Jailed for three years, out in ten months or less: SNP's prison policy is a disaster for Scotland
The SNP’s response to prison overcrowding and their stance over trans women in female prison will cost them votes in the coming Holyrood election
It is generally understood that sentencing criminals to a period of imprisonment fulfils four distinct functions: it is a punishment, it acts as a deterrent against future crimes, it protects the public, and it provides an opportunity for rehabilitation of offenders.
In Scotland, we have historically imprisoned relatively high numbers of the population compared to other European countries, although we are well behind the USA. Today we have a crisis in Scotland’s prisons, and an SNP government that seems clueless as to how to tackle the problem.
The prison estate, hosting at most around 8,000 inmates, is suffering serious overcrowding. Without additional capacity, this puts both prisoners and staff at risk.
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SNP’s early release scheme gathering momentum
The solution from the SNP’s Justice Secretary Angela Constance is to release more and more offenders early. Last week she announced that the automatic release point for short-term prisoners – those serving under four years and not convicted of domestic abuse or sexual offences – will now come at just 30 per cent of their sentence.
That means, for example, that somebody sentenced for a three-year term will serve barely ten months inside, and indeed could even be released earlier with good behaviour, or on an electronic tag.
Such an approach is hardly likely to inspire confidence in a justice system where already the public are sceptical that those who commit serious offences are dealt with severely enough.
But some want the SNP to go even further. The Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission wants to ban all prison sentences for less than two years, with more use of community service as an alternative.
This means those convicted of such serious offences that judges feel they presently have no alternative but to order incarceration will in future be free to walk the streets, putting the public at risk. It all adds to the perception that what we see under the SNP is a soft-touch justice system, where there is more concern for the welfare of the criminals than there is for their victims.
Build more cells
We already know that those who serve short-term sentences in prison are at high risk of reoffending once released. It is those who are in prison for longer who are most likely to benefit from education, training and rehabilitation programmes which will make them less likely to offend on release.
It does seem perverse, therefore, to be looking to reduce the opportunity to work with those in prison to get them onto the right track, and instead let them back into society earlier.
Rather than putting the public at risk by allowing more and more prisoners to leave after serving just a fraction of their sentence, the more sensible solution would surely be to create more prison capacity, even on a temporary basis. Undoubtedly this would come at a cost, but we are hardly seeing frugality in spending on the prison estate as matters stand.
The replacement for Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison is now set to cost just under £1 billion, ten times the original estimate of £100 million which was proposed in 2014. Given that’s about the price of a luxury five-star hotel, it surely must be possible to build a secure facility at substantially reduced costs, freeing up cash to be spent to create greater capacity elsewhere.
Biology, not identity
But it is not just in relation to early release of potentially dangerous prisoners that the SNP have a prison problem. Last week we had the extraordinary sight of the Scottish Government arguing in court to be allowed to house male prisoners who identify as women in the female prison estate.
This follows on from the Supreme Court ruling – in the case brought by the feminist campaign group For Women Scotland – that, under UK equalities law, sex is defined by biology not identity. The same group is now arguing that this judgment means no biological males should be held in female jails.
READ MORE: Banning trans prisoners from jail of chosen gender could 'create risk of suicide', court told
The Scottish Government’s position, in line with current prison rules, is that violent trans offenders can be housed in the women’s estate providing they do not have a history of violence against women and girls. In court, Gerry Moynihan KC, for the Scottish Government, argued that to segregate prisoners on the basis of only biological sex would amount to a breach of their human rights.
So far there have been 13 documented cases of biological males being imprisoned in the female estate. The SNP’s position is that these individuals would be vulnerable, and at risk of suicide, if accommodated in male prisons.
Such an approach appears tone deaf in relation to the rights of women in prison, many of whom themselves have been victims of sexual or domestic abuse, to be in an environment safe from predatory males.
Fury within SNP’s ranks
How the SNP got itself in a position where it is defending the rights of biological men to be housed in prisons for women remains a mystery. First Minister John Swinney himself refuses to say whether biologically male offenders are women. And yet his party’s policy is that they should be put in a women’s prison.
This stance draws fury from many campaigners for women’s rights in the SNP ranks. It indicates, once again, that the party has been subject to policy capture by a tiny group of trans-rights activists entirely out of step with public opinion.
The SNP may think these are not issues which will affect how people vote in the Holyrood election in May, but they are likely to be disappointed. Already whilst out canvassing, I have met female voters who have been life-long SNP supporters who tell me they can never vote for them again because of their stance on trans prisoners.
Unless the SNP have a rapid rethink on prison policy, they will find themselves punished at the ballot box.
Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife