Analysis: Reducing number of staff can only make problem worse

THE number of assaults across the Scottish prison estate is on an upward and worrying trend, but what can almost be as troublesome is trying to draw firm conclusions about their cause from a more distant touch line.

Individual governors alone will be able to point the knowing finger, and hopefully behind the scenes their observations will be keeping one or more office lights on late into the night in SPS headquarters.

Even though these statistics include minor and non-assault related injuries, they deserve careful analysis as a total of nearly 900 in the last year is more than what some medics and commanders in war-torn Afghanistan would expect to be seeing.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Of course, the increase may be due to more accurate monitoring and reporting.

Or the general indication may well be connected to the longer sentences being handed down by the courts, which then contributes to record levels of overcrowding. This not only means individuals being crammed into cells designed for one, it also means dangerous levels of understaffing.

Where there is less supervision there is more opportunity to mete out punishment to fellow prisoners in lavatories, worksheds or corridors for drug debts and the like; or to lash out at hard pressed staff.

Cornton Vale’s women prisoners are a particular case in point where staff are struggling to cope with two or three times the number of damaged individuals being held compared to ten years ago. Yet across the prison estate, every year the justice department monotonously continues to apply pressure for staff reductions.

The notices in our trains state that its staff do not expect to go to work and be assaulted. The difference for prison staff is that they do, and what’s more they still turn up on time.

• Clive Fairweather is a former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland.

Related topics: