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PART FIVE: THE OPEN PRISON ESTATE
5.1 The Cabinet Secretary for Justice also asked us to examine the role of the open prison estate, in the light of the Robert Foye case. In that case, an offender absconded from an open prison and raped a 16-year-old girl.
5.2 We visited Castle Huntly on 14 February 2008 and were given a presentation by the then Governor, Ian Whitehead, and other key establishment staff, including those who work at Noranside Prison. The members were also given a tour of the establishment and had the opportunity to see the range of services available to offenders.
The role of the open prison estate
5.3 In April 2007, Castle Huntly and Noranside prison were integrated into a single establishment, HM Prison Open Estate. The two previously independent sites were merged to provide distinctive prisoner services and in order that the resources used gave best value across both sites. Geographically, Castle Huntly is in Longforgan, 3 miles west of Dundee; whilst Noranside lies 10 miles north east of Forfar in Angus. Both institutions hold low supervision adult male prisoners serving 18 months and over, including life sentence prisoners; all of whom have been assessed as suitable to serve part of their sentence in open conditions. Dependent upon sentence length, prisoners can spend up to 24 months in open conditions although the average length of stay is 6 to 9 months. Prisoners are provided with employment training and transitional throughcare while working towards a structured reintegration into society.
5.4 The capacity within the open estate has increased since 2006 with the introduction of the Extended Home Leave ( EHL) and Continuous Cell Occupancy ( CCO) schemes. Extended Home Leave allows selected prisoners up to 7 nights' access each month to their home community. The current accommodation has increased from 425 to approximately 519 places.
Supervision system
5.5 The 'Prisoner Supervision System' is the process by which different levels of supervision requirement are allocated to each individual prisoner during their time in either closed or open prisons. The supervision levels are High, Medium and Low. After initial allocation of supervision level on admission prisoners are reviewed annually until they attain low supervision status. The process is designed to monitor and support behaviour whilst in prison but is not designed to assess risk of harm to the public.
Criteria for transfer to the open estate
5.6 Transfer to the open estate is governed by a number of formal rules, guidance and other administrative arrangements. Long-term and life sentence prisoners, will have gone through the Enhanced Integrated Case Management process to inform on risk assessment and management. There are also qualifying periods for long-term and life sentence prisoners to access the open estate based on length of sentence as part of the Prisoner Supervision System. There is no minimum qualifying period for short-term prisoners.
5.7 In all cases, the prisoner must have no outstanding warrants; have low supervision status; and have no identified high offence-related needs which cannot be met in the open estate.
Absconds from prison
5.8 Despite the increase in the number of offenders accessing the open estate, the number of absconds is reducing. It is also important to remember that of those who do abscond, only a small proportion go on to reoffend during the period they are unlawfully at large. In 2007/08, there were 55 absconds from the open prison estate. In the same year the average daily population was 487 and the total number of prisoners who went to the open prison estate was 793.
Key Findings
5.9 We recognise that the prison open estate is an integral part of the rehabilitation process. However, the open estate is in the community. There are no walls or fences and prisoners have access to both the local community and to the community they intend to return to on release. While the SPS acknowledges that managing and minimising risk of harm to the public is paramount, there can be no doubt that high prison numbers mean there are pressures to move prisoners through the system to alleviate overcrowding elsewhere in the estate.
5.10 As we have already argued, prisons will always be needed for serious and dangerous offenders. Allowing long-term prisoners controlled access to the community is a proven method of assessing their suitability for and preparing them for release on licence. However, the transfer of an offender to an open prison must only happen when all criminal justice agencies are satisfied that his or her risk can be managed in that setting. While it will never be possible to totally eliminate risk, there must be effective joined-up assessment procedures and risk management plans in place.
5.11 Our view is that the Scottish Prison Service is not and cannot be solely responsible for the offender's rehabilitation. If it is accepted that moving offenders to the open estate is in fact the first step in moving them back into the community, then other key agencies need to play a part in managing the risk and needs of the offender. Only an in-depth review into risk assessment processes and of individual decisions would reveal whether or not the current risk assessments and checks in place are adequate. We would, however, make the following observations:
- Access to the open estate should be primarily for those serving a life sentence or a long-term determinate sentence (of 4 years or more).
- All identified risks and needs must be sufficiently addressed through interventions before an offender qualifies for a transfer to the open estate.
- A comprehensive community risk management plan, including home background details, should be developed and be in place before an offender transfers to the open estate.
- The open estate should review the risk assessment and risk management plan as soon as possible after transfer to ensure that trigger behaviours in respect of escalating risk are identified and to plan how to address these behaviours should they arise.
- There should be a more clear correlation between risk of harm/reoffending and the prisoner supervision system. An offender could be designated 'low supervision' in a closed establishment but require a higher level of supervision in the open estate.
- Temporary release licence conditions should link to the risk management plan and there should be resources in place to monitor response.
- During home leave visits offenders should be subject to licence conditions specific to their individual risks and needs. These might include requiring them to attend appointments with partnership organisations in the community, working with organisations to help them access work or training and, where appropriate, place restrictions.
- Joint arrangements should be agreed with partnership organisations such as the local authority criminal justice social work services, the police and other service providers to ensure that the offender's risks and needs are addressed within the open establishment itself and in the wider community.
Summary and Conclusion
5.12 Though there is no doubt that the Scottish Prison Service made mistakes in its management of Robert Foye. In many respects his case provides a stark and tragic example of why imprisoning too many people makes the community less safe rather than more safe. In recent years, the open estate has been used to ease overcrowding as well as to prepare long-term prisoners for release. 81 There is evidence in the SPS internal report on the Robert Foye case that there were problems in communication and record-keeping both within the prison and between community-based social work services and the prison service (about his home circumstances). 82 It appears that the decision-making in this case focussed too much on Foye's security classification and too little on the risk of harm that he posed to the public. These weaknesses in systems and practices arose despite the fact that Robert Foye was a long-term prisoner who had already committed a serious violent crime, who had already absconded once from the open estate, who had failed a drug test in prison, and in respect of whom there was intelligence that he had threatened to offend. In short, he was exactly the kind of prisoner that we believe that prisons exist to punish, to hold securely, to risk assess accurately and to rehabilitate effectively. Risk assessment and rehabilitation are not perfect processes: Not all risks are predictable and it is far from easy to rehabilitate serious offenders. But in the Robert Foye case, these processes failed - with dreadful consequences.
5.13 However, given the overarching purpose of our work, it is crucial to note that the context of the Foye case was that the prison service resources were stretched to the limit by over-crowding. To allow this situation to continue is to compel the Scottish Prison Service to divert time and energy away from detaining and rehabilitating serious offenders to dealing with the troubled and the damaged.
5.14 Scotland needs a prison service that is world-leading in detaining serious offenders and helping them to change. Scotland also needs a well-run open estate because it is not in the public interest to release long-term prisoners from closed institutions without preparing them for release and training them for freedom. Our view is that prison population pressures have distorted the proper function of the open estate.
The Commission recommends that preparing for release and training for freedom be retained and reinforced as the proper purposes of the open estate - not easing overcrowding. We are clear that Scotland will not have a world-leading prison service and a well-run open estate until we reduce the unnecessary, costly, damaging and dangerous overuse of custody.
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