New prison data from @ScotGovJustice https://www.gov.scot/news/supplementary-prison-population-statistics-2019-20/ and there are some real wow! stats in there 1/10
First, remand – nearly 60% held pretrial ‘depart custody directly from remand’, ie were not sentenced to prison. Raises qs about why people are detained 2/10
Prison pop declines ‘driven almost entirely by a reduction in young people and younger adults’, another wow esp when considering gender…3/10
Bc women’s prison population now mainly older and overwhelmingly serving shorter sentences, but here’s what’s obscured: 4/10
40% of women ‘serving sentences for violent offences’ – this seems like prison used for right reasons – but this is MISLEADING STAT 5/10
It uses a measure called ADP which is who is in prison on a given day if you average who’s there in a year. ADP DOESN’T WORK FOR PEOPLE WHO STAY LESS THAN A YEAR 6/10
This is because 1 person sentenced to a year shows up in ADP as the same number as 4 people sentenced to 3 months, 7/10
Imagine a prison with 2 cells. In a year it can hold 4 women on 3 month sentence for shoplifting and 1 woman in for 12 mos on assault. ADP will show 50% violent offenders 8/10
This is Scotland’s prison profile for imprisoned women - still most commonly in prison for shoplifting. This is a drug and health prob, not a crime prob. 9/10
Look forward to seeing flow data – how many go thru prisons and for what. 10/10
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