Prisons

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because he did not want to be located in a prison or a regime with sex offenders (which his prison was). He said he did not need to be in that prison and it was unfair to locate him there. Mr C said he wanted to be transferred to a mainstream prison. Because of Mr C's offence, however, he could not be located with other mainstream prisoners.

We found that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) have identified individual prison establishments that are responsible for the management of certain categories of prisoners. In Mr C's case, the SPS appropriately located him in the prison that were responsible for managing prisoners of his category.

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that there was a lack of employment opportunities in prison. As a result, he said he was only receiving a basic cell wage despite being willing to work.

The prison explained that due to external market conditions, they have encountered difficulties retaining and bringing in new contracts. As a result, there are not enough work spaces to accommodate the prisoner population.

Our investigation found that the prison rules require the governor to provide purposeful activity to prisoners whenever it is reasonably practical to do so. Work is one such purposeful activity and, in this instance, we were satisfied that it was not reasonable to expect work to be provided for every prisoner. We noted that other types of purposeful activity were available to Mr C, some of which may attract payment to supplement his income. In the circumstances we did not uphold the complaint.

Summary
Mr C is a prisoner. In receiving visits from his family, Mr C prefers to use his visit allocation to receive visits only once a month and, therefore, requests double visits. However, the prison will not authorise such a request more than 72 hours in advance. Mr C complained that this was unreasonable.

When we investigated this, the prison advised us that, in the interests of fairness, the 72 hour rule is used to keep spaces open as long as possible to ensure that every prisoner has the opportunity to book at least a single visit. If spaces remain within 72 hours of a visiting time, they will then consider granting requests for double visits. However, they also said that they take a flexible approach and will consider requests more than 72 hours in advance - either in exceptional circumstances or when visitors are travelling a considerable distance.

In Mr C's case, they also said that as he only requires one visit per month and as his visitors travel by public transport, his requests will be considered provided he attaches a referral to the Family Contact Officer quoting the reasons for his request. If he requires more than one visit per month, he would have to revert to the 72 hour rule. We clarified this to Mr C at the end of our investigation. We considered the prison's approach to be reasonable and did not uphold the complaint.

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that prisoners in one hall did not have access to a prisoner telephone at all of the times specified in a particular part of the Scottish Prison Service Rules. During some of these times, Mr C was locked in his cell. He felt that the prison were unreasonably restricting his access to the telephone (which is an entitlement under the prison rules) without providing reasons for this and, in doing so, were treating prisoners in his hall differently from other prisoners.

Our investigation carefully reviewed the information received from Mr C and the prison, as well as the relevant rules and directions. From this, it became clear that Mr C was able to access a telephone in another hall if he chose to attend recreation in that hall. The rules did not specify that access must be to the telephone in the hall where the prisoner resides. Because Mr C chose not to attend recreation, for operational reasons he had to be locked in his cell. In choosing not to attend recreation, he also chose to restrict his access to the prisoner telephone. Therefore, we did not uphold his complaints.

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because a member of staff refused to allow a solicitor to send a legal fax to the prison. He said this was contrary to published Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy. In addition to this, Mr C said that the prison did not tell him that they had refused to accept the fax and the governor failed to conduct a proper investigation into the issues raised in his complaint.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. SPS policy says that the practice of using a fax for incoming correspondence should be discouraged in all but unavoidable situations. In Mr C's case, the staff member took the decision not to accept the fax because she did not consider the matter urgent and felt it was reasonable for the communication to be sent by post. We were also satisfied that there was no requirement for the staff member to notify Mr C of the refusal to accept the fax and that the governor responded appropriately to the complaint.

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because the prison was not allowing him to participate in offending behaviour programmes. He said that this was unfair. Our enquiries with the prison confirmed that Mr C was unable to participate in offending behaviour programmes because he was appealing his conviction and sentence.

The prison explained that, if a prisoner lodges an appeal against their conviction, it indicates that he does not accept his guilt. There was, therefore, no value in carrying out such programme work with a prisoner who feels he is innocent of the crime he had been convicted of. We did not uphold this complaint.

Summary
Mr C, who was a prisoner, complained that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) did not follow proper finance procedures when he received some cash by post in prison.

When Mr C complained, the SPS acknowledged that there had been a mistake, and that procedures had not been followed. They also apologised and told him what actions they were taking to help stop this happening again. When we looked at the complaint we found that SPS had investigated the complaint, acknowledged fault, apologised and taken action. We upheld Mr C's complaint, but as the SPS had taken action to remedy what went wrong, we had no recommendations to make.

We did, however, check that the SPS were carrying out the actions they had indicated to
Mr C.
 

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because he was unhappy that he would be unable to access the Substance Related Offending Behaviour Programme (SROBP) before becoming eligible for consideration to progress to less secure conditions. SROBP is a programme focusing on the relationship between prisoners' substance use and their offending behaviour.

We did not uphold this complaint. Our enquiries with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) confirmed that Mr C had not been able to access the SROBP earlier because other prisoners' priorities and critical dates were considered to be more significant than his.
The SPS explained that Mr C should not confuse the date when he became eligible for consideration to progress to less secure conditions with the actual date by when he must be in less secure conditions.

Mr C also complained about the internal complaint committee's handling of his complaint. He said the written response did not reflect the discussion that took place at the hearing. On looking at this issue, we found no evidence to support Mr C's claim and we were unable to uphold this part of his complaint.

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because he said there had been an unreasonable delay in him being able to access the Substance Related Offending Behaviour Programme (SROBP). SROBP is a programme focusing on the relationship between prisoners' substance use and their offending behaviour.

Mr C was a protection prisoner and was unhappy because some mainstream (non-protection) prisoners had participated in the SROBP that was meant for only protection prisoners. He felt he had been overlooked in place of mainstream prisoners.

In investigating Mr C's complaint, we asked the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) why he had not been selected for the last SROBP for protection prisoners. They explained that other prisoners' key dates were more critical than his, therefore, he was not selected.

We also asked whether mainstream prisoners had accessed the SROBP meant for protection prisoners. The SPS provided us with the relevant information and we were satisfied that they had exercised their discretion, as they are entitled to do, in taking the decision to allow mainstream prisoners onto the SROBP with protection prisoners.

In selecting prisoners for programmes, the prison must find a fair way to do this so that prisoners are selected onto programmes depending on their key dates - parole qualifying date, earliest date of liberation etc. In Mr C's case, his dates were not as critical as those prisoners who had participated in the SROBP, and we were satisfied that Mr C was prioritised appropriately.

Summary
In prisons there are paid work opportunities for prisoners in various areas. Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that he had been unable to obtain work in prison. He considered that this disadvantaged him financially and affected his prospects for successful resettlement after his sentence.

When we looked at the complaint, we found that the Scottish Prison Service made reasonable attempts to find work for him. As there was no appropriate work opportunity available for Mr C, we did not uphold the complaint.