Management of Offenders (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 7 February 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Gilruth Jenny Gilruth Scottish National Party

I begin by thanking, for the second time this week, the clerks to the Parliament’s Justice Committee for all their work in supporting the committee and pulling together its report ahead of this stage 1 debate. I am glad that we will all vote this evening to support the principles of the bill.

When I was still at school in 2001, Scotland’s prison population stood at 5,803 people. By 2015, it had gone up to 7,647—an increase of more than a third.

Just two days ago in the chamber, members heard about evidence from Children 1st, which described Scotland’s approach to criminal justice as being

“rooted in the Victorian era”.—[

Official Report

, 5 February 2019; c 30.]

The bill is therefore a timely intervention in respect of management of offenders—especially if we consider that recorded crime rates in Scotland remain at a record low level.

As has been mentioned, the bill has three overarching policy intentions: to extend use of electronic monitoring; to reduce the time period for which there must be disclosure of convictions, for example when applying for a new job; and to reform the functions and governance of the Parole Board for Scotland.

The wider policy context for the Scottish Government is set within the parameters of community justice and preventing and reducing reoffending. That can be achieved only by increasing the options that are available to manage and monitor offenders. Rona Mackay quoted Families Outside, which powerfully told the committee that

“Electronic monitoring offers a valuable tool for reducing the use of imprisonment. Prison fractures families, whereas with the right support in place, electronic monitoring can keep families together, thereby maintaining social supports and reducing the risk of further offending.”

Engender emphasised the different impacts of imprisonment on men and women, particularly with reference to traditional family roles. It pointed to the fact that the prison rate for women in Scotland remains among the highest in northern Europe. As the electronic monitoring working group recommended in October 2016,

GPS technology is versatile and decisions on its use should be made as part of an individually tailored approach, including where it can aid public and victim safety and where it can be used supportively to strengthen the monitored person’s desistance.”

As the Justice Committee’s convener said in her speech, the committee considered in great detail the balance between public protection and the potential benefits of releasing someone with the use of electronic monitoring as an alternative to custody. As Scottish Women’s Aid told the committee,

“there must be a balance between the resettlement of offenders and the protection of the public.”

The bill will allow use of GPS technology to monitor offenders’ movement, and it provides for enforcement of exclusion zones—for example, around victims’ homes. As the cabinet secretary said in his opening speech, that can offer victims reassurance and respite.

On that point, a number of gendered implications for broader use of electronic monitoring were highlighted to the committee. Scottish Women’s Aid pointed out that

“where the monitoring was used pre-trial, victims may be made anxious by seeing the abuser moving freely about in settings outside the exclusion zone(s), and studies have indicated that they were concerned that abusers would be able to manipulate the technology or subvert its capacities and undermine programme rules and restrictions”.

I have raised that point at committee with the cabinet secretary. I would be grateful if he could, in summing up, revisit the gendered implications of widening use of GPS technology, in particular in domestic abuse cases. As enshrined by legislation that has been passed by Parliament, domestic abuse is now acknowledged as encompassing coercive and controlling behaviour, which is far more difficult to police via GPS technology.

Glasgow city health and social care partnership noted that

“Some victims have reported over time being re-traumatised by the presence of the electronic monitoring box in their homes, so this provision very much requires the cooperation of victims.”

Because routine electronic monitoring involves a curfew, there is the potential that, for example, the victim could go to the perpetrator’s home while they are confined to that address, which could increase risk, or that the perpetrator would take potential victims into their home. We highlight that electronic monitoring can be used as an effective tool in domestic abuse cases, but it can have unidentified risks.