Scottish Prisons Assessment and Review of Outcomes for Women (SPAROW): full report

11. Reflections and recommendations

This research study set out to examine the early impact and emerging outcomes of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) new custodial arrangements for women and the application of the SPS Strategy for Women in Custody 2021-2025. This was carried out in the context of the recently established CCUs, which heralded a new approach to the custody of women in Scotland. The overall objective was to provide an in-depth and focused assessment of the operation of the CCUs, the experiences of the women who live in them, the staff who work within them and the partners that deliver services into the CCUs. A second objective was to include the participation of SPS staff working in other prison establishment(s) in Scotland and women who are not currently living in a CCU.

In this final chapter, we reflect on the encouraging practices that were observed across the research period, as well as the challenges and barriers of implementing a gender-specific and trauma–informed approach in the CCUs.

We distil 19 key messages from the research findings. These encapsulate the ways in which the CCUs are operating, and the ways in which gender-specific and trauma-informed approaches are conceptualised, implemented and experienced.

Key messages

Encouraging practices

1. A conducive environment

The CCUs are physically designed and equipped in such a way that they provide a conducive environment for the operationalisation and implementation of gender-specific and trauma-informed practice. Living and communal areas reflect the values of the SPS Strategy for Women and the therapeutic ethos of the CCUs. For the most part, women living in the CCUs found the physical environment, including the garden areas, to be peaceful and quiet and most felt safe living there.

2. On-site access to health and social care staff

The presence of primary care and mental health support in the CCUs meets the principle of equivalence, and ensures that women’s rights to health care are unaffected by their incarceration. Women consider that the provison of health and socal care in the CCUs is gender specific, accessible, and personalised. As such, women’s access to assessment, treatment and ongoing care ensure that their gendered health needs are addressed. Regular visits by social workers and housing officers provide opportunity for women’s social care needs to be acted upon.

3. Committed and well-intentioned CCU prison staff

There was wide variation in the experience of staff deployed to the CCUs, and most were ambivalent about the value of training. However, on the whole, officers demonstrate commitment to their role and a shared view about wanting to do their best for the women in their care. Many work outside their comfort zones to fulfil that commitment to ’do things differently’, and many use their own resources to buy materials for women when they were not provided by SPS. CCU officers constitute a potentially very strong staff base for the embedding of gender-sensitive and trauma-informed practice for women in their care. For the most part, officers enjoy their work and wish to remain working in the CCUs. However, high levels of staff absence are impacting CCU operations, leading to increased workloads and adversely affecting officer wellbeing. This, in turn, is having an effect on women and the ways in which they perceive their needs to be addressed.

4. Women’s relationships with CCU prison staff

On the whole, women considered that CCU officers had their best interests at heart and provided support and assistance to them throughout their time in the CCUs. They were particularly appreciative of the help they received from officers upon their arrival at a CCU. For the most part, women spoke positively of the relationships that have been built with staff. They spoke about this particularly, but not exclusively, with their PO, although as time went on some women felt that the amount of time their PO spent with them decreased.

Women were pleased and grateful for the respect that they are shown by officers, that they are listened to and that officers try to answer any questions that they might have, with some officers going ‘the extra mile’ to help them. Recognition, receiving positive encouragement and having their strengths recognised was highly valued by women. Some reflected that it had made them feel more equipped to move on. The positive regard shown by many officers towards the women inspired their confidence and motivation, and so is an issue to which officers and managers need to be attentive.

5. Goal setting

For some women, particularly those serving longer sentences, the opportunity to be involved in the setting of their own goals and development plansin collaboration with their PO and social workers promoted a sense that they were being treated with respect. It bolstered the development of interpersonal relationships with officers, and reassured women that they were being prepared for the decisions they would be required to make upon release. Yet, despite the positive experience of goal-setting, women were frustrated that the resources or opportunities they would need to meet these goals were not accessible (e.g. access to computers).

6. Family visits

The importance of maintaining family ties, in terms of women’s wellbeing and motivation, is considered key to their reintegration back into the community. The CCU family visitor facilities are viewed very positively by those women who have maintained good relationshps with their families and whose families visit them. Opportunities for frequent family visits are considered a key benefit of the CCUs. In particular, women are able to see and interact freely with their children and grandchildren in a relaxed setting that is conducive to maintaining and strengthening family relations.

7. Delivery partner engagement

In principle, the engagement of statutory and third sector DPs to deliver services into the CCUs is a positive development. This engagement enables partners with different remits and skill-bases to work with the women and support community reintegration. However, delivery partners anticipated that their engagement with women would extend into the community. The limited space in the CCUs for some activities (for example no library or hairdressing facilities, very small gym space) encouraged a view that the CCUs would support greater community interaction. This was not the case in practice. Services who had secured SPS partnership status, after a lengthy process, were often limited to delivering their service within the CCU. This was managed as effectively as possible. Some services could provide a resource or activity within the CCUs, while others tried to focus on connecting with women (where they met the criteria for their service) and to encourage them to follow-up the service on release.

