New prisons chief inspector: short, sharp shocks don’t work

The comments seem typical of the way he is bringing his military experience to bear on his new job, and also representative of his thorough approach.

His genuine concern for the prisoners held at the courts seems surprising from a military man. Then again, one of his predecessors, former SAS man Clive Fairweather, said he had begun the job as a fully paid-up member of the “hang ’em and flog ’em” brigade, but that the job had made him more liberal.

Brig Monro gives the impression of having already made that shift. Prison, certainly in short doses, doesn’t do much good, he says.

“The military learned a lot of lessons from short, sharp shock. Primarily, that it doesn’t work,” he says. “Over the 36 years I was in the army, we became more intelligent about military discipline.

“It used to be that if someone went awol for three weeks, say, we had the power to jail them in the battalion guardroom for three weeks -- a day for a day.

“In the military police you can see a soldier beginning to get himself into trouble, drinking too much or going awol. I became clear in my mind that short, sharp shock isn’t the answer.

“Other things work better. You need to implement help from outside agencies to ensure people don’t ‘offend’ again. The army now would try to help him or her. Prevention is better than cure.”

Likewise, the justice system should do more to prevent people going to jail in the first place, says the man now responsible for inspecting Scotland’s prisons to ensure they remain safe for both those within the walls and for society beyond them, and to maintain decent standards.

“It is such a waste of money, time and effort when people get into the criminal justice system.”

If at this point Brig Monro sounds more like a social worker than a decorated soldier (he was made an MBE (Mil) in 1988 and CBE (Mil) in 2003), the impression is continued as he discusses the need to look at alternatives to prison -- an ongoing focus of the Scottish Justice Secretary, but not directly the responsibility of the prisons chief inspector.

He reels off a list of some of the outside agencies he’s visited since taking up his post: alternatives to custody such as Glasgow’s 218 Project for women with addiction problems, Turnaround Paisley and the Wise Group. “That is where we can make a difference,” he says. “I was really impressed by the 218 Project. It is inspirational, but expensive.”

One of his fears, he says, is that in 15 or 20 years time his successor will be seeing the children of current prisoners. “We should be focusing on that generation, before they get into serious trouble.”

He concedes that he can’t do much to influence what happens in communities, and that his job is to oversee what goes on in prisons, but adds. “The least I can do is warn about what happens when people go to prison, warning other agencies to work to try and influence movement towards prevention rather than cure.

“In a broad sense it is very much my business to warn and say there are better ways of dealing with the problem.”

Apart from outside agencies, Brig Monro has also been inside, visiting every prison in Scotland over the last few months. The system is a curate’s egg, he says, “there is some good practise in some jails, but it needs to be more consistently applied”.

He hopes his tenure will be marked by offering constructive criticism. Where there are problems he wants his input to be intelligent and helpful, “in a way that allows the relevant authorities to deal with these issues rather than being shouted at”.

Whether prison governors will be as enthusiastic as he seems to be about unannounced inspections remains to be seen. Brig Monro has the power to turn up at jails without warning, a power which his predecessor, the former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Very Rev Andrew McLellan, made use of in one inspection at Inverness prison.

The new chief inspector says he will continue with the tactic, again referring back to his army experience. “I may well do unannounced inspections. They are a good indicator of how well your organisation is doing and I think people should value them more than the traditional type.

“In the army you actually value the unannounced inspection because it can be helpful if you haven’t been preparing for it.”

He has already set out his preliminary areas of concern. Drugs and drug treatment within prison is an area he plans to address -- he was shocked that drugs still get into prisons in such quantities, but says, “I am now much more aware of the complications surrounding this issue.”

While conceding that it is not as easy to stop as the ordinary citizen might wish, he says prisons must do more to prevent drugs reaching prisoners. “It does affect safety and security because it creates an internal market and that can’t be right.”

More urgently, he wants to see good practise in some prisons, in terms of addressing addictions, better replicated across the service. “There are variations in the application of methadone policy. Some jails are doing a short patch-up job before prisoners are released into the community again.” With longer term prisoners, the chance isn’t always being taken to do more, he implies. “There is a lot of methadone about and doses are not always being reduced in the way I expected.

“People in society expect that when a prisoner is released he will be stable and the risk of offending will be reduced. Drugs are often the primary cause of offending, so it follows the should also have been reduced.”

He will also look at Scotland’s open prisons and the reasons for their under use. Occupancy of HMP Castle Huntly and HMP Noranside has been around 64% in recent months, since two prisoners took advantage of their reduced security to escape within as many weeks earlier this year.

Open prisons are important, Brig Monro believes, in preparing prisoners for their imminent release. “We’ve become risk averse because of absconders. We may need to be much more careful about who goes but we shouldn’t give up on the open estate. We need to use it better to get people back into society efficiently and safely.

“The public needs to be protected, but that is all the more reason to see that the correct programmes are being funded in prisons and prisoners are getting to do them.”

He has also now begun a series of inspections focusing on the segregation units employed by many prisons to hold those who are unmanageable among other prisoners, whether for their own safety or that of others.

He believes they will provide an insight into the wider prison regime. “Segregation units are in a way the most complex part of a prison. They are often at the core of the prison and go to the core in a way of how prisoners are treated. I think governors will find it a very useful way of looking at their establishments.”

Brig Monro’s discussion of prisons is peppered with asides about the welfare of people with autism, the scandal of Scotland’s literacy and numeracy levels, the shortage of youth leaders and the life chances of four, five and six-year-olds. He is engagingly willing to stray beyond his immediate brief.

His first inspection report on Cornton Vale is out next year. It could be an interesting read.

Scotland’s prisons: the facts

The main duty of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons is to report on conditions within Scotland’s 14 public and two private jails.

Brigadier Hugh Monro was the last Colonel of the regiment for The Highlanders until he retired following the formation of The Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. His final military post was deputy commanding general of the Multi National Security Transition Command-Iraq.

The capacity of Scotland’s prison estate is around 7300, but in recent months it has topped 8000.

Prison chiefs hope a new prison to replace HMP Lowmoss, which has been demolished, will help reduce pressures on the system. It will not open until 2012.