means. Apex looks at other human beings, not as somehow defective people with cognitive I am grateful that you have asked me to talk bits missing from their heads, not as people about women and the justice system in who are the sum total of what they have Scotland, a subject that needs to be talked failed at in life. Apex does not define people about. And not just talked about but acted by the worst thing they have ever done. upon. A fascinating subject overshadowed Apex does not see people who are defined by a big unanswered question. We’ll come by a finding of a court that they have broken to that later. the law as somehow different people to be dumped into the box called “offender”, who So let’s think for a bit about women and the are then categorised and people can say justice system. “That doesn’t come out of my budget, we don’t do “offenders”. Just three months ago I had occasion to think about it. It was a Saturday morning and I Apex just sees people who have faced a lot was in the women’s prison in Kampala in of troubles and need some solidarity to get Uganda. There are about 400 women there. sorted out and back on track. So I was They wear different coloured dresses. Not to impressed that Apex was selected by the show their individuality but to show their legal Department for Work and Pensions to pilot status. So the women who were there on financial capability activities, helping remand wore little green dresses; the women convicted people to deal with money who had been convicted wore bright yellow matters in partnership with the Chartered dresses with the word convict on the back in Institute of Bankers. Very useful and practical big black letters. The women sentenced to and realistic, and not offender-specific at all. death and waiting to know if they would be A lot of people could benefit from financial executed and, if so, when they would be capability activities (maybe some of those executed, by hanging, wore pink dresses. who used to run the Royal Bank of Scotland There were about 12 women in pink dresses. perhaps)? And I must say it is to the great credit of the Government of Uganda that the death I am very impressed with the programme with penalty is currently suspended because of the British Heart Foundation, training 152 legal developments. 2 ANNUAL LECTURE 2010 For my visit to the women’s prison they had similar. Let’s look briefly at what has all gathered in a big room, with quite a few happened in Scotland. babies – very small babies. A little group of them sang a song of welcome, a song about Between 1995 and 1997 there were a rehabilitation. I looked at them all sitting on number of suicides in Cornton Vale prison. the floor, spread out in front of the table and There was concern. In 1998 there was a chairs that were placed there for the visitors. report “ Women Offenders: A Safer Way”. It What did I see? I saw the same poor, said: haggard, thin, battered-looking, beaten- down, unhealthy women you see in prisons “The female population at Cornton Vale all over the world. should be reduced to 100 or less by the end of the year 2000”. What do we all know about those women? I didn’t talk to many of them individually but The number of women in prison in Scotland in without talking to them and without looking 1998 was 199. In October 2001 the BBC at their files we know a lot about them. We reported that “ Politicians have pledged to know most of them will have suffered make an "urgent assessment" of conditions at violence in their lives. We know many of Scotland's only women's prison” after two them will have been victims of sexual abuse. more prisoners died. By then the number of We know they will nearly all be poor. And we women in prison in Scotland was 207. know they will usually have been exploited In 2002 another report was published called and used in some way. “A Better Way: The Report of the Ministerial We know they may well be addicted to Group on Women’s Offending”. This group alcohol or drugs, what we can call the was chaired by MSP Iain Gray. The report painkillers of the poor. We also know without would “ take forward and implement a asking them why they are in prison. A very package of measures designed to reduce small number are there because they have significantly the number of women held in killed their husbands or partner, often as a custody in Scotland”. By 2002 the number of response to years of violence from that women in prison in Scotland was 257, an partner. Sometimes they steal because of increase of 24 per cent on 2001. poverty and the need to feed their children. In 2003 the Justice 1 committee reported on Some will be imprisoned in some countries alternatives to custody and concluded because they have become involved in “there are a substantial number of women in prostitution, the only option left to them to Scotland's prisons who do not necessarily make some money.