THE fair administration of justice is a difficult balance for any civilised society to strike, as politicians, the legal profession and campaigners alike will attest.

Back in 2015 Justice Secretary Michael Matheson spoke of how determined he was to reduce the female prison population after figures showed it had it doubled between 2002 and 2012 and was among the highest in northern Europe.

Mr Matheson will be no doubt be bitterly disappointed with the findings of today's Prison Reform Trust report showing little has changed. With seven per 100,000 women in Scotland in prison, we still have one of the highest rates in northern Europe, higher than England (6.8) and more than double that of France.

Women represent just 17 per cent of convictions in Scotland and the crimes they commit tend to be economically motivated - such shoplifting - to support drug habits or alleviate poverty. Having a drug habit or being poor is not, of course, an excuse for committing crime. But the pattern of female criminality surely reveals much about the complex and often chaotic lives behind these statistics.

More than three quarters of the women given a custodial sentence last year were sentenced to six months or less and Mr Matheson has been among the many voices pointing out that short sentences do not prevent re-offending in either gender. And, taking into consideration the social and societal consequences for children when the mother is sent to prison, you can see why many in the criminal justice system and beyond would rather see non-custodial sentences for female offenders.

As the numbers in this latest report shows, however, keeping them out of prison is clearly no easy feat. Nearly a quarter of women in custody are currently on remand – a higher proportion than in the male prison population – and for those that go on to be convicted and serve a sentence, almost half are re-convicted within a year of release.

The report also shows that prison often compounds the problems experienced by women offenders, with 28 per cent losing their tenancies and a third saying they have nowhere to go on release.

There are obviously no easy solutions to these problems. But sending the same women to prison for the same types of crime isn’t working. With this in mind, perhaps Mr Matheson should look to learn lessons from the French criminal justice system. Sheriffs, who do the sentencing, also have an important role to play in the number of women being sent to jail.

We should not forget that, as the report points out, Scotland has made progress in some areas, such as the introduction of women’s criminal justice centres and plans for the construction of a new, smaller prison and five regional units to replace Cornton Vale, which has now closed.

The hope is that the new facilities will help female offenders escape the cycle of drugs, alcohol and poverty that in most cases led to them being in custody.

This report highlights that Scottish criminal justice needs to find better ways to prevent them being sent there in the first place.