No early release for long-term prisoners, justice secretary confirms

Long-term prisoners will not be released from jails early, justice secretary Angela Constance has announced.

The Scottish Government will bring forward legislation to allow those on short-term sentences – defined as under four years – to be released after serving 40 per cent of their sentence.

That is a reduction from the current 50 per cent.

But there has been a proposal that long-term prisoners could also be released after serving two-thirds of the sentence.

Currently anyone jailed after 1 February 2016 is automatically released six months prior to the end of their sentence, spending that time in the community on licence and under supervision.

Constance told the Scottish Parliament on Thursday afternoon that while there was “notable support” for increasing the amount of time prisoners spend in the community under supervision, there has been concern about the pace of change presenting “significant practical difficulties”.

Instead, she will introduce a bill next month which will focus on short-term prisoners, bringing the release point forward by up to five months. She will request parliament progress this as emergency legislation to speed-up its passage.

Currently those on short-term sentences must serve 50 per cent of these.

Exclusions will be put in place to ensure those convicted of domestic abuse or sexual offences will not be released early.

She said these were “relatively small changes” to release dates but could result in the prison population being 260-390 lower than projected without such legislation.

She added that the government “remain committed” to considering the long-term release point and the bill will therefore include a clause to allow ministers to return to it at some point in the future.

Such actions are being taken as part of the effort to reduce the prison population, which Constance said had risen to “critical levels” and was “unsustainable”.

As of today, there were 8,322 people in custody, and that is predicted to continue rising. Scotland’s prison system is designed to safely hold 8,007.

Earlier this year, 477 prisoners were released early – but figures published this month found more than one in 10 of them were back behind bars within weeks.

Constance confirmed she was not authorising emergency release soon, but added that it “may be needed” in the future so the government was putting in place contingency plans which learned from the experience.

Scottish Conservative justice spokesperson Liam Kerr accused the government of “undermining our justice system, undermining sentencing, and throwing victims under a bus”.

He called for a “long-term holistic strategy and route map” to address the problem of prison overcrowding, arguing the use of emergency and early release was “panicked”.

Constance replied that “working at pace is not the same as panicked”.

Scottish Labour’s Katy Clark expressed concern about the failure to notify victims during the releases over the summer.

She also called for non-violent offenders to be prioritised in any early release plans.

The trade union reprseenting prison workers has cautious welcomed the plans.

Phil Fairlie, assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said: “Prison overcrowding affects every prisoner and every prison officer. It impacts on every element of prison life including access to health care, education, recreation, and exercise. It prevents officers from developing the relationships with prisoners that are so important to the prison environment, as well as helping them end their offending behaviour. We cannot go on as we are as this is failing prisoners, staff, victims and wider society.

“Whilst the actions announced may bring some relief, the persistently high prisoner population makes clear that we need a genuine debate about the purpose of prison and a radical rethink of the sentencing policy if we are going to end the need for further emergency measures.”

Victim Support Scotland welcomed the decision to pause long-term release plans. Chief executive Kate Wallace said: “We welcome the decision by the Scottish Government to pause and more closely consider long-term release plans, given the complexity of proposals and the requirement for adequately resourced and risk-assessed implementation. Consequently, we note that the proposals announced today apply only to prisoners serving short-term sentences of less than four years.  

“Excluding domestic abuse and sexual offences provides an important safeguard pertinent to this profile of offending and the risk it can pose to individuals. However, we do seek clarity on whether a governor’s veto, which played an important safeguarding role in emergency early release, will be applied.”

The organisations has also called for improvements ot the victim notification system.