This was recognised as a challenge and one that throughcare provision may previously have addressed. DPs highlighted this issue of throughcare and reintegration in the context of the closure of services such as the 218 Centre in Glasgow, which provided a range of services, including a day services and supported accommodation, for women in the criminal justice system. DPs noted that CCUs appear to be seen (in some settings) as a substitute for 218 but clearly constitute a prison setting rather than a community setting (which appears very much in contrast to the recommendations from the Commission for Women Offenders Report (2012)).

Challenges and barriers

1. Constraints, rules and regimes

The constraints, rules and regimes of life within the CCUs impede the implementation of gender-specific and trauma-informed practice. The CCUs operate under the strictures of SPS Prison Rules. The application and enforcement of these can inhibit the stated ethos of the CCUs and constrain the realisation of the vision of the CCUs as constituting a radical change in the way that Scotland manages women in custody. In line with conclusions from other research (Vaswani & Paul 2019; Auty et al. 2022), it is not possible for a custodial establishment to become trauma-informed whilst punishment remains a fundamental element of the prison system. Until the application of Prison Rules are reviewed in relation to the CCUs, they will remain ‘mini prisons’ retaining many of the features of more traditional prisons and not the radical departure that was envisaged.

2. Understanding of gender-specific and trauma-informed principles and approaches

Officer understanding of gender-specific and trauma-informed approaches are limited and lack the depth of understanding of women’s gendered needs and trauma experiences that SPS aspire to encourage in staff in the CCUs. Trauma-informed working provides opportunities to improve women’s experiences, improve working environments for staff, increase job satisfaction and reduce stress levels by improving the relationships between staff and women. Yet given the lack of deep understanding of the effects of trauma, and the entrenched stereotypical views that some hold about women and their needs, there are variable and limited opportunities for gender-specific and trauma-informed practice. This further reduces the ability to create settings conducive to such practice. These findings have important implications for the CCUs and across the women’s estate.

3. Encouraging dependence

Ongoing power and gender imbalances between women and officers can create challenges for the development of relationships and interactions. Some women were wary of becoming overly reliant on prison officers, and spoke of feeling infantilised by officers’ actions and the language they used towards them. Relatedly women felt that officers tend to ‘micro manage’ them rather than encouraging them to come to their own decisions or work on their relationships with other women in the CCU as they would in closed conditions. Encouraging dependence and reliance on officers is at odds with the intentions of the CCU model, and so vigilance is required to prevent over-dependence.

4. Barriers to building trust

Whilst it is recognised that developing strong relational working is key to the provision of a gender-specific and trauma-informed approach, there are however some concerning views about how working with women should be done. The conflict between the need for CCUs to maintain custodial boundaries whilst operating a trauma-informed approach is a challenge in terms of building trusting relationships. Close proximity between women and POs and the potential for relationship-building, while perhaps meeting the requirements of gender-responsive and trauma-informed practice, was noted to be a useful way of gathering ‘intelligence’ by some officers. Along with the use of cameras throughout the buildings, there is no doubt the emphasis on security was prioritised, perhaps in contrast to the aims and objectives of relational approaches to the provision of support.

Increasing tensions that emerged over time and the shifts towards a more prison-like regime seemed to coincide with the reduction of individual prison officer autonomy and the growing emphasis on broader Prison Rules.

5. Staff training and support

Training provision is considered limited and officers registered concerns about the level of support provided to them from SPS senior management. Trauma-informed practice can be carried out in prison environments by ensuring clear communication, to explain decisions, creating safe spaces for prisoners, and by understanding how to minimise power dynamics. Yet officers find it difficult to translate the theoretical to the practical and find clear examples of how to ‘do things differently’. This suggests the need first to be clearer on what this practice means and why it is being introduced. There is also a need to review and revise gender-specific and trauma-informed training for new and existing staff, improve communication, and prioritise officers wellbeing and support. This should help to develop a staff group with the aptitude and skills to deliver on the aims and aspirations of the SPS Strategy for Women in Custody and the CCUs.

6. Practical challenges to the implementation of gender-specific and trauma-informed practice

There are practical challenges to implementing gender-specific and trauma-informed practice. The CCUs were designed to house only a small number of women for reasons relating to their strategic purpose. This included being situated within communities, enabling closer working relationships between staff and the women, and responding on a more individual basis to the women’s needs. However, their size did create some barriers to their strategic purpose, which included the mix of women in any one house, and issues that may be experienced as a result. Tensions between women regarding sentence profiles and progression stages undermine efforts to introduce trauma-informed practice.

Other practical challenges include the dual purpose of the Hub space both for visits, and for activities and socialisation between the women residents in the CCU. This resulted in some avoidance of this space by women and reduced the potential of the latter’s purpose.

7. Trauma-informed programmes

Therapeutic, trauma-informed programmes for women to actively engage in their own personal recovery journey appear absent in the CCUs. Instead, women have a support plan interview, followed by monthly support plans, and finally a case conference six to eight weeks before leaving the CCU. These should all identify areas that the women wish or need to address, and plans to do so, but no mention was made of these being trauma-informed, or linking to therapeutic, trauma-informed programmes.

8. Body searching of women

A significant challenge to trauma-informed practice in the CCUs is the continued use of full body searches. This creates additional difficulties for relationship building, the development of trust, and may echo or resonate with traumatic experiences.

9. Purposeful activity

Whilst women enjoy some of the activities on offer in the CCUs, women and staff perceive there to be a lack of appealing purposeful activity as compared to closed conditions. Life skills tuition, particularly cooking, is limited. Many women are ‘bored’ and disaffected. There is a danger that, over time, more women withdraw from activities and the life of the CCUs.

10. Inconsistent messaging and changes of rules

It is clear from the research that a significant and ongoing challenge to the implementation of gender-specific and trauma-informed approaches is the different understandings or interpretations of what these approaches mean. This concerns different interpretations by individuals, and interpretation by managers which officers were required to follow. Either way, these resulted in inconsistent practices in the CCUs, which were experienced as confusing and frustrating by officers and created uncertainty and anxiousness as to what was allowed. This lack of consistency in ‘the rules’ was a key theme across both CCUs; officers considered these to vary depending upon which FLM was on duty. There was also a perception from some that arbitrary rules were being made by senior management who did not really know the women, or the environment of the CCU.

11. Community access

Contrary to expectations of many staff and most women, community access is only permitted for a relatively small number of women. The numbers gaining community access are much more limited than envisaged in the SPS Strategy for Women, and opportunities for community integration is reduced as a result. This is perhaps the most significant barrier preventing the realisation of the vision for the CCUs. There is a troubled relationship between the risk averse nature of decision-making, which extends beyond operational arrangements within the CCUs to the identification and selection of women for transfer/progress to them. A culture of risk averseness permeates decision-making and can be seen to thwart the intended ethos and stated aims of CCUs.

12. Limited throughcare

A notable finding, remarked upon by officers and women, concerns the lack of throughcare opportunities for women. This was seen as a stark difference between the CCUs and closed conditions where throughcare arrangements are considered more structured. Ensuring that women have access to housing, training, employment opportunities, and social welfare support upon release is essential for successful re-integration into the community.

Recommendations

These messages lead on to ten recommendations based on the views and experiences of women, SPS officers and delivery partners which, if realised, could potentially improve the experiences of, and outcomes for, women in the CCUs.

The recommendations include a range of actions that we consider are required to address the issues identified in the report. As researchers, we believe that the recommendations are best addressed through collaborative action by SPS and the Scottish Government.

Recommendation 1

Following the intention of the SPS Strategy for Women, a culture of continuous improvement should be embedded, based on evaluation, evidence and lived experience of women and the officers working in the CCUs. The physical environment, the garden surrounds and equipment within the CCUs should be kept under review to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of women.

Recommendation 2

The provision of primary care, mental health support and social care within the CCUs should be kept under review to ensure the maintenance of the principle of equivalence. This esnures women are afforded provision of, and access to, appropriate services or treatment which is consistent with that available to the wider community.

Recommendation 3

Officer training should be improved to enable officers to feel more informed and confident in working in a gender-specific and trauma-informed way. This should include how to identify the various manifestations and effects of trauma, including cognitive, emotional, and physical impacts, and the application of trauma-informed principles. The use of concrete examples drawn from lived experience will help officers to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical. Opportunities for integrated training, with continued oportunities for ’on-the-job’ elements could be usefully explored.

Recommendation 4

To supplement the learning from training and to provide opportunities for peer learning, enhanced self-awareness and improved practice, regular opportunities for critical reflective practice should be implemented for officers. Reflective practice potentially offers value for both personal and professional development and learning. Where conducted in a group setting it may also usefully address some of the inconsistencies in messaging.

Recommendation 5

Consideration should be given to a review of risk assessments for the CCUs, if they are to reach their full potential (i.e. they are currently too risk averse to do so). Officer understanding of the operation of risk assessment processes that apply in the CCUs should also be enhanced. A closer alignment between manager and officer understanding on what is and what is not allowed in CCUs could reduce inconsistent messaging and resultant confusion. Clarity on operational arrangements is essential.

Recommendation 6

The CCUs need to encourage and support the access of delivery partners into the prison estate. A thorough review of the process for becoming a delivery partner should be conducted to ensure a smoother and less protracted process.

Recommendation 7

Increased opportunities for engagement with services in the community would enable delivery partners to provide more direct provision for women and would more effectively support the reintegration that many of the delivery partners anticipated. A strategic overview of how best to work effectively with delivery partners in this process should take place.

Recommendation 8

SPS should consider investing in technology and the installation of a body scanner to replace the use of strip searches in the CCUs to reduce the humiliation and trauma caused by strip searching of women. This investment in technology should also extend to the provision of computers for women either for their education or as preparation for release.

Recommendation 9

Close consideration should be given to the development and implementation of evidence-based therapeutic programes for women in the CCUs that address trauma. Pathways of care for women who are survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence should also be ensured.

Recommendation 10

A review of throughcare arrangements for women in the CCUs should be undertaken as a matter of priority